Marfa Public Radio

Back in October, Francis Zierer and I interviewed Elise Pepple, the Executive Director of Marfa Public Radio (MPR), for Tasteland. We talked about making radio in a small market, which local stories have the most impact, and how to talk about Marfa to outsiders while staying true to the mission.

Ahead of a special merchandise announcement from Dirt and MPR tomorrow, we’re re-sharing the episode and a condensed version of the interview below. Keep scrolling for some great dispatches from the desert! — Daisy Alioto

Francis Zierer: I'm guessing part of the appeal of working in public radio in a place like Marfa is that you're strengthening and reproducing a sense of community. 

Elise Pepple: In a rural place like Marfa, there isn't cell service and internet all the time. People are on their phones so it's hard to imagine, but radio in rural places is still an essential service. One of the things that I love about public radio is that it's a connector, and people feel a sense of community through their station. 

Whether you're in Brooklyn or Marfa, people have their tote bag that says Marfa Public Radio or WNYC or WBEZ because people feel a sense of community with their station. 

Daisy Alioto: Because of the small population in Marfa, you have a much smaller pool of people to give donations in the community. There are a lot of people who come through Marfa as tourists, but creating a relationship with them means creating programming for outsider consumption. How does that tie into the business model? 

EP: We just last night won a National Murrow Award for our podcast, Marfa for Beginners. When you're located in a place like Marfa, you don't have thousands of donors. With Marfa for Beginners, we wanted to make content that reaches people who visit, because there are only 2,000 residents of Marfa, but there are 60,000 visitors to Marfa.

DA: With the success of Marfa for Beginners, do you think you'll continue to create programming that's specifically targeted towards people who feel an affinity for Marfa but don't live there? 

EP: One of our goals with Marfa for Beginners was to make something that both locals and visitors would love. We call it a tourism podcast for locals. Our latest project is a newsletter called the Desert Dispatch. Every week there's a slice of life of West Texas—it could be going to a gem and mineral show, going to a bat emergence at a national park, or going to Midland and looking at it from a sociological level. It's this way of looking at content as both local and national. 

DA: Could you talk about what local reporting has been the most impactful for you? 

EP: It's fair to say that public media can be an echo chamber, but because of our broadcast range, we reach very different communities—Midland is very different from Marfa. And so we have listeners who aren't necessarily typical public radio listeners.

I'll never forget in one of the wildfires, we were reporting non-stop and going out to meet with the firefighters every morning at sunrise. I remember going to the public library and there was a mama with six kids, and she said, thank you. We wouldn't know where the fire line is because we don't have internet. So we listen to the radio to know that we're safe. 

FZ: What's the human labor that goes into keeping this thing going?

EP: People forget that this is a nonprofit that never closes. Radio stations operate 24/7. And the news cycle is always breaking. So right now we have seven full-time staff members and three part-time staff members. And that's to do everything: broadcast engineering, reporting, podcasts, fundraising, admin. So everybody wears like five hats.

FZ: You’re one of 12 member station seats on the NPR Board of Directors. Tell us more about what that is. 

EP: It's a combination of CEOs from radio stations and other members of the board. NPR is not a mothership to stations, so there are 24/7 radio stations each doing their own thing all over the country.

To be on the NPR National Board is to lend the perspective of public radio stations to NPR as an organization. It's a great opportunity to help shape their vision and strategy. And it's wild because our budget is $1.5 million, which is small for a radio station, and then I get to serve on a board that has a 300 million dollar budget and a thousand staff members. It’s amazing to be the smallest, and also get to work with the largest version of public media. 

DA: What's the camaraderie like between these different stations? 

EP: I have never met more generous people. When I got to the radio station on my first day, there wasn't even a computer in my office. So I was like, low-key, how do I run a radio station? Before I got to the station, I did two things. I did a nerdy road trip where I went to the stations that I thought were doing really exciting work. And, because there aren't many women in leadership roles in public media, I also looked for some women who ran stations and reached out to them before I took the job. So I called one of them when I got to the station, and she was like, “Elise, you just have to ask for help.”

There's this email listserv that goes to everyone who runs a radio station and I literally wrote reply all to every CEO of a station in the country. I was like, “Hi, I just started running Marfa Public Radio. Is there a manual anywhere about how to do this?” And I got like a hundred responses within an hour. 

FZ: I don't really know much about the state of radio. Like, I haven't driven a car regularly since 2012. Do you worry about the health of radio as a medium?

EP: Public radio as we know it started 54 years ago, and at the time radio was the way to approach this public service mission. Like you said, listening used to happen in cars. And then the pandemic changed all of our lives. So what we're seeing now is that people are listening to other things. That's because it's not that we live in cars, it's that we live with our iPhones. So how do you translate this public service medium to these times? What I will say is 40 million people still interact with public radio. That's a big number, and that’s still significant. 

DA: What's the best way people can support Marfa Public Radio? 

EP: Most radio stations are about 50% funded by members. If you have millions of people, that works. But if you have a couple hundred thousand people in Midland and 2000 people in Marfa, maybe 20,000 people in the Big Bend, there's a limited opportunity. 

When you become a member of Marfa Public Radio, you're supporting this critical Lifeline service. You're supporting creativity. You're supporting a forward-thinking approach to public media. So for people listening: becoming a member is a way to have a huge impact.

Stay tuned for a special merch announcement from Dirt x MPR tomorrow.

5 GREAT DESERT DISPATCHES

💌 A love letter to Zumba

🦇 The great bat emergence 

🏜️ At the agave festival

🛻 Casting an on-screen truck

🤠 Inside the cowboy hat supply chain