KACU’s new show, “West Texas Dispatch,” is centered around bringing local news to the people in West Texas communities. 

Heather Claborn, station manager of KACU, said it is important for people to care about what goes on in the community they are a part of. 

“Listening to what’s happening in your community broadly helps to keep you informed about things that do impact you,” she said. “Things that will help connect them to this community while they are living here.”

George Levesque, host of “West Texas Dispatch,” added that local news answers questions that may be necessary even if you do not live permanently in West Texas. 

“It’s where you live, even if it’s only where you live right now,” Levesque said. “Understanding your world is important. You discover the world that you live in. And anytime you’re closer to your world, that’s a good thing.”

KACU often focuses on things going on in the Abilene community, but this show is focused on serving a larger group of people.

“We see ourselves as part of West Texas,” Claborn said. “So we want to make sure that all of the things that impact the western half of the state, the rural part of the state, are things that we’re looking at and exploring and gathering information on.”

As a city on the more rural side of things, Abilene has the opportunity to provide coverage for smaller towns that may not have big news outlets of their own. While Abilene does not have the resources that a metroplex may have, it still desires to provide for others in the surrounding areas. 

“The fact that they’re giving us local insight is huge,” Levesque said. “It’s an opportunity to talk about local matters and that’s important because I think there are fewer and fewer journalists out there in cities like ours.”

Student reporters do most of the research while Levesque is the on-air host. This provides a great opportunity for the students as to learn reporting in real time.

“The experience they get working for us is at a higher pressure level and a higher expectation level than a lot of opportunities at other colleges or other broadcast situations for students,” Claborn said. 

Levesque added that it is important to have students and young people help with projects such as these because they know the trends of the time.

“Young people know where to put that story so that people will see it because younger people don’t always get news the same way we did,” he said. 

“West Texas Dispatch” airs every Wednesday at noon, and is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.