Popular WDET-FM show host, Stephen Henderson, quits, highlighting newsroom woes

Over the past several months, public radio station WDET-FM (101.9) executives said it had been successfully tinkering with programming changes to boost donor and listener support.

It had even changed the name of one of its most popular shows, “Detroit Today,” to “Created Equal,” so it could syndicate it to other cities.

But after failed contract negotiations with Stephen Henderson, the host of one its most popular shows, the nonprofit station owned by Wayne State University is facing a public relations — and potential financial — challenge.

Henderson — who has several journalism awards, including the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for commentary — became the subject of several news reports this week after he said he is quitting the radio station. However, his announcement went beyond bidding farewell.

It was a stern critique of the station.

Henderson, 53, said in posts Wednesday on X and Facebook that his decision to leave was “in response to nearly three years of disinvestment by the station in the show, and my work and ideas.”

He noted the station “faces severe financial difficulties” and that it had proposed cutting the show he hosted for nearly a decade, “Created Equal” to “once a week, with no full-time staff assigned” during recent contract negotiations.

What’s more, it came less than two weeks before the station began its holiday fundraising campaign, which station executives acknowledge could affect how much money the station will have to work with.

According to the station, about 60% of the station’s $5 million budget is from donors.

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WDET programming changes

WDET General Manager Mary Zatina and Program Director Adam Fox told the Free Press on Thursday that Henderson had informed them he was quitting but they were not expecting his social media post.

“I didn’t get the impression he was going to take this tack,” Fox told the Free Press, acknowledging the station planned to cut the show from five days to one day a week, which would mean less pay. “We didn’t want to end things with Stephen, period.”

The Free Press left Henderson messages seeking additional comment.

Henderson said in his social media posts that the station’s proposed cuts to the show represented “an unsustainable withdrawal of commitment to the show (the station’s most-listened-to local program) and its mission.”

In an online response to a question about what he would do next, Henderson said he has “many things in the works,” and is “going to take a nice December break,” gather his thoughts, and then, “have some discussions with other outlets.”

Zatina and Fox said one idea for the show had been to expand it from a budget of about $300,000 to $500,000, which would have made it better, but also have sapped resources from other programs.

Instead, they said, with Henderson’s departure, the show will no longer be a part of the schedule. The station praised Henderson’s journalism and thanked him for his “important contributions.”

This year, Zatina and Fox said, is the station’s 75th anniversary year and they are “refreshing” WDET’s programming schedule starting Monday, but the station is still committed to pursuing local stories about inequality.

They also said they decided to make the programming changes now, before the holiday on-air fundraiser, which is set to start Dec. 3 and run through Dec. 7. This is, they added, one of the most crucial times of the year to reach donors.

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Reporter, columnist, and editor

Henderson, a Detroit native, graduated from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and then the University of Michigan, where he worked for the student-run newspaper, the Michigan Daily.

His career later took him to some of the nation’s more significant newspapers, including the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Lexington Herald-Leader, and Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, where he covered the U.S. Supreme Court.

He also was a columnist, editorial page editor, and managing director of opinion for the Free Press; but, he was terminated in 2017.

Wednesday, he made the case in his announcement that budgets are “moral documents” and “reflections of the things we hold dear and those we see as expendable.” Journalists, he said, are facing an “increasingly harsh and reductionist” landscape.

WDET, Zatina and Fox said, isn’t the only news organization facing mounting financial pressures. They also acknowledged that in some ways, their newsroom might even be vulnerable after Henderson’s announcement because of its reliance on donations.

Last month, the Columbia Journalism Review reported more than 8,200 American journalists lost their jobs since the beginning of 2022, about 9% of the 89,000 people in 2023 who were employed as newspaper, broadcast, and online journalists.

Moreover, a separate Gallup study the same month found Americans have record-low trust in news media, with only 31% expressing a “fair amount” to a “great deal” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

Henderson said in his post he will continue doing journalism “on other platforms: at BridgeDetroit, the nonprofit news and engagement organization I co-founded in 2020; and on DetroitPBS, where I host American Black Journal and am a contributor to One Detroit.”

He added he has other projects, including the Great Lakes Civility Project with Detroit News Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley, and they have co-written a book that Wayne State University Press is expected to publish next spring.

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: WDET-FM host Stephen Henderson quits, calls out station’s cuts

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