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This is for New Mexicans: Tell us how you get information about your community
Participate in our research survey to voice your concerns and insights ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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Mapping Local News is Key to Finding Funding for It
I come from the nonprofit world. My entire journalism career was in public media — save for a few years of newscasting at a commercial radio station in Georgia. (You could say my media journey was largely counter-reactive to my father’s long commercial media career but that’s a topic for a different post!) So, I’m
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Mapping our Local News Ecosystem in New Mexico
I’ve embarked on a public service project that I hope will make a notable difference in the vitality of our local news landscape in New Mexico. The project is called the New Mexico Local News Ecosystem Mapping Project. It’s a partnership between researchers at UNM, the NM Local News Fund, and our new state chapter
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Aguilar: Why Public Media Should Pay Attention to the Latino Media Consortium’s Vision
I recommend this piece by Ernesto Aguilar, a public media leader with dedicated concern for our ever-growing Latino audiences. Here’s an excerpt with links to the source. Gracias! *** This month marked the official launch of the Latino Media Consortium, a groundbreaking initiative aiming to transform how media serves Latino communities. For public media, this
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CPB Amps Up Digital Training for Public Media Stations
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting brings publicly appropriated money to the public radio and television system… which is now more than TV and radio, so we call it the public MEDIA system… and, so, yes, CPB is all in favor of a multi-platform approach to public service programming for Americans. Thus, we have, a new
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Getting Our Local News Act Together
Not a new topic on this blog! Still, let’s keep at it. How does public media step up and provide their communities local news, especially now as the broader local news ecosystem in America is in crisis? Current covered this new report that finds we should be so much further along by now… and why
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3…2…1… Happy Retirement!
The countdown to midnight on New Year’s Eve was more than a welcome to 2024. For me, it was the lead-up to the moment I’d officially retire from the University of New Mexico. 3, 2, 1… Happy New Life! To Do List Done I’ll turn 68 in 2024. Ten of those years were serving as
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New Mexico Local News Summit + SPJ Regional Conference = Promise for Community Journalism
September in Albuquerque was notable not just for its above-average temperatures, but also for its above average concentration on local news. New Mexico has a very healthy — that is, collabortive and supportive — journalistic ecosystem. Of course, it would be healthier if it could adequately cover the vast needs of a vast state. But
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UNM News: New Mexico Local News Fellows, Interns set out for newsrooms
UNM’s Savannah Peat wrote up a story about one of my primary projects at UNM, the NM Local News Fellowships & Internships. Enjoy! http://news.unm.edu/news/record-setting-new-mexico-local-news-fellows-interns-set-out-for-newsrooms ***** The New Mexico Local News Fellowship and Internship Program has just launched its fifth cycle with a record seven fellows and eight interns who will work in newsrooms around the state.
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Strengthening Local Media Ecosystems – Policy Plays
Recently, my colleagues and I went up to Santa Fe and successfully made the case for some government money to help us expand our local news fellowship program — a five-year partnership between our state college and a private foundation to place graduates in newsrooms to give them a head-start in local journalism (while bolstering
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Shorenstein Center Report: Can Local Public Radio Help Fill the News Gap
Here’s the executive summary of a new report titled, “News Crisis: Can Local Public Radio Help Fill the News Gap Created by the Decline in Local Newspapers?” It is authored by Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Of course, I say, the answer is
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What they figured out about local news sustainability at this Santa Cruz start-up
From NiemanLab and author/consultant/publisher Ken Doctor I just want to commend the above article written by a smart guy who spent years describing the collapse (or creative destruction) of the news industry, only then to take on a news industry venture of his own. Ken Doctor has spent two years building a digital commercial news
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Our future depends on belonging and trust: Ernesto Aguilar
Highly recommended — this newsletter post by Ernesto Aguilar, based at KQED in San Francisco. Inspired, in part, by the conversations he’s having this week at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference, held in conjunction with the National Association of Black Journalists, in Las Vegas. There’s a large public media contingent this year (returning
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Celebrating one year anniversary of a local news start-Up
People who know me know I’m rather obsessed with the survival and health of local news. Granted, my focus is predominantly on public media as a solution to the local news crisis, but I’ll take any glimmer of hope on the local newscape, be it non-profit, for-profit, small-scale or legacy-based. In this case, I want
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Innovative Local News Campaign Helps Newsrooms Around New Mexico
(Sharing this press release from my friends and benefactors at the NM Local News Fund. This marks another advance in our local news ecosystem survival strategy, of which I’m part. If you care about local news, especially in a state like New Mexico, please consider acting on this opportunity! — MM) RELEASE DATE: Tuesday, Nov.
