Latitude News, an online news outlet exploring world events and their reverberating effects in local U.S. communities and vice versa, surpassed the fundraising goal of its Kickstarter campaign to launch a new podcast.
As of Feb. 14, 307 backers had pledged $46,200 towards a goal of $44,250.
The newsroom currently produces an eponymous monthly 15-minute podcast distributed by Public Radio Exchange; it now will expand its output by introducing “The Local Global Mashup Show,” a weekly 30-minute podcast. Latitude News will use its Kickstarter contributions to fund the first three months of the program and hire a business development staffer to develop a paid subscription model for the podcast. Latitude News, which is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., also plans to explore offering “The Local Global Mashup Show” for public radio broadcast, founder and editor Maria Balinska told Current.
Latitude News aims to begin delivering the new weekly program by April as it continues to produce its monthly PRX show, according to Balinska. The newsroom is seven months into its initial one-year arrangement with PRX, which commissioned the podcast with funding from the Open Society Foundation.
The Knight Foundation contributed $5,000 to Latitude News’s Kickstarter campaign, Balinska said.
The outlet’s stories have been featured on APM’s Marketplace and in other venues. Its Kickstarter page will continue accepting donations until the campaign, which launched Jan. 17, officially ends Feb. 15.