WSHU welcomes Eda Uzunlar as its new Saturday news anchor! Eda, who acts as an arts and culture reporter, will be the local host of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, Weekend Edition Saturday, the New Yorker Radio Hour, and Radiolab on WSHU, while bringing you news from the region.
WSHU's Molly Ingram spoke with Eda Uzunlar about her new gig!
MI: So, is this your first time venturing into hosting, or have you done this before?
EU: Well, professionally, yes. But hosting was one of my main extracurricular activities in high school because I was a little bit of a nerd. And so I actually had my first radio show starting at 14 — this is my 10-year anniversary of being on the radio. The main difference, though, is back then, I would spend three hours on a Sunday talking about movies and music and whatever came to my teenage brain. But, you know, maybe if you search deep enough on the internet, you can find it.
MI: I'm going to try to right after this. What's a fun fact about you that listeners wouldn't expect?
EU: Actually, funnily enough, that we're friends. People at WSHU Public Radio, we're friends with each other… I mean, all of our amazing listeners hear us doing our jobs, and they hear us sharing the news — stuff that we all really, really love to do. But for example, people don't know that Molly and I are pals. And I think it's great to be able to bring a little bit of that into this new part of my job where I get to host, where I get to feel a little bit more familiar with people because that's already what I experience when I go into work. And I'm just so excited to get to share that more. It's different when you're a reporter. But hosting, I want to feel like I'm friends with this whole community, which is exciting.
MI: What's something else that you hope to bring to your new role as our Saturday news anchor?
EU: Well, I want to be able to bring our listeners an opportunity to take in their news really leisurely. As someone who's 24, people my age — I included — we get a lot of our news on our phones kind of doom-scrolling, which is one of those buzzwords that people use, where you're kind of in a frenzy when you're learning about the world around you. It can be very stressful, and you can come away from it feeling like you're in a daze.
Versus, I'm really excited to help be a part of this environment where you're listening to some lighter or even heavier news. But you're doing it with the rest of your Saturday morning routine and it's a little bit easier to take in what you're hearing, maybe process what you're hearing. And that's kind of the point. I'm excited to be a part of that. I'm excited to be a part of your Saturday morning and hopefully have it, you know, relaxed because that's how I want my Saturdays to be, too
MI: Have you come up with a unique or funny quirk that you're going to bring to your time on air and then carry through your entire career?
EU: Yeah. It's actually saying my name the right way.
MI: Say it.
EU: So my name is Eda Uzunlar. And I think there's a strong chance I'm going to start actually saying it the way that my family says it. We're Turkish, and that is Turkish pronunciation. And so it's maybe not, it might not be a quirk. But it's something that I think I would like to bring along with me in my career, which is saying my name the way that my parents said it; my parents gave it to me.
MI: I love it. We're so excited for you, Eda.
EU: Thanks, Molly.