Listeners of Colorado Public Radio tuned in this past Monday morning and were met with the cheers of Colorado State University journalism students and faculty.

“Colorado Matters” from CPR is a daily news interview show, co-hosted by Ryan Warner and Chandra Thomas Whitfield. Their focus is on the people, issues and the stories of residents in the state. Warner offered CSU students the chance to watch a professional radio, which was created before their eyes, when he broadcasted live from a classroom in the Andrew G. Clark Building.

Warner and his colleague Allison Sherry — a CSU graduate and former editor-in-chief of The Rocky Mountain Collegian — originally planned a trip to CSU to share their knowledge with a few groups of students, but Warner had another idea. 

“We were coming up to teach some classes and I thought, ‘Well, why don’t we just host the show from here?’” Warner said.

“Colorado Matters” isn’t new to the process of getting out of Denver and into places like Grand Junction or Colorado Springs, but this experience was a larger leap than ever before. Warner explained that their team is used to broadcasting from places with a studio for them to plug into, so setting up in Clark C254 required more complex equipment and preparation than usual. 

“It was just a really cool opportunity, and I’m really glad our class got to experience that.” –Taylah Gonzales, CSU journalism and media communication student 

Students entering the classroom for Master Instructor Steve Weiss’s 9 a.m. newswriting lecture were greeted by cords, microphones and the sound of troubleshooting communication.

“We came up with backups if there was a catastrophic failure of the technology,” Warner said. “So it’s pretty intricate, and it has required several weeks of planning to do this.” 

For Taylah Gonzales, one of the students present at the broadcast, the work Warner and his team did was worth it.

When Gonzales was first told about the CPR visit days prior, she said she was surprised and excited to hear that someone was going to come to her class specifically and give them insight into the production process, as well as a chance to be a part of the episode.

“It was just a really cool opportunity, and I’m really glad our class got to experience that,” Gonzales said.

On top of the live broadcast demonstration, Warner and Sherry went from class to class and shared insight into their careers. They played short clips from interviews and answered questions about their time as broadcast journalists. 

Fort Collins wasn’t the only part of Northern Colorado featured on the episode; there were also segments dedicated to surrounding cities. A Loveland-based artist, Jane DeDecker, was featured on air to share about her sculpture of the activist and artist Joséphine Baker. CPR told the story of the muse along with the choices made by the artist while creating her sculpture.

For CSU-specific news, students Amber Wright and Harper Dorris of the Straayer Center for Public Service Leadership were given the opportunity to talk to Warner and each other about why they are pursuing public service. Wright was able to sit in the class that day and watch the show be created, as well as hear her segment completed for the first time. Dorris was unable to make the taping, but she still got to experience being featured on the show.

“I was just excited about the opportunity and how positive of an experience it was,” Dorris said. “I got to hear my own voice and story, which was insanely cool to me.”

The joyful reactions to seeing and being a part of statewide journalism are largely why Warner and his team chose to visit that day. He said his passion for being engaged with local news stems from the ability to impact those around him in real ways.

With this journey to Fort Collins, Warner was able to tell the audience of “Colorado Matters” that they left the studio to help the journalism department at CSU and worked to “amplify the voices of some young people.”

The full episode, recorded on campus, can be found on CPR’s website.

Reach Maiya Kreamer at life@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.