About Current

Janssen rejoins Current as digital editor

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Mike Janssen, a journalist who has reported for Current for nearly 15 years, has returned to the staff full-time as digital editor. Janssen’s hiring, which took effect April 1, expands Current’s editorial team and supports an expansion of coverage on Current.org, the website covering U.S. public media and nonprofit news organizations. Current, its sister newspaper, will continue to provide in-depth news coverage and analysis of the field, with a shift in emphasis to enterprise reporting. “Mike is uniquely qualified to help lead Current’s digital expansion,” said Karen Everhart, managing editor. “He sets high standards for reporting and narrative journalism; he knows public radio inside and out; and his leadership in using digital platforms to provide timely, original news coverage on Current.org and via social media has enhanced the value of our news service over many years.”

“I’m excited to be back on board with Current full-time and to have the chance to take our web coverage to the next level,” Janssen said.

Programs/Content

Flatow moves Science Friday to PRI distribution

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Science Friday, the weekly NPR series hosted by Ira Flatow, is pairing with Public Radio International in a new distribution deal to take effect in January 2014. The agreement calls for Science Friday, a signature element of NPR’s science coverage since its 1991 launch, to continue as a weekly radio broadcast under PRI distribution. In addition, Flatow and his producers will collaborate with PRI series The World, The Takeaway and Studio 360 to develop multi-platform content around science topics. “We’re excited to work with PRI to expand their science and technology coverage,” Flatow said in a PRI news release. “PRI shares our vision of serving the public by telling compelling stories about timely issues.

System/Policy

DEI rebrands as Greater Public to reflect new goals for membership, collaborations

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ATLANTA — DEI, the membership organization that supports development and fundraising work at public radio stations, has changed its name to Greater Public. President Doug Eichten announced the change during the opening session of the Public Media Development and Marketing Conference, which runs through Saturday at the downtown Omni Hotel. “[T]he nature and pace of change in the media landscape now is so dramatic that we believe our industry is at a true inflection point,” Eichten said. “Greater Public is committed to providing new levels of leadership and resources for public media organizations to move forward.”

The new name signals Greater Public’s intention to broaden its membership to include more public television stations and to develop collaborations among different types of public-service media organizations, including nonprofit news outlets. It also plans to produce special offerings in leadership development and training, including for lay leaders who serve on station boards.

PBS

WGBH, the top producer of PBS programs, now owns Public Radio International

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In a move signalling its ambitions to extend its clout and influence in public radio, Boston’s WGBH has acquired Public Radio International, the Minnesota-based program distributor of radio programs such as This American Life, The World and The Takeaway. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the sale will help to stabilize the nonprofit program distributor PRI, which ran an operating deficit of $2 million in 2011, according to PRI spokesperson Julia Yager. “This is a deal borne out of shared visions,” Yager said in an interview with Current. PRI began examining its options last year as its leadership considered the implications of various funding scenarios for public media. PRI looked for partners to help it continue distributing radio programming and found that WGBH was best aligned with its own mission and values.

Quick Takes

Marketplace bureau chief riffed in APM downsizing

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Ten employees of American Public Media will lose their jobs in a strategic reorganization announced this afternoon, according to an internal memo provided to Current. Layoffs extend across the Minnesota-based pubcaster and into its news operation in Washington, D.C., where Marketplace Bureau Chief John Dimsdale received a pink slip. In more than 20 years with APM, Dimsdale has covered regulatory hearings, budget battles and presidential elections “with reliability and great credibility,” according to the memo, which was co-authored by four of APM’s top managers. APM also released employees who work behind the scenes on Marketplace Tech Report, local broadcasts of Morning Edition, and the classical music series Pipedreams, which will continue broadcasting but on a “less-demanding” production timetable. Host Michael Barone remains on the show and will take on a “more visible regional role with Minnesota audiences.”

Development

Top prospects for expanding pubradio revenues examined at Public Media Futures Forum

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SEATTLE — When public media development consultants and station leaders gathered at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus on July 10 to discuss fundraising programs of the future, two ideas stirred up the most vigorous discussion: the potential for sustaining membership fundraising to reduce stations’ reliance on pledge drive revenues, and a text-giving program that would enable NPR to solicit donations directly from listeners. Maryland-based consultant John Sutton dreamed up the latter idea over breakfast, and he proposed it during the forum as a way to open a new path for listener donations that would provide dues relief to local stations. Under Sutton’s plan, NPR would run text-giving campaigns twice a year soliciting $10 donations from listeners. The monies raised — he estimated $35 million in net revenues — would reduce the program dues that NPR charges stations. Stations wouldn’t have to worry about NPR cultivating their listeners as donors because the text gifts would be made anonymously.