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College media labs may increasingly clash with their universities – Poynter
(Required reading for any journalists in a campus environment, including university-licensed public media…) Seeking leads from sources whose stories haven’t yet become public is a routine reporting practice. That’s why reporters — as part of an unsettling package of news stories about how the University of Illinois allowed professors found culpable for sexual harassment
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UNM Journalism Program Launches Local News Fellowships
Pilot grant addresses urgent needs in local news (ALBUQUERQUE, NM) — The University of New Mexico Department of Communication and Journalism has received a $100,000 grant from the New Mexico Local News Fund for a fellowship program to place three recent graduates in local newsrooms for eight months of professional training. This pilot project seeks
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Are Public Radio & TV Station Revenue Trends Really That Different? – Public Media Company
Interesting update to PMC’s October post. Seems you need to slice the public TV data more carefully to see the more recent trends. Still, public radio is going strong! Are Public Radio & TV Station Revenue Trends Really That Different? – Public Media Company. Are Public Radio & TV Station Revenue Trends Really That Different?
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CPB awards $1 million for Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative to ASU’s Cronkite School
REPOSTING FROM ASU SITE. BIG NEWS IN PUBLIC MEDIA.October 26, 2018 The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has awarded a grant of $1.1 million to Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication to develop and manage the Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative. The two-year initiative will provide training for 100 editors to
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National Ernie Pyle Day, August 3rd
Beloved war correspondent Ernie Pyle would’ve turned 118 years old today. He never reached his 45th birthday, as he died instantly from a Japanese sniper shot to his head during a battle in Okinawa. The Pulitzer-winning Pyle was among the most famous journalists during WWII, revered for his honest, folksy accounts of the boys in
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New Mexico News Port — Part Two: Actualizing the Student Experience
Author’s Pretext: In Part One, I described the evolution of the New Mexico News Port as an innovation-collaboration-publication lab seated in the Communications & Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico. We explored how it started, how it now operates, its successes and challenges, and what the lab could become. In this part, I
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The New Mexico News Port — Part One: Mission and Structure
Author’s Pretext: My most “disruptive” challenge in teaching has been building an innovation-collaboration-publication lab inside the journalism curriculum of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico. This lab, New Mexico News Port, publishes student reporting — including the work of students in my capstone course, CJ-475 Advanced Multimedia Reporting. This
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‘The Pub’ #101: How to be a boss | Current
You got promoted! Great. Now what? Years of journalism training haven’t necessarily prepared you for the art of managing people. You might even find yourself supervising your peers. Before you know it, you stop getting those invitations to happy hour. You are the boss. via current.org It was fun to chat with Current’s “The Pub”
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Great journalism alone won’t guarantee public radio’s survival | Current
Public Radio News Directors Inc. recognized Public Radio Exchange’s John Barth with its Leo C. Lee Award in June during its annual conference in St. Louis. Barth, now chief content officer at PRX, began his career as a public radio journalist at Philadelphia’s WHYY under Bill Siemering, another visionary public radio leader. Barth had a
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New Mexico News Port Wraps Up Year-Long Focus on Local Innovation Economy
Kudos to my colleague Kate Nash Cunningham for writing up this article, re-published below, for MediaShift, capturing the top takeaways from our year-long reporting project, Creative New Mexico — the latest body of work produced through our 3-year old student-powered reporting lab, New Mexico News Port. It’s been a blast exploring the nascent startup scene
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How We Are Working with Universities to Strengthen Local Journalism | The Local News Lab
Across the country, people are taking a fresh look at the role of universities in the journalism landscape and as critical anchor institutions for helping meet community information needs. A lot of attention has been focused on journalism schools as producers of original reporting and their potential to help fill the gaps in local coverage
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NPR to Incubate Innovation with Storytelling Lab | Idea Lab
Photo: Wikimedia Think of it as the Y Combinator of public radio. Instead of churning out startup after startup, the NPR Storytelling Lab will apply the incubator model to its national programming and bring innovation to your ears, one broadcast or download at a time. via mediashift.org I love this idea. “NPR’s Storytelling Lab provides an
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10 Takeaways From Building a Startup News Lab in Less Than 16 Weeks | Mediashift | PBS
This piece was co-authored by Michael Marcotte and Kate Nash Cunningham. As UNM students returned to classes this spring, many brought the new confidence and ideas they earned last fall by launching the New Mexico News Port, a collaboration spawned by the Online News Association’s Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education. As described in an
