Chuck Holmes
Executive Director
Chuck Holmes arrived in Birmingham in January 2017 to lead Public Radio WBHM as Executive Director. He’s a veteran journalist who has reported from around the world, but he also has deep roots in Alabama – his father was a native of Birmingham and his mother is from Decatur.
Holmes previously worked at NPR in Washington, D.C., where he managed the network’s daily news operation. In eight years with NPR, he also served as managing editor of Morning Edition, one of America’s most listened-to radio programs, and also served as a foreign news editor.
Prior to joining NPR in 2009, Holmes was foreign editor of Cox Newspapers and its flagship, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He earlier served as a foreign correspondent, posted in Jerusalem (1993-97) and Moscow (1997-2000), for the Atlanta-based newspaper chain.
Throughout his career, Holmes has gained national recognition for his reporting and editing. His reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Kosovo, and the Rwanda genocide and civil war all earned industry awards. At NPR, he shared an Edward R. Murrow Award for Afghanistan coverage and a Peabody Award in 2013 for The Race Card Project.
Holmes, a native of Tennessee, is a graduate from The George Washington University. He lives in Homewood with his wife, Sarah Lindsey Holmes.
Broadcast on WSGN to Cease
It has been our pleasure and privilege to serve thousands of public radio listeners in the Gadsden area. We’ve been broadcasting on WSGN 91.5 FM in a cooperative arrangement with Gadsden State Community College for the past 25 years. Regrettably, WBHM must cease its broadcast via WSGN at the end of the day on September […]
WBHM’s GM Chuck Holmes on WBHM, the CPB, and You
Is the reliable, respectable news coverage you get from WBHM and NPR worth 30 cents per year? Before you answer, let’s throw into the deal cultural and entertainment programs, like This American Life, Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me! and Mountain Stage. Wait, there’s more, like the jazz and classical music that WBHM brings […]
A Message from WBHM GM Chuck Holmes, 03/09/17
March is Women’s History Month. If you’re familiar with the history of public radio, you know that four of NPR’s earliest voices were women: Susan Stamberg, Cokie Roberts, Linda Wertheimer and Nina Totenberg. They are known affectionately as the Founding Mothers, and they are still on the air. They started out, along with NPR, […]
A Message from WBHM GM Chuck Holmes, 2/14/17
Forty years ago, here’s what Alabamians were loving on Valentine’s Day: Rocky was the box-office blockbuster at movie theaters, Leon Uris’ novel about Ireland, Trinity, was the bestseller in bookstores, “Torn Between Two Lovers” topped the Billboard chart. (Sorry for putting that song in your head.) And Public Radio WBHM 90.3 FM was just […]
A Message from WBHM GM Chuck Holmes, 1/25/17
There’s been much discussion and discord in America in recent weeks about “fake news” and “alternative facts” and the role of the news media in an increasingly complex and polarized world. Perhaps it’s been a topic of conversation in your home or workplace. We’ve been talking about it at WBHM, too. Our journalists at WBHM […]
A message from Charles W. Holmes, WBHM’s new General Manager
My arrival in Birmingham coincided with last weekend’s snow and ice storm. But that frigid weather was no match for the warm welcome my wife Sarah and I have received from so many in Birmingham as we make this our new home. I’m so excited about the future of WBHM/WSGN and thrilled to lead the […]
