Parent Engagement App Hackathon

Over an intensive two-days in November 2016 WGBH welcomed parents, early childhood educators, librarians, pediatricians, designers, and developers to brainstorm apps that parents could use with their children. Working teams focused on apps for family health and wellness. Outcome ideas, included Lil Chef that involves children in cooking and mealtime prep, and, Arthur Out Loud that allows children to practice speaking aloud by themselves or with others using ARTHUR characters as their avatars.

Producer Peter CottonTale gives feedback on students' samples at a Music Lab event in October 2017.

Grace Weber’s Music Lab (2017 Finalist)

Grace Weber, a Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter hosts a monthly session – Grace Weber’s Music Lab — where she invites local high school musicians to perform in an “open-mic” setting. In addition, a professional musician or entertainment industry guest shares professional advice and critiques the students’ performances. Each session includes an educational module, guest interview, and student performances.

Coverage of Opioid Crisis

Starting in January 2016, our station began looking in to the Opioid crisis in our local area and across Virginia. We involved a wide range of local organizations to expand our understanding of the breadth of the story. We came up with five stories from five reporters, broadcast over five days with extensive digital material each day.

Who Guards the Guardians? A Town Hall Forum

A town hall forum co-sponsored by KANW, the Albuquerque Journal and City of Albuquerque Dept. of Senior Affairs. The project emerged from an Albuquerque Journal series by reporter Diane Dimond on New Mexico’s court-monitored guardianship program for senior citizens. The resulting Town Hall Forum was held in the Journal auditorium and broadcast live. Issues included the lack of transparency in the legal system and insufficient process of managing the costs of court-appointed advisors.

Get Involved

The Get Involved series highlighted local non-profits through radio stories to raise awareness for their efforts.

KVNF Field Sessions

KVNF Field Sessions is a video series showcasing musical acts in western Colorado jointly produced by KVNF and Lost Cabin Productions. It helped bring the station new partners and volunteers with new perspectives.

WABE Civic Engagement and Policy Education Events

Atlanta PBA has launched a year-long series of community events focused on civic engagement and policy education with a secondary goal of enticing a younger, more diverse audience into political involvement. PBA plans to develop community conversations on Governance & Politics, Education, Health and Healthcare, Gentrification & Income inequality, Environmental Sustainability & Conservation, and Diversity in Arts & Culture. Each of the events will be recorded for broadcast on either the radio, TV or web.

WUWM/Precious Lives

Precious Lives is a multiplatform civic engagement project that examines the crisis of gun violence among young people in the Milwaukee area. Over its two-year life, it aspires to “open conversations” between individuals, organizations and community constituencies. Partners include 371 Productions; public radio’s WUWM-FM; WNOV-AM, a black community-oriented commercial station; the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

Curious C-Bus

A Hearken Project exploring a deeper partnership with the local daily newspaper (under new ownership). “Are you curious about Columbus? Find yourself asking questions about the city, the region or the people of central Ohio? Then submit your question to Curious Cbus and we’ll work on getting answers, together, through the resources of 89.7 NPR News, WOSU TV, Classical 101, and the WOSU Digital Media teams.”

Minnesota Varsity

Annual Classical Talent contest for Minnesota High school singers, instrumentalists, composers. Part of Classical MPRs social engagement with young musicians. We also do instrument drives and artist in residence programs.

Capitol Coverage (CO)

The Capitol Coverage Project is a joint effort of 14 non-commercial public and community radio stations mainly in Colorado, with stations in Utah and New Mexico. Jointly directed through an agreement between KUNC and KRCC, it funds a full-time state house reporter year-round, providing daily news feeds to all the participating stations from sessions of the Colorado State Legislature.

Our Hometown

Our Hometown is a series that highlights local stories told from the perspective of community members in New Hampshire.

Biz Here

Panhandle PBS launched the blog Biz Here in 2016 with Senior Producer Karen Welch giving the scoop on development, construction, businesses that are new, changing or closing, and commerce’s intersection with government in and around Amarillo. The initiative has now expanded to include a regular podcast with Welch interviewing local community business leaders and innovators and ending with a business newscast. In addition, Welch will soon be making appearances on NewsChannel 10 discussing area business activity.

Unprisoned: Stories from the System

Unprisoned is a series showing how mass incarceration in New Orleans and Louisiana – the world’s “incarceration capital” – affects families, communities and notions of justice. The first season looked at the effects on citizenry outside prison walls telling stories of people caught in the criminal legal system, of family members of incarcerated persons, and of residents reentering society after serving time. These stories were broadcast on air, produced as a podcast, streamed, and shared at live events.

SD.Net

SD.Net is a service of South Dakota Public Broadcasting. SD.net furthers SDPB’s mission by providing citizens with live and on-demand access to hearings and floor debate of the South Dakota Legislature, Public Utilities Commission Meetings, other Boards & Commissions, Supreme Court Hearings, SDHSAA Championship events, and many, many more types of events. We offer audio and video webcast services to state agencies, boards and commissions, the state legislature, and for hire.

Made Here (2017 Finalist)

Made Here is an initiative designed to bring local Vermont (and other regional) filmmakers work to Vermont PBS viewers, on air and online. The station hired a Local Content Manager, Eric Ford, and tasked him to find and acquire Vermonter-produced content. With Ford’s guidance and focus, the station was able to significantly increase the amount of local content they procured enabling the station to dedicate 12-14 hours per week to local programming in addition to new show premieres every month.

HEARKEN

Hearken is an innovative “participative journalism” platform, built on a foundation laid by the Localore-funded Curious City project at WBEZ, Chicago. It provides a unique “audience-driven” news reporting platform and approach that helps journalists “partner with the public to create relevant and high-performing stories” using digital tools and engagement strategies.

There Goes the Neighborhood

An in-depth look at the gentrification of Brooklyn, from the developers to the mayor’s plan for affordable housing, to the integral role that race plays in the process.

Viewer’s Choice Contest

This was a user generated contest for ideas for our local TV history series to raise brand awareness for “Colorado Experience,” to increase digital engagement and acquire new audience members. Uses Woobox, an application that integrates with social media to solicit ideas from the public, then host a vote to select the winning episode idea. We produce half-hour episodes on that topic and host a screening of the episode in the hometown of the individual who submitted the winning idea.