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New Mexico News Port launches ‘Curious New Mexico’
UNM C&J project designed to experiment with public engagement throughout the reporting process reprinted from UNM News New Mexico News Port launched last September with funding from the Online News Association’s Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education. Since then, Michael Marcotte, visiting professor, UNM Communication & Journalism, and others, have rolled out a series of profiles
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UNM Journalism Project Receives $50,000 Grant
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – An experimental student news lab at the University of New Mexico has been granted $50,000 by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. The money allows the New Mexico News Port to continue growing its “innovation and collaboration” model in the 2015-2016 academic year. “We’re thrilled. This is a significant gift that
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Generating Justice Through Journalism
“When I was 12 years old, I put the needle in my arm. By the time I was 13, I was a full-blooded heroin addict.” It was a compelling moment in a compelling interview. The former addict is now a notable community leader. The interviewers were my students in a journalism bootcamp. Lucia Martinez, Thema
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Is Public Radio On Your Radar Screen? | jacoBLOG
True story: More than a decade ago, I’m on the phone with a Classic Rock PD who was quite exuberant about his spring book. That’s because his station finished in the Top 5 25-54, triggering a ratings bonus. A week later we’re on the phone, and I ask him how he’s spent the aforementioned bonus. And he sadly
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News Manager Training and Certification
(What I’m doing in June. See you in DC?) NPR Headquarters — Site of the 2014 Public Radio News Directors Conference New workshop based on The Public Radio News Directors Guide! Two-Day Academy for Local NPR News Managers When: June 18-19, 2014 (prior to the start of the PRNDI Conference). Where: NPR Headquarters, Washington,
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A True Public Media Innovator
Many in the public radio community were surprised last July to learn that the well-respected head of Chicago Public Media, Torey Malatia, left the station after a falling out with the station’s governing board. (See account in Current.) Malatia not only presided over the home station for such national programs as This American Life (with
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Does public broadcasting increase current affairs knowledge?
The BBC has faced large cuts in funding. So has the Canadian CBC. Even Scandinavian systems are experiencing some funding pressures. And Mitt Romney considered firing Big Bird. We should be asking ourselves, particularly in this period of fiscal constraint, whether investing in public service broadcasting is an important part of governments’ commitment to helping
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KPBS and the Filner Files | NPR Digital Services
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner resigned in August, after several women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment. KPBS broke the story and led the coverage as it unfolded over several weeks, reporting on the defiant mayor and the growing calls for his resignation. KPBS created a “Filner Files” web page to collect their coverage
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New Effort to Bridge Local NPR Stations and Freelance Journalists
Here’s the joint press release from AIR and PRNDI. I’m happy to be a part of this project as the system can certainly benefit from employing more independent contractors. * * * * Release date: October 30, 2013 Contact: Susanna Capelouto, [email protected] AIR and PRNDI Stoke Local News Fire Effort underway to build roadmap for
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Why Defining a Journalist Is Messy, But Crucial | Mediashift
Interesting piece on PBS Mediashift this morning. Here’s the core of it: At any rate, after culling the sources and analyzing each conceptualization of a journalist, we identified common elements and offered this definition of a journalist (the italicized words represent the elements): A journalist is someone employed to regularly engage in gathering, processing, and
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Attributes of Local NPR Stations: Local News Airtime
Data from the 2012 MVM/UNR/USC survey of local NPR news stations show that almost half the stations in the system are producing an hour or less of local news per day (M-F). The other half of the stations go much deeper into local news… with a quarter of stations producing more than 12 hours per
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Coding for the Future: The Rise of Hacker Journalism
Data Visualization, geo-mapping, audience engagement, agile development, responsive design. What do any of these terms have to do with journalism? Turns out, quite a bit these days. The “Coding for the Future” panel With a staggering amount of data now available to journalists, the ability to capture, interpret and present it to audiences has become
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Despite fiscal pressures, layoffs, MPBN sees journalism as way forward — Bangor Daily News
Investing in journalism as the way to a sustainable future is a growing trend in public media. In 2012, 42 percent of National Public Radio member stations grew their full-time local news staffs, according to a survey of 103 stations conducted by Michael Marcotte, a public media consultant and visiting professor of journalism at the
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Media Alliance Provides Lessons in Collaboration
