Chris Bolt
General ManagerChris Bolt, Ed.D. has proudly been covering the Central New York community and mentoring students for more than 30 years. His career in public media started as a student volunteer, then as a reporter/producer. He has been the news director for WAER since 1995. Dedicated to keeping local news coverage alive, Chris also has a passion for education, having trained, mentored and provided a platform for growth to more than a thousand students. Career highlights include having work appear on NPR, CBS, ABC and other news networks, winning numerous local and state journalism awards. Recent reporting has focused on health and medicine, environment, elderly, substance abuse and culture reporting.
Chris has a doctor of education in executive leadership from St. John Fisher College and a master’s in broadcast journalism from the Newhouse School.
In addition to coverage of our community, equally satisfying has been the success of so many WAER alumni, students who have won and succeeded in jobs in news, sports and elsewhere in media, many of whom won awards at local, state and national levels as students. He has also taught classes at Newhouse and at OCC. Chris also enjoys connecting WAER with the community through moderating debates, facilitating and hosting public meetings, giving media training workshops and other events.
Chris and his wife Anne live in downtown Syracuse. They have two grown sons, Carter and Donovan, who both remain in the area. Their family enjoys all things Upstate New York, including myriad outdoor activities in the Adirondacks, Finger Lakes, music and other cultural events, and just about anything on a trail or on the water.
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Syracuse JazzFest returns June 21-25 in downtown's Clinton Square featureing Herbie Hancock, Gladys Knight, Tower of Power, Spyro Gyra and many other acts in event seen as helping community growth. -
The SAMMY Awards turned 30 in 2023. This year's awards honored musicians in 14 categories and highlighted the abundance of quality music in Syracuse.
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Legal documents from the late 19th century show how the Onondaga Nation was trying to gain back historic wampum belts. The brief also sheds light on who sold and gave away the historic artifacts.
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Letters between early New York State officials show how lands inhabited by the Onondagas were sold to the state and to settlers, ignoring treaties and agreed-upon borders.
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A map from 1792 that shows parcels that make up the Onondaga Nation territory covers all of Syracuse, Onondaga County and other local towns and villages. Put in historical perspective, it sheds light on illegal treaties that took the land from indigenous people, reducing the reservation size to a small fraction of what it was.
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The Armory Square Playwrights got together with WAER to create a radio program of short holiday plays, voiced by local actors. They touch on holiday themes of belonging, loneliness, hope, humor.
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Diane Shenandoah was hired by Syracuse University to help with indigenous students' wellness and sense of belonging, part of changes to campus that serve and acknowledge Native American culture.
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Haudenosaunee women have important roles in the governing structure of their tribes. The Land You're On podcast focuses on matriarchal society and whether such groups influenced the US women's movement.
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Cornell Global Development Professor Rachel Bezner Kerr presented at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties climate conference, known as CoP27, held in Egypt.
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Syracuse business owners and downtown residents came together Tuesday to learn about how the city is changing and growing.
