Quick Takes

WNET’s Sacred project to globally crowdsource religious topics for one year

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WNET President Emeritus Bill Baker is spearheading a unique internationally crowdsourced public television project documenting a year of spiritual and religious life worldwide. The initiative, titled Sacred, launches June 21 and continues for one year, with contributors around the globe answering the question, “What is sacred to you?” To avoid favoring any one faith, the 2013 and 2014 summer solstices were chosen to begin and end the filming period. Footage shot during the 365 days will be the basis for a public television film set to premiere in 2015 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Presenting station is WLIW, a subsidiary of WNET in New York City. “We are all excited to do something global, and something that’s ambitious for public television,” said Neal Shapiro, WNET president.

Quick Takes

AU’s Center for Social Media releases fair use guidelines for journalists

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The Center for Social Media at American University’s School of Communication has released a Set of Principles for Fair Use in Journalism, which provides guidelines for journalists using copyrighted material in their reporting, analysis and criticism. “This guide identifies seven situations that represent the current consensus within the community of working journalists about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials,” it says. “It identifies some common situations encountered by journalists, principles for the application of fair use in those situations, and the limitations that journalists recommend to define the zone of greatest comfort for employment of this right — all consistent with the development of the fair use doctrine in the courts.”

The set of guidelines notes that the growth of digital journalism, social media and aggregation among journalism organizations has heightened awareness and uncertainty about the use of copyrighted material in journalism. U.S. copyright laws stop short of a strict definition of fair use, allowing flexibility in legal interpretation of the doctrine. Pat Aufderheide, director of the CSM, is presenting the principles today at a TEDx event sponsored by the Poynter Institute in St.

Quick Takes

President’s fourth nominee to CPB Board is former WGBH newsman

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President Barack Obama has nominated Howard Husock, a former producer, director and reporter at WGBH, to serve on the CPB Board of Directors. Husock is currently vice president for policy research at the Manhattan Institute, a libertarian think tank, and directs its Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy Initiative. Husock also served as director of case studies in public policy and management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His tenure at WGBH, during which he won three Emmys and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, was from 1979-86. Husock is the president’s fourth CPB Board nominee.

Programs/Content

Listening to Boston news radio spiked during week of bombings, analysis shows

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Boston’s news radio stations saw sharp increases in listening in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings April 15, a finding highlighted by a new analysis of Arbitron Portable People Meter data by the Radio Research Consortium. Listening to public radio news stations WBUR and WGBH, as well as commercial WBZ, was higher than average throughout much of the week, peaking on April 19 — the day a manhunt for bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shut down the city. On that day, about 1 in 4 Boston residents tuned into one of the three stations, a 53 percent increase above the stations’ average combined cume for April. Average–quarter-hour listening to WBUR and WGBH jumped 50 percent higher than their combined average for the entire month, according to RRC. Commercial WBZ outperformed its noncommercial competitors and saw a larger jump in audience from April 18 to April 19.