Nevada Media Alliance Managing Editor Alex Pompliano in Carson City, NV Executive Summary In the 2012-2013 school year, UNR visiting professor Michael Marcotte managed the launch of a journalism collaboration between The Reynolds School and local media partners: KNPB-TV, KUNR-FM and The Reno Gazette-Journal. The project was dubbed “The Nevada Media Alliance.” During its first
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Mission Accomplished: Reno
It was an exhilarating end to a fabulous year. My last day at UNR’s Reynolds School of Journalism coincided with the conclusion of our NPR Next Generation Radio bootcamp — the first such bootcamp in 4 years and the first ever offered at a J-school. Zachary, Fil, Kamille, Regina and Alexa — Next Generation Radio
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Attributes of Local NPR Stations: On Air Content
Our new survey of local public media newsrooms finds a solid commitment to daily coverage, a broad effort to provide depth coverage, and rather sporadic levels of deep engagement and intensive production. The charts below provide a break-out of NPR member station survey responses on their depth of commitment to local news broadcast elements. (To
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Attributes of Local NPR Stations: Online Content
Our 2012 survey of local public media newsrooms shows that most stations still have rather stunted commitments to local news online. The charts in this post provide a break-out of NPR member station findings. (To see all public media results, see this summary piece.) We begin with this overview picture of online content commitments. The chart
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Attributes of U.S. Public Media Newsrooms: Overview
Abstract: Using survey research from 2010-2012, the author describes in unprecedented detail the capacity and practices of local public media newsrooms. His survey work provides staffing, budgeting and programming patterns. It also provides an initial baseline from which to track emerging trends in local public media news. This installment provides an overview. It is derived
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Local Public Media On Air News Time by News Budget
I just thought this data visualization was cool. It uses an area chart to compare public radio stations. The x axis are budget categories of stations. Small budgets to the left. Large budgets to the right. The y axis are the percentage of stations in that budget category. The colorized data, as shown in the
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NPR Stations Continue Growing Local News
A new survey by MVM Consulting shows NPR member stations around the U.S. are growing their local news staffs, increasing their local news airtime, and beefing up their local online news content. The survey reveals high levels of actual growth last year and similar levels of predicted growth this year. Expansion of Local NPR Newsroom
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NPR Stations See Need to Improve Local Online News
New survey results from MVM Consulting show NPR stations far less satisfied with their online local news than with their local news on air. The data show 72% of NPR stations are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their on air local news programming. Only 10% were at all dissatisfied with the broadcast product. But when
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Breeding unicorns and building off others: Lessons from a meeting of j-schools and the field » Nieman Journalism Lab
Feb. 26, 2013, 12:13 p.m. Breeding unicorns and building off others: Lessons from a meeting of j-schools and the field At the Journalism Interactive conference, journalism professors and practitioners discussed how to produce the kind of journalists the industry wants and needs. By Matt Sheehan via www.niemanlab.org
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Gender Inequality in Public Media Newsrooms
Looks like we have a ways to go in local public radio and television. Like the rest of the media, women are underrepresented in our newsrooms. What prompted me to take a dive into these never-before-reported numbers was the recent study by the The Women’s Media Center, The Status of Women in the U.S. Media
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Gender Inequity in Public Media Newsrooms
Looks like we have a ways to go in local public radio and television. Like the rest of the media, women are underrepresented in our newsrooms. What prompted me to take a dive into these never-before-reported numbers was the recent study by the The Women’s Media Center, The Status of Women in the U.S. Media
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Meet the first class: Six media startups get accelerated into Silicon Valley by Matter » Nieman Journalism Lab
March 6, 2013, 9 a.m. Meet the first class: Six media startups get accelerated into Silicon Valley by Matter Matter, formerly known as the Public Media Accelerator, aims to join “the values of public media” to “the mindsets of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship.” By Justin Ellis via www.niemanlab.org I’m excited to see this… and just a
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Public Radio partners with Commercial TV in Twin Cities
Saw this today: Enterprise Reporter – KARE 11 & MPR Pilot Program KARE 11, the NBC television affiliate in the Twin Cities and MPR News are looking for a hard-hitting, sharp-thinking enterprise news reporter to deliver high quality, exclusive, visual journalism across platforms. The position is for someone who is hungry to set the news
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– Michael V. Marcotte
Thanks to Luke Sorensen and Fil Corbitt of UNR J-school for producing this quick turnaround video explaining the Nevada Media Alliance. We needed this to accompany our first TV package, which will air on KNPB-TV public affairs program, Conversation, this week. The show examines the debate over higher education funding in Nevada.
