At 11 a.m. every day, more than 6,000 miles away, the work of 20 Jordanian students hits the air on Yarmouk FM 105.7, the only privately owned radio station in Irbid, a city of about 200,000 people.

Their program starts with Jordan's prerecorded national anthem.

Next, the anthem of their school, Yarmouk University, plays, followed by a pre-recorded reading from the Quran.

The two-hour broadcast can reach about 1 million people-thanks, in part, to Western.

Since 2005, Western has helped Yarmouk University, a school of similar size, develop Yarmouk FM. The partnership is through Western's International Journalism and Media Management Training Program, which has undertaken similar projects in Indonesia and Cambodia, Program Manager Jerry Barnaby said.

For Western, Yarmouk FM is an effort to foster democracy and further Western's goal of becoming a university with international reach.

For Yarmouk University, the project is a new medium for Jordan and the training ground for those who will operate it, said Yarmouk Professor Adma Abu Sha'ar, the sales and marketing manager for the station.

Abu Sha'ar and Mansour Al Twal, who serve as advisers to the station, started training at Western on Jan. 24 to learn how to expand and improve Yarmouk FM's operations. They leave Saturday.

The Yarmouk FM broadcast is about 70 percent music and about 30 percent news, Technical Operations Manager Al Twal said.

Radio news in Jordan lacks the watchdog role of American journalism, Barnaby said.

But until legislation was passed in 2004, private ownership of radio was illegal in Jordan.

Western and Internews, a company that trains journalists and supports independent TV and radio stations abroad, helped develop Yarmouk FM.

A grant for $1.36 million provided by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor funded the program, Barnaby said. The station cost about $200,000.

Barnaby went to help Yarmouk launch the radio station last summer. He practiced running the station with students before their first broadcast on Sept. 17.

This week, Al Twal and Abu Sha'ar talked with professors and observed radio stations in Bowling Green.

Western is showing the professors American media history and how to integrate students into a professional station, Barnaby said.

Al Twal said they'd like to lengthen Yarmouk's broadcast to three or four hours a day and incorporate more news.

Yarmouk FM is one of two radio stations in Irbid and the only one in the country operated by students.

Kevin Willis, the news director of Western's public radio, will travel to Jordan in March to assess and advise Yarmouk FM.

Willis said the program is important because it offers an opportunity to students and teaches them free press ideals. He doesn't expect to replicate American media there.

"I don't think we'll ever see American-style journalism in Jordan," Willis said.

But Yarmouk FM is a start.