Milwaukee PBS partnered with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper, WUWM Milwaukee’s NPR, and the Milwaukee Public Library to listen to and engage with, then ultimately share, the stories of a historically underserved African-American neighborhood in Milwaukee. The hyper-focus of this initiative serves to highlight stories and struggles that deserve attention and discussion. With three distinct media partners, we are able to reach more people and share these throughout our community.
The initial event is an online Zoom discussion based on a specific topic or issue moderated by a panel of experts, community leaders, and community partners. The idea, and the goal, is designed to hear, truly hear, from the members of this community and cultivate a discussion that can help lead to action around the topic.
All of the partners use their particular medium to promote and broadcast the event. Milwaukee PBS then takes this Zoom discussion and turns it into a 30-minute tv show broadcast each month.
Initially these were to be live, in-person events, but the pandemic forced us to embrace the virtual experience. This is an initiative we will continue throughout the year and into next. We will also be exploring ways to develop similar initiatives to engage more voices and other diverse communities to amplify their stories.