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3-2-1, Blast Off! The Nevada Media Alliance Begins
As I pen this, three UNR grad students are leading eight undergrads in the final planning of the launch of The Nevada Media Alliance. I may be supervising this experiment in news partnering, but these eager, ambitious journalism students will be deciding — and doing — much of what goes into it. If it succeeds,
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Radio: The Original Wireless Network | Ad Age
Amid Continuing Blackout, Medium Is the Only Game in Town By: Michael Learmonth Published: November 02, 2012 Batteries are drained, internet connections long-gone. For the nearly 5 million households muddling through a fourth day without power in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, there’s really only one medium that matters, and that’s radio. Radio, the first electronic mass media.
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MediaShift: Public Media’s Quest for Integrity
Trust “is perhaps the most important asset public broadcasting carries forward into evolving public media future,” writes Byron Knight. Knight should know. He’s had a long career in public broadcasting. Now, he is co-director of the Editorial Integrity for Public Media Project, a ground-breaking attempt to define public media’s principles for a digital age. Leading
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Public media innovation boosted with millions in funding – Knight Foundation
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 8, 2011 – A new effort will provide funding and expertise to entrepreneurial teams with innovative ideas to increase the impact of public service media. Called the Public Media Accelerator, the project will be launched and operated by the Public Radio Exchange (PRX) and supported by a $2.5 million grant from the
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Public Media Third Leg of Knight Funded News Project in Georgia
Unique, Joint Newsroom will Help Increase Local Journalism in Macon Knight Foundation invests $4.6 million to expand local public radio, bring new journalism education model to Georgia and engage residents in critical issues MACON, Ga. — A new effort will increase and strengthen local reporting by bringing professional journalists to work together with university students
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In Other Words
Take all the verbatim comments from the 2010 PRNDI/MVM local news survey and run them through IBM’s visualization machine and you get a pretty mosaic of the terminology used.
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Stephen Hill: Funding the Future of Public Media
The following is the opening section of a compelling, visionary proposal by public radio entrepreneur/producer Stephen Hill: “If public media is to secure its future, it must be with the public.” SUMMARY This paper presents a set of ideas for reforming both the online service models and the internal business methods of the public
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MediaShift . Defunding Public Media Would Stifle Digital Innovation
The following is an excerpt from an excellent overview piece by Jessica Clark of American University’s Future of Public Media Project. I selected this section because the video is especially worth sharing. Change the Conversation It’s time to change the conversation about public media from one of scarcity to one of abundance. We still have
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Public Radio’s Only Hope: Hope
A year at Stanford, and I’m finding my inner optimist. It’s probably the contagious positivity around here. So I can’t help but see the NPR crisis in hopeful terms. I’ll assume you’ve been following the news and know NPR has now said farewell to three top executives in three months: President & CEO Vivian Schiller,
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Public Radio Time Devoted to Local News
The survey we’ve been unpacking here for the past few weeks still has more to offer! In this series, we reveal what we found about the amount of airtime that was devoted to local news and public affairs in an average week during 2010 on public radio stations in the United States. At the bottom
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Reform NPR Development Practices
Enemies of public broadcasting dropped a bombshell today. They released a video recorded surreptitiously at a restaurant, using imposters posing as muslim donors offering $5 million, to draw an NPR executive into a discussion about funding of public broadcasting, Jews and Muslims, conservatives and liberals and other red meat bait for the ideologically minded. The
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The Journalism Fellowship: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Gotta hurry and get this #jcarn post to chief barker David Cohn for this month’s Carnival of Journalism, in which he challenges journalists and their counterparts in the academy to field one of two threads on “driving innovation:” Either advise the Knight Foundation on the future of its Knight News Challenge; Or offer advice to
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How to Save Ourselves From the ‘Save PBS’ Routine
Publicly funded media is something worth fighting for at a local and national level. But the politics of the current fight are clear: The right calls for budget cuts because it says NPR and PBS are too left-wing. Liberal defenders weigh in to defend the CPB budget, making few or no demands on public broadcasters.
