Inspire, Spring 2004

Inspire 25 Chad is the news director of the CDR Radio Network, the media ministry of Cedarville University. He hosts a weekday program called “IMPACT NEWS.” When did you become interested in the news? I’ve always been a news junkie. I can remember as early as the fourth grade systematically “devouring” the newspaper and nightly news on a daily basis. The night of the 1974 Xenia, Ohio tornado, I was the nine-year-old glued to the radio listening to the wall-to-wall coverage through the night. And I think it was listening to the news giants WHIO and WLW through the 70s and into the 80s that cultivated that journalistic desire to tell the story. Working at WCDR-FM as an 18-year-old freshman at Cedarville University and learning under Wes Baker and Jim Leightenheimer ’80 gave me the tools to do what I always wanted to do. Not a day goes by in the newsroom that I’m not dependent on what they taught me. I think I’ve always wanted to be a part of informing that awareness instinct. What brought you to develop IMPACT NEWS? IMPACT NEWS has developed over time, and I cannot take all of the credit for it. I’ve been merely riding alongside of the vision Paul Gathany ’63 has had over the past 40 years at CDR Radio. I’ve always had a sense that Christians wanted something more from a newsroom, and that “sense” has been confirmed through research that we’ve done at CDR Radio over the past 18 years. Christians are interested not just in the news that interests all of us, but also in news that is especially important to the body of Christ. The persecution of Christians around the world probably best illustrates the “more” of IMPACT NEWS. That kind of news is important within the realm of human rights, but Christians have a deeper, more personal relationship with that kind of news because of a common union in Christ with those being persecuted. And it’s those Kingdom issues that make IMPACT NEWS what it is … reporting news of special concern or interest to and for Kingdom citizens from a Kingdom perspective. What do you hope IMPACT NEWS will accomplish? The goal or mission of IMPACT NEWS has also developed over time. Journalism satisfies an awareness instinct that is intrinsic to all human beings, and that awareness instinct is inherent to our sense of community in the various social environs that make up our lives. We feel connected to each other when we share the little tidbits of information that make up what we call “news” of any given community in the social structure, whether it’s family, neighborhood, church, club, school, hobby, town, city, state, country, or world. News With an Impact B y C h a d B r e s s o n ’ 8 6