Q&A with Jay Baker, WTJU’s Operations & Special Projects Director
By WTJU
We are a little late with WTJU staff member Jay Mackenzie Baker’s October 18 birthday spotlight, but let’s keep the celebration going with many belated good wishes! And we have a Q&A with Jay to share with you. Much gratitude for all the “tinkering behind-the-scenes,” Jay, and lots and lots of luck with your new band project, floodletter. Follow them on Instagram!
When did you first get involved with WTJU?
I started with WTJU as a summer intern five years ago in 2021, fresh out of UVA with degrees in music and poetry and (big surprise, considering the degrees) no clear-cut career. At first, I was engineering live performances at the station and mastering old recordings. I took on a few extra odds and ends as time went on. It was a year and some change later, in later 2022 when WTJU’s long-time office manager, Gayle Poirier, retired, that I came on full-time.
What drew you to working at the station and/or how did you end up here?
Though I wasn’t a member of student radio at UVA, many of my friends were involved, including some of my fellow interns that summer (one of whom was the WXTJ director). My first time at the station itself was actually the prior year, though, performing with my college band at a concert organized by WXTJ and broadcast on their airwaves. While I hadn’t had many firsthand experiences, WTJU lived in my head at the time as this cool, scrappy, DIY bastion of independent-minded music lovers. After being around the station for even a few weeks, I saw it lived up to my expectations. At the time, I was planning to apply for MFA programs and move away from town. But when Gayle retired and the full-time position opened a chance to make this place home, I couldn’t say no. The passion for music and care for community just oozes off the walls here, and I wanted to be a part of that.
What titles have you held at WTJU?
At first, I was, unceremoniously, “intern,” then audio engineer. I picked up some responsibilities here and there the following year (like writing the weekly classical newsletter) as a general temp. When I came on full-time, I was Office and Volunteer Coordinator, mostly doing clerical work and staffing the front desk. The role evolved to include more off-air initiatives as Initiatives and Volunteer Engagement Director. And for the last year or so I’ve been tinkering behind-the-scenes as Operations and Special Projects Director.
Tell us a bit about your current title and tasks at WTJU
Currently, the core of my work is in station support and sustainability. That falls into two main categories. On the Operations side of things, I maintain the studio gear, fix back-end tech infrastructure, set up new systems (both technical and human), support the student station, help with some events and partnerships, and so on. Two exciting things recently have been working to carry out a big DJ-facing studio upgrade and making slow progress on a long-term transition into new, more sustainable and easy-to-use broadcasting software.
On the Special Projects side of things, I’ve essentially worked as a project manager for some off-air initiatives aimed at reaching new audiences or better serving the audiences we have. My favorite has probably been editing and producing Under the Table and Screaming, our book series on local DIY music history, but it was also gratifying to manage the development of our mobile app and put it into the hands of listeners. Currently, I’m working on a big archival project for our 70th anniversary in 2027—make sure to stay tuned for more details about that soon!
What have you loved about working at WTJU, from running sound during live shows to volunteer engagement to off-air initiatives? What have been the challenges?
It’s been a while since I ran sound regularly, but what I loved about it is what I love about my time at WTJU as a whole. Namely, the people. Music is this incredibly indescribable combustible thing that somehow moves through the air from person to person, making us laugh, cry, shimmy a little, headbang, groove, and so on. It’s a blessing to help make that happen, not just in the room but over the airwaves miles and miles away.
The challenges are the same: music is this incredibly indescribable combustible thing. You don’t have music without people (sorry Suno), and you don’t have people without emotions, differences, passions, needs, and so on. In a live setting, that might manifest as balancing volume levels for individual monitor mixes on stage, making sure the audience in the room is comfortable, helping teach young engineering trainees, dealing with a late change to the lineup, and mixing for broadcast simultaneously and under time pressure. Elsewhere, it might manifest as mediating volunteer town halls, fielding contrasting viewpoints on initiatives, or working simultaneously to support and reassure the on-air DJ whilst fixing the Incredibly Important Piece of Gear™ that has just broken. Ultimately, I’m grateful that everyone brings their unique passions and perspectives to the station every day. I’d much rather be challenged by passion and care than by lethargy any day.
What are your passions outside of radio?
Oh there’s so much to do: poetry, reading, gardening, pondering, pontificating (kidding), cooking, narrative video games, looking really closely at moss and tiny plants, etc etc etc.
But most importantly, I’m a musician myself. I took a break from performing to get my MFA in creative writing, but I’ve recently come back to it after a hiatus and started playing shows again in 2026 with a new band, Flood Letter. I come from a pretty diverse musical background, inspired by the folk, old-time, and gospel I grew up around in SWVA alongside the scrappier, DIY rock sounds I came to love and play in college. The sound sits in a superposition of indie rock, barbed wire, fuzzy guitar, folk songwriting, string sections, and the feeling of being pricked by blackberry thorns and bleeding into the garden (but like, in a good way).
You can follow us on Instagram at @floodletter.
What are your personal favorite songs, artists, music genres, writers, etc?
This is the hardest question to answer. I have a playlist called “stop freaking out feel peace” full of mostly non-lyrical music that’s always in rotation (think “Peace Piece,” Gia Margaret, Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, Yo La Tengo’s “Green Arrow,” etc).
In rapid fire, here are a few songs/bands/albums I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of:
- “Blues Run the Game,” Simon & Garfunkel
- “From the Morning,” Nick Drake (really all of Pink Moon)
- Palmyra (the band)
- “No Place to Be,” Shakey Graves
- In My Own Time, Karen Dalton
- Slaughter Beach, Dog (the band)
- M. Ward
- Long Time To Be Gone, Nora Brown
- “Transport is Arranged,” Pavement
- “Ballad of Big Nothing,” Elliott Smith
Why does WTJU matter?
Few places these days are free of shills, grifters, the obsession with profit, the commodification or algorithm-ization of everything, and so on and so on and so on. WTJU is a place where no one has anything to sell and no one has anything they have to buy. It’s a place people go to because of love and passion.
Love for music, this incredibly beautiful, combustible, contagious, fundamentally human thing. And, cheesy as it is, love for one another. For the music we share and make together. It’s a lot of effort to put together a radio show: our DJs do it because they care a whole awful lot about the music they share and the listeners they share it with. And I think listeners tune in because they can feel that palpable care, and because that care is ever more necessary. A machine can’t make that magic connection happen, and a machine can’t feel it either. But I do, every day when I walk in the station. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. WTJU matters because, at the end of the day, WTJU is made up of the most important thing we have left, and left in common: each other.