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Jacobs Media And PRPD Release Third Annual Tech Survey
Here are some of the key findings from this year’s PRTS3 study: * Public radio listeners have to be the best educated on the planet. Eight in ten have a college degree. And nearly half hold a graduate degree. * More than one-third of PRTS3 respondents now own a smartphone, up 29% from last year’s
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New Study Finds Investment in Public Media Leads to Better News | Save the News
Public media is under attack in Washington, but a new report by Rodney Benson and Matthew Powers of New York University examines how expanding, not cutting, federal funding can actually promote quality, independent journalism. Public Media and Political Independence: Lessons for the Future of Journalism from Around the World was released Tuesday during a panel
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News Programming
One of the longstanding questions among public radio programmers is what kind of news should we produce? Journalists debate trade-offs between spot news and in-depth features. Producers love what the magazine format lets them do. Many stations have launched local talk/interview programs as an economical way to achieve news impact. And so on and so
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News Salaries by Market Size
Larger broadcast service areas correlate with higher salaries, but not as directly as with higher budgets. That’s because you find low budget stations in large markets, and they pay low budget salaries not large market salaries. Here are three charts showing the top 10 annual average salaries in public radio news jobs according to the
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News Salaries by News Budgets
I’ve sorted the average annual salaries in public radio newsrooms by their station news budgets. As you would expect, the higher budget categories closely correlate with higher average salaries. If you look under “news directors,” for example, you’ll see that stations spending between $500k-$1m a year on their newsrooms, spend an average of $60k-$65k for
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Newsosaur: Why feds should not fund public broadcasting
Although commercial TV is vaster and waste-ier today than it was back then, the public media successfully leveraged their federal seed money to build perhaps stronger and healthier organizations than the founders and their funders had dared to imagine. In an advertising campaign seeking to drum up support for continued federal funding of the public
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The American Conservative » Why NPR Must Go
In case you’re wondering what the fuss in congress is about this week, here is an excerpt from Pat Buchanan: First, the United States government should not be in the news business at all. Arguments and debates about public affairs should be the province of private citizens. If the government must engage in propaganda in
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The Blog | Paragon Media Strategies
The upshot with the PPM panel is that radio fans have been replaced by contest players and people who genuinely need the money. Is there any question now why PPM ratings strongly favor the most mainstream of formats…AC, CHR, Country, Classic Rock, News/Talk? Is it any wonder now why formats just one block off of
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Local NPR Launches
Mission Statement: The mission of Local NPR is to share ideas, facts and stories that help U.S. public broadcast newsrooms transform themselves into significant multi-platform journalism institutions in their communities. It was started by Michael V. Marcotte in January 2011.
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Local Public Radio Spending: Most News Budgets Under $250K
Our survey of U.S. public radio stations in 2010 found that 90% had news budgets under $1-million, and 70% spent less than $250-thousand on news. The sample of 288 stations spent between $77-million and $168-million on public radio news programming. As the chart shows, the single largest news budget bracket was $50K-$250K (37% of stations).
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A Mental Map of the NPR System
After calling for reforms at NPR (NPR Must Fix the Problem and Set a New Tone) — a reform opportunity suddenly possible by the leadership vacuum caused by Ellen Weiss’ resignation — I was invited to participate in an East Coast public radio talk show during which I speculated on the forces coming to bear
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New Policy Paper Recommends Transformation of Public Media
New Policy Paper Recommends Transformation of Public Media – Knight Foundation. This white paper provides a basis upon which to build our plans for local public media. Please check it out.
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News : Nine State of New Jersey-owned non-commercial FMs are going on the auction block | Radio-Info.com
Public Radio Capital of Colorado is the financial advisor to the New Jersey Treasurer’s office, which is handling the contemplated sale, pursuant to December 2010 Senate bill 2406. It “authorizes transfer of certain assets of the state’s public broadcasting system to an entity eligible to operate a public broadcasting system.” In this case, “public” probably
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Local NPR Newsroom Staffing Trends
Here is data that was first posted on the Local NPR website. It comes from a 2010 system wide survey I did as a supplement to the CPB/PRNDI Census of Journalists*. Source: PRNDI/MVM Consulting, August 2010 The chart shows that despite the weak economy 58% of stations maintained their news staffing levels during FY
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NPR firing prompts review of leadership
By all accounts, the two women worked well together. While Schiller devoted her attention to reorganizing NPR’s management and successfully closing a budget gap, Weiss concentrated on building audiences for NPR’s audio programs and online news. via www.washingtonpost.com This WP article may be the best we’ll get in explaining the abrupt departure of Ellen Weiss
