Leadership changes and challenges in public media will be the focus of Friday’s Public Media Futures Forum in Washington, D.C., the latest in a two-year series exploring challenges facing the field.
Speakers during “The Future of Media Leadership” will include Mark Stencel, managing editor of digital news for NPR, and Jason Seiken, g.m. of PBS Digital. A tentative list of participants includes: Vincent Curren, executive v.p. of CPB; Arthur Cohen, president of Public Radio Program Directors; Andrew Leitch, program coordinator at Development Exchange Incorporated and co-founder of the YPpubmedia young professionals’ group; and Barbara Cochran, the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Journalism, University of Missouri School of Journalism.
American University’s School of Communication co-produces the forum series with the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy within the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Co-hosts are Adam Clayton Powell III of USC Annenberg and Jeff Rutenbeck of AU’s School of Communication. Public media analyst Mark Fuerst will also present findings from a recent survey of senior managers and young professionals working in public media.
Among other topics, the survey examined public media leader’s expectations for public media service delivery over time, especially shifts from on-air to digital operations within local stations. Early findings from the survey indicate that less than 20 percent of senior managers view over-the-air broadcasts as the primary platform for delivering community service in ten years.
The event will be live-streamed online beginning at 9 a.m. EST. You can find the stream here, and you can also follow Current’s Twitter feed for live updates.