People

Frontline creates cross-platform investigative unit with help from Ford Foundation

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Frontline has hired two investigative reporters and promoted a digital specialist to create its first desk producing original investigative journalism across platforms.

The Enterprise Journalism Group, announced Wednesday, consists of new hires James Jacoby and Anya Bourg, who previously produced for CBS’s 60 Minutes. Frontline’s senior digital reporter, Sarah Childress, was promoted onto the team. The group is supported by an $800,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, announced in June. Over the next two years, the journalists will report major projects via text, video, photos, audio and graphics across Frontline’s platforms.

Raney Aronson-Rath, deputy executive producer, said journalistic flexibility is driving the project. “Maybe there’s a story that should go digital-first, so we get it up quickly,” she said.

Programs/Content

Colorado Public Radio, Colorado Symphony part ways after 15 years

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Colorado Public Radio and the Colorado Symphony have ended their 15-year relationship after a disagreement over the value of the symphony’s performances to the station and a demand for editorial control over coverage of the ensemble. CPR stopped airing symphony performances as of Nov. 30, ending an arrangement that had been in place since 1999. Colorado Symphony CEO Jerome Kern said that in addition to providing performances to CPR free of charge, the symphony had bought underwriting on the station, to the tune of about $91,000 in the last fiscal year. In the symphony’s eyes, it was giving CPR not only valuable content but cash as well, Kern said.

Programs/Content

APT’s Create and World gain carriage, audience

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Vme is not the only public TV multicast channel that’s gaining traction with viewers. Create and World, channels featuring how-to shows and public affairs programs, have the widest carriage and remain the most popular. Although audience data on PTV multicast channels is limited — in part because only 20 stations are able to subscribe to ratings services for their channels — viewership has grown 18 percent over the past four years, according to TRAC Media, which provides ratings analyses to local pubcasters. Lifestyle-oriented Create is the most dominant of the three channels. Since its national launch via APT distribution 10 years ago, it has secured carriage on 106 licensees and now reaches 78 percent of television households.

Programs/Content

NPR to close Kabul bureau

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When the 13-year international combat mission ends in Afghanistan Dec. 31, NPR’s Kabul bureau will also close. NPR decided in 2012 that it would close the Kabul bureau this year because of the planned reduction of U.S. troops in the country, according to an NPR spokesperson. Starting in 2015, coverage of Afghanistan will be handled by Philip Reeves, NPR’s correspondent based in Islamabad, Pakistan. “We are confident that Phil Reeves can cover the news coming from Afghanistan,” said Edith Chapin, senior supervising editor of NPR’s International Desk, through a spokesperson.

Programs/Content

Pubcasters object to U.S. Forest Service proposal for wilderness filming permits

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Six public broadcasting organizations filed joint comments Wednesday with the U.S. Forest Service protesting proposed special-use permits and fees for still photography and filming on National Forest Service lands. “The version of the commercial filming directive currently proposed suffers from significant constitutional infirmities,” the organizations said in the document. “Were it to be enacted without revision, it would be subject to serious legal challenges” and could infringe the First Amendment rights of journalists, filmmakers and photographers, they said. Joining forces on the filing are the Association of Public Television Stations, CPB, NPR, PBS and two stations that produce wilderness programming, Idaho Public Television and Oregon Public Broadcasting. Attorney Robert Corn-Revere of Davis Wright Tremaine in Washington, D.C., a First Amendment expert, wrote the 38-page document.

Programs/Content

The doctors are in as Sesame Workshop tackles effects of mass incarceration

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Two doctors who focus on the relationship between incarceration and public health have teamed up with a Sesame Street Muppet to call attention to the issue. Prompted by Sesame Workshop’s “Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration” initiative, the video released in October features two experts on prison health, the creator of the Sesame Workshop initiative and Alex, a Muppet with electric blue hair and an incarcerated father. The video followed the publication of “Sesame Street Goes to Jail: Physicians Should Follow,” an article in the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Drs. Dora Dumont, Scott Allen and Jody Rich called for physicians to pay more attention to mass incarceration and took note of Sesame Street’s involvement.

System/Policy

Database for public media looks to standardize, simplify station metrics

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The Public Media Company is looking to drum up support to pilot the Public Media Database, an all-in-one dashboard to help stations track finances, audience ratings and the impact of their journalism on listeners. The concept is to cull data from a variety of sources, reach agreement about which metrics are significant and weed out the less important information. Each station would maintain a database of measurements, to be displayed in a dashboard for easy access and review. Uniform metrics among stations would help them compare performance and make presentations to funders. PMC, a nonprofit based in Boulder, Colo., hopes that adding participating stations will enable more meaningful comparisons of metrics across the public radio system.

Programs/Content

NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert searches for new acts

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NPR announced Tuesday a contest that will use the platform of its Tiny Desk Concerts to discover up-and-coming musicians. For viewers, the appeal of the Tiny Desk Concert series is watching popular and rising artists — from T-Pain to Timber Timbre — perform in an unusual setting: the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. But the new contest will give smaller acts not signed to a record label the opportunity to perform and gain exposure. “I go to shows, most every night, hoping to find something new and surprising,” said Boilen in a press release. “This Tiny Desk Concert Contest is a way for me to, essentially, time travel around the country, hear hundreds of bands that are completely off my radar, and share the most exciting and surprising ones with our music-loving audience.”

About Current

Tyler Falk joins Current as assistant editor

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Current’s reporting roster has grown with the addition of Tyler Falk. As a freelance journalist, Tyler has written about topics including food, energy and business innovation. He’ll now turn his attention to the world of public radio, picking up that beat from Senior Editor Ben Mook. Ben will cover development and digital media. As a contributing editor for CBS Interactive, Tyler blogged daily about business innovation for SmartPlanet.com.