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NPR Must Fix the Problem and Set a New Tone
Ellen Weiss was forced out of NPR today. The apparent reason was that she, more than anyone else at NPR, mishandled the firing of the outspoken commentator, Juan Williams. via nowthedetails.blogspot.com Read Jeffrey Dvorkin’s full post above if you don’t know the backstory to Juan Williams’ firing from NPR… or today’s news that the NPR
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Public Radio News Salaries « Local NPR
New data from a 2010 local public radio station survey shows the median news reporter salary under $37,000 per year. The median for news hosts was $40,000. The median for news directors was $45,000. The overall highest paid position was vice-president of news with a median of $92,500. The lowest median salary was $32,000 for
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The “Democracy Now” Dilemma
I was at the Public Radio Programming Conference in Denver. I was catching up with an old friend who directs news at an NPR member station. And he tells me, in confidence, about a coordinated campaign by the staff and fans of Amy Goodman’s program, Democracy Now, to bully him into carrying the show. I
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Journalism is in hour of ‘grave peril,’ says top government regulator
In his remarks, (FCC Commissioner Michael) Copps paints a grim picture of today’s media. He notes that more than half of the 50 states have no full-time reporter covering Capitol Hill. He cites a study by the USC Annenberg School of Communication & Journalism’s Norman Lear Center showing that the average 30-minute local news broadcast
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Rethinking Public Media: More Local, More Inclusive, More Interactive
At a time when government funding for public broadcasting is hotly debated, Rethinking Public Media: More Local, More Inclusive, More Interactive, a new policy paper by Barbara Cochran, offers five broad strategies and 21 specific recommendations to reform public media. The strategies include strengthening local news operations, sharing digital platforms among public entities, recruiting more
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Making Coverage Of Local Government Compelling : NPR
Today marked the official announcement of NPR’s latest local-national journalism initiative, and the biggest, broadest one yet. via www.npr.org Three cheers for NPR, building upon its member-station news network, today announcing the “Impact of Government” reporting project. The key is the network-station editorial relationship. This is an excellent example of how NPR can help grow
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NPR’s Firing of Juan Williams: NPR Ombudsman
It’s not about race. It’s also not about free speech, as some have charged. Nor is it about an alleged attempt by NPR to stifle conservative views. NPR offers a broad range of viewpoints on its radio shows and web site. Instead, this latest incident with Williams centers around a collision of values: NPR’s values emphasizing
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Poynter Online – George Packer’s 5 Reporting Tips
Although most journalists do not spend months on national magazine stories as he does, his techniques can be applied to all sorts of reporting. via www.poynter.org Great, simple tips for reporters!
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Josh Silver: Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint Take Aim at NPR Funding
Public media like NPR play a crucial role in the American information ecosystem that is otherwise drowning in a sensationalism and soundbytes. It’s no secret that newspapers — the primary source of journalism — are slashing staff and cutting back on original reporting. Many small- and medium-sized communities now have barely any reporters acting as
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Ken Doctor on Kling’s Bold Vision for Local Public Radio News
“Public Media” $100 Million Plan: 100 Journalists Per City.
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Public media is investing in major digital projects | Hacks/Hackers
Public broadcasters — National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting System and their local affiliates — are playing a significant role in leading media innovation in the 21st century. This is the first of two guest posts about the various projects of “pubmedia” — by which the author refers mainly to public broadcasters and their related
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Public radio is enjoying boom times – latimes.com
The precarious position of stations such as L.A.’s KCET stands in high relief when compared with the relative health and dynamism emanating from National Public Radio and its affiliates these days. More listeners continue to find public radio and, as evidenced by a couple of developments in recent days, the network and some of its
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Local Public News Conspicuous in FCC’s “Future of Media”
An apparent glutton for wonkery, I sat glued to an all-day Internet feed of the FCC workshop, “Public and Other Noncommercial Media in the Digital Era” last Friday, April 30. (You can scan a live blog of the proceedings on PBS Mediashift. Or go back and replay the video on the FCC “Future of Media”
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Public Purpose Media: The Sublime Freedom of Failure
In a strange rush of the the last twenty-four hours I have heard about or read about three sublime, elegant, beautiful failures. The honest admission of coming-up-short. And the great thing is that people are owning it and determined that you or anybody else doesn’t repeat the same mistake(s). via publicpurposemedia.blogspot.com This reminded me of
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Go Figure : NPR
One of the more compelling success stories for NPR is the growth of its broadcast audience from its member stations. Given the backdrop over the past decade of an increasingly fractured news media environment, the audience growth shown across the top markets is no small thing. Take a quick review of Pew’s excellent State of
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Knight Fellowships: 2010-11 Knight Journalism Fellows Named at Stanford
