20 People to Watch - Celeste Headlee: The radio journalist

When Georgia Public Broadcasting controversially took over WRAS-FM (88.5) last spring, and announced that daytime news programming would replace Georgia State University’s influential college radio station, one of the many questions swirling around Atlanta was: Who’ll fill the airwaves?

One of GPB’s high-profile hires was veteran public radio journalist Celeste Headlee last May. Her goal: A local radio news show that avoids solely spewing the ideology of talking heads — something Atlanta has long lacked. Headlee’s hour-long program, “On Second Thought,” debuted Oct. 20 and airs five days per week from 9 to 10 a.m. “OST” focuses on discussing issues in a thoughtful manner. In the process, she hopes to give a voice to those who typically go unheard on the air.

“The South is underserved by original public radio content,” Headlee says, sitting inside the network’s Westside headquarters. “There are stories that need to be told. To an extent, there are stereotypes that need to be squashed.”

In its first few months, Headlee’s show has dug into topics both overexplained (Gone With the Wind’s legacy) and overlooked (Georgia’s civil forfeiture laws). But she says there’s a common thread: The segments are in-depth stories that break down complex concepts, challenge listeners, and spark engaging conversations.

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Headlee, who grew up outside of Los Angeles, received music degrees from Northern Arizona University and the University of Michigan. She’s a soprano and still sings when her schedule allows. At age 29, she was jobless and living in Arizona with her newborn. She accompanied her mother to KNAU-FM (91.7) for an interview about her grandfather, the famous African-American composer William Grant Still. She unexpectedly ran into an old classmate and left with a position. Headlee became the station’s weekend classical host and received a crash course in arts reporting.

After nearly three years in Arizona, she worked for local public radio stations in Detroit, where she won numerous awards for her reporting, and New York, where she co-hosted “The Takeaway,” a nationally syndicated news program on WNYC-FM (93.9). She also twice worked for National Public Radio: first as a Midwest correspondent and later as a bench host filling in for several national programs such as “Tell Me More,” “Talk of the Nation,” and “Weekend Edition.”

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In 2014, Headlee decided she wanted to return to a local member station. GPB contacted her about starting a new show on WRAS. She moved to Marietta and started laying the foundation for her radio program. Headlee says “OST” could play an important role in a city poised to be a “great news town” in the coming decade. “There’s some massive transformations happening in Georgia that are going to happen here before they happen in other places,” she says. “Not just in terms of shifting demographics, but also business practices and the way we deal with all kinds of things.”

According to Headlee, interest in “OST” has steadily grown over the past two months. She says more people are listening, calling into the station, and engaging on Facebook and Twitter. Since “OST” launched, WABE has announced the expansion of its newsroom and will soon debut a similar two-hour local talk show featuring Denis O’Hayer and Rose Scott on weekday afternoons. Multiple WABE staffers say the program will compete for a similar audience.

The “OST” staff has plenty of work ahead in 2015. Headlee wants to expand her staff of three producers and an editor as well as tap into GPB’s other state bureaus for more content. It’s the initial feedback for “OST” that leaves her hopeful about the upcoming year.

“I’ve already had complaints that we’re a conservative shield and a liberal shield,” she says. “That means I’m doing my job.”