Awards

Lourdes Garcia-Navarro was honored for distinguished reporting from the world’s most volatile regions.

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NPR’s Jerusalem-based foreign correspondent received CPB’s highest award, recognizing outstanding contributions to public radio, during an April 9 dinner attended by top pubcasting execs. Garcia-Navarro reported from NPR’s Baghdad bureau from 2008 to 2009, and was one of the first reporters to enter Libya after last year’s uprising. She made in-depth reporting of events from the world’s most volatile regions a hallmark of her reporting, providing “powerful and sound-rich descriptions” of the conflict in Libya and other hotspots. “It is fitting that Lourdes receive this award named after the famed war correspondent,” said CPB Chair Bruce Ramer. “We honor her dedication and service, as well as the courage of those like her who ensure that we are all informed about important world events and issues.”

“Oh, Lulu — you have made us so proud,” said Margaret Low Smith, NPR programming chief, in a videotape reel of congratulations from colleagues.

Programs/Content

APMG’s Florida classical station grows west with new FM

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Miami-based Classical South Florida, an affiliate of American Public Media Group, is expanding its service to the state’s western coast with the $4.35 million purchase of WAYJ-FM, a 75,000-watt station that broadcasts to a potential audience of nearly 1 million listeners in Fort Myers and beyond. The purchase, announced Feb. 14, is part of a three-way transaction with seller WAY Media, a religious broadcasting network that’s moving its Christian pop music service and its call letters to 89.5 MHz in Naples, a 100,000-watt station, formerly WSRX-FM. Though the Naples station broadcasts at a higher effective radiated power (ERP), Classical South Florida’s new station has the better signal, with a higher antenna and larger potential audience. It covers a population of 991,520, compared with 340,913, according to Tom Kigin, executive v.p. for Minnesota-based APMG.

Development
Jim Ascendio

No-chat zone ’twixt funders and reporters?

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Radio news veteran Jim Asendio resigned as news director of Washington’s WAMU-FM last week after an internal dispute over a private fundraising event turned into a public clash over the editorial firewall protecting the station’s newsroom. Asendio objected when top managers required him and two reporters from his staff to participate in a “Meet the Producers” breakfast and panel discussion that the station hosted for major donors Feb. 22. The choice was stark, the news director said: “I could either not show up and be in trouble, or show up and violate my ethics, so I tendered my resignation.”

The showdown, first reported by Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple, put a spotlight on one of the touchiest subjects in cash-strapped newsrooms — firewalls designed to protect working journalists from undue influence by funders and to prevent appearances that such conflicts exist. Similar conflicts are playing out behind the scenes at public radio stations across the country, according to Iowa Public Radio’s Jonathan Ahl, who is president of Public Radio News Directors Inc.

“Some of our members have given us the indication that people aren’t necessarily crossing the firewall, but they’re walking up to it and peeking over it” too often, Ahl said.

Programs/Content

Unvetted war story slips past producers

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A commentary created through an experimental radio project of the New America Foundation turned a harsh spotlight on the editorial vetting process at Marketplace, which broadcast a first-person account Jan. 30 [2012] of a man who falsely claimed to be a heroic Army sniper. Whatever the editorial process at Marketplace missed, there were similar shortcomings at San Francisco’s KQED-FM, which also aired the piece, and at the big liberal foundation, whose media project was focused on inclusivity rather than excluding fakers. The two-minute piece by a man named Leo Webb, part of a commentary series titled “My Life Is True,” turned out to be largely untrue. As soon as it aired, the first-person commentary sounded like a load of bull to readers of This Ain’t Hell, a blog that critiques media coverage of the military and takes special glee in exposing phony war stories.  It took only some basic fact-checking and a sharply worded blog post to set off an online spanking for producers of Marketplace, American Public Media’s flagship drivetime broadcast, and KQED, one of pubcasting’s top news stations.

Programs/Content

Closing of news bureau leaves regrets, questions

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There was no shortage of ideas for keeping Capitol News Connection afloat. CNC’s stock in trade was chasing down politicians for local legislators’ take on the day’s developments in Congress. Before it was shuttered in September, public radio’s little nonprofit news bureau on Capitol Hill tried expanding into online news reporting, revising fees, selling localized coverage of Congress to newspapers and TV stations as well as pubradio, and developing widgets and apps to boost its income. As founder and CEO Melinda Wittstock worked relentlessly against recession economics to save the cash-strapped newsroom, she turned to a dot-org hope. Her conception for NewsIt, a crowdsourced social-media news platform, was perhaps her biggest idea to date.