Exciting News! I made it! Thanks be to family, friends and colleagues! — MVM *** 2010-11 Knight Journalism Fellows Named at Stanford Twelve U.S. and eight international journalists have been awarded John S. Knight Fellowships to study at Stanford during the 2010-11 academic year. The selection includes the program’s first journalists from Cuba and Armenia,
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MediaShift . Lessons on Collaboration from EconomyStory, Election Projects | PBS
Lesson #2: You Need the Muckety-Mucks The web department still operates as something of a ghetto at many media organizations. Despite pockets of leadership and innovation, public media organizations are, for the most part, no exception. Sure, everyone knows the future’s in digital, but, more often than not, the people with power and influence work
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MediaWatch Monday: Journalists Won’t Report News Unless It Can Drive Page Views – SVW
Page view journalism will make our society poorer because less popular but important topics will be crowded out. This also means companies with decent stories to tell will be lost in the media tsunami. All the more reason why companies must also generate their own media, to make up for the shrinkage of the independent
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Mobile Done Right? How National Public Radio Embraces the Mobile Web and Apps | MobileActive.org
However, targeting a mobile audience could have big returns. Says Spier, “Our mobile audience is much more loyal, they engage much more deeply with us, than our NPR.org audience.” He reports that both the iPhone and the Android apps are generating approximately six times more page views per visitor than visitors logging on to NPR.org
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Skip Pizzi: Radio Convergence is at Hand
Think about how a handheld device that simultaneously offers both broadcast radio reception and wireless Internet access could be used. The addition of synchronized visual “enhancements” from a station’s website to its regular audio broadcast content will increase the appeal of a station’s programming to listeners and to advertisers. In such an application, audio still
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The Infinite Dial — Act As If
If your local radio station is going to survive, and even thrive, in the universe of the Infinite Dial, it is more important than ever to stand for something unique. Soon–very soon–it will no longer be enough to be the best AC in your market, or to be your local Hannity affiliate. When that day
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Challenge for Public Radio Stations
Jon Schwartz is the top manager of Wyoming Public Media based in Laramie. In this post to the “pubradio” listserv (and shared here with his permission), he does a brilliant job at summing up the current dilemma facing public radio stations. His bottom line isn’t startling but it is a start. — MVM Begin forwarded
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Comments on Pubradio’s Digital Future… From NPR Leadership
If you saw John Schwartz’s excellent post the other day, you’ll appreciate this reasonably robust reply from the the top brass at NPR. Remember to also check out a strong case for online news investment, prompted by this thread, filed by Todd Mundt. Begin forwarded message: From: Vivian Schiller <[email protected]> Date: April 19, 2010 4:56:28
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NPR Addresses Bureau Chief Cuts
I recently called out NPR on its plans to axe editors in Seattle and San Diego (Expand, Don’t Shrink, NPR Bureau Chief System) fearing loss of connection with stations in the West. NPR responds today with a rather robust defense. Tell us what you think. * * * * From Steve Drummond, Senior National Editor
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Expand, Don’t Shrink, NPR Bureau Chief System
It’s been seven years since I addressed the effectiveness and future of the NPR Bureau Chief System. I guess this is partly because nothing major has really happened to the system. Until now. The four bureau chiefs, as most public radio news people know, are set up in four regions around the country (Northeast, South,
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NPR Announces Major Research Project
The audience research department at NPR is announcing a very significant research effort. Stations have been groping for better illumination of their future options and this will help. Here is what was sent around the system in March 2010. We are pleased to announce the launch of a new nationwide study. In an effort to
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Santa Barbara News-Press Shows Contempt for Journalism Ethics
(This letter was sent to local editors in SB.) Casual readers of the Santa Barbara News-Press beware! The paper has begun mixing news and opinion on the front page — with no labeling to separate the two. Sunday’s front page (April 18, 2010) featured an above-the-fold piece headlined “Retirement funding hampering county budget.” An important
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CPB: Launches New Local Journalism Initiative
Washington, DC — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) today announced funding for a major journalism initiative that will increase original local reporting capacity in seven regions around the country, and a planning project to develop an open information architecture to harness the collective power of the public media network. via www.cpb.org Finally! Those of
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PRNDI: Help Define “Journalist” for the 2010 News Census
Help PRNDI Define “journalist” for the sake of the 2010 News CensusAs we grow public media on many platforms, we introduce more job descriptions into the workplace. For the sake of a system-wide census, what definition should we use for who is or isn’t a “journalist?” Posted by: mmarcotteFlag discussion as inappropriate via action.publicbroadcasting.net I’m
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– Michael V. Marcotte
Word from Stanford: I’m a finalist for the Knight Fellowship. The actual class of 2010-2011 isn’t named until May. More suspense!