Seven stations will participate in a podcast-development bootcamp run by the Public Radio Exchange.
PRX received a $1 million grant from CPB in September for Project Catapult, which aims to help each station launch or relaunch a podcast at the end of a 20-week development period.
At first PRX set out to help five stations. But it added two more because “the final pool of applicants was so strong,” PRX CEO Kerri Hoffman said in a blog post.
Five stations will work on podcasts they already produce, including St. Louis Public Radio (We Live Here), West Virginia Public Radio (Us & Them), WYPR in Baltimore (Out of the Blocks), KALW in San Francisco (Inflection Point) and WNIN in Evansville, Ind. (Que Pasa Midwest).
Nashville Public Radio will develop Versify, a podcast featuring poets visiting Nashville neighborhoods and writing about their experiences. KUOW in Seattle will work on Second Wave, which explores the lives of refugees from Southeast Asia who have come to the United States.
PRX has hired Enrico Benjamin to lead the project. Benjamin has worked as a media consultant and producer at KING-TV in Seattle.
PRX will host a listening party in Boston to highlight the progress of the projects in May.