“The power of storytelling cannot be underestimated; it has the ability to shape hearts, minds, and even policies.” — Cokie Roberts, award-winning American journalist and author
One of the most significant things that happened in 2023 occurred when Pitkin County Emergency Manager Valerie MacDonald emailed reporter Halle Zander with the following note:
“If you have ever wondered if your reporting makes a difference in the community, the answer is that it absolutely does! As hard as we try to be inclusive and equitable in our emergency alert notification system we have struggled with shortcomings, which your reporting brought to the light of day. It prompted us to continue our effort to find a solution which led us to the ReachWell Translation app. Thanks for all that you do for the community.”
So it’s not hypothetical for us that stories can change policy.
We also know they can change hearts and minds, YOUR hearts and minds, because you let us know. One of my favorite listener emails arrived just ahead of us finalizing the production of our 2024 Impact Report, when Christy Garfield of Aspen wrote:
“WOW. I’m so impressed with the storytelling of these recent stories following DACA recipients’ journey to Mexico. You really conveyed the complicated relationship these young people have with their family’s home country. It was very touching, and I learned a lot, too. Thank you for telling these stories. Bravo.”
Each week, listeners tune in to Aspen Public Radio to hear the news of the day, be informed, nourished, inspired, and entertained. To hear the storytelling that impacts our community leaders and teaches us a little more about our neighbors.
Click here to review the Aspen Public Radio 2024 Impact Report
I am so grateful to everyone who has contributed to create what you hear on Aspen Public Radio, explored on our website, and experienced with us in person:
- 18,000 weekly listeners to Aspen Public Radio
- 33,000+ monthly users visited the website
- 1,065 members made a financial contribution
- 115 businesses supported the station as underwriters
- and hundreds and hundreds of attendees came to our public events.
We had the opportunity to record 97 events in 2023 by amazing community partners and archive them on our website as “Ideas, Speakers & Lectures” for you to explore, broadcasting 27 of them as Sunday Specials… and then recorded 100 more community events in 2024, broadcasting 32 of them to expand the access and inspiration this public programming provided.
In 2023, we also brought you 31 special broadcasts from live local events including the World Cup Men’s Downhill, Aspen Ideas Festival, and Aspen Music Festival and School Sunday afternoon concerts —and then did it again in 2024, repeating all of these and adding broadcasts from Aspen Gay Ski Week, the Aspen Words Literary Prize Ceremony, Plein Air Art Festival, and Festival de Rancho at Anderson Ranch.
We produced 6 amazing events in 2023, and 8 in 2024 –including a two-day Aspen Psychedelic Symposium, another remarkable nonprofit volunteer fair during Lawn Bash, and the inaugural Backcountry Symposium. In 2025, we’re going to host the Backcountry Symposium again in partnership with TACAW, take our nonprofit volunteer fair down to Glenwood Springs, and produce a new symposium in September to explore Frontiers of Knowledge.
On the air, our talented team of journalists produced 5 broadcast series outlined in this report: In 2023, we produced two award-winning special series exploring climate change and immigrant experiences, and in 2024, we explored our local food ecosystem, living car-free in the Roaring Fork Valley, DACA, and continued covering the impacts of climate change in our community.
In July we launched an app, and in September we held our annual Fall Listener Survey asking listeners to tell us how we can best serve their news and information needs and grow Aspen Public Radio as a leading public broadcast journalism service on Colorado’s western slope. Over 300 of you responded, and highlights from what we’ve learned are published as part of this report.
To top it all off, Aspen Public Radio won 15 journalism awards, up from 9 for work done in 2022 and just 5 in 2021, including eight awards from the Colorado Broadcasters Association, along with five from the Society of Professional Journalists and two from Public Media Journalists Association.
We’ve also grown financial support for the station, maintaining an impressive membership program and increasing critical National Council support thanks to donors who have pledged to advance Aspen Public Radio's commitment to provide high-quality journalism in the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond by supporting the station with a major gift. And we’ve said THANK YOU to each one of these members underscoring the impact you make to advance our mission.
Read all about it alongside all our successes of 2023, highlights from 2024, and commitments for the year ahead.
Thank you for supporting your local public radio station, a proud member of the network which provides essential information, educational programming, and emergency alerts to local communities across the United States.
Breeze Richardson
Executive Director, Aspen Public Radio