Current (https://current.org/project-category/sense-of-place/page/7/)
100 Days in Appalachia is a reporting project created the day after the 2016 election that pushes back against parachute journalists’ and national narratives about rural America. It’s published at the West Virginia University Reed College of Media Innovation Center in collaboration with West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) and The Daily Yonder, of the Center for Rural Strategies, headquartered in Kentucky.
Our Hometown is a series that highlights local stories told from the perspective of community members in New Hampshire.
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.
The Ship Report is a daily morning podcast that highlights the role of mariners and the local maritime environment.
North Country at Work is a multiplatform project exploring the “history of work” through photographs stored in libraries, historical associations, museums and residents’ homes. We go community by community, to scan photographs and record stories about work. We are building a software platform for archival materials that will be searchable and interactive, encouraging exploration and discovery. We will share the software platform with other stations to use for their own multimedia projects.
Every day at KUT, we try to think about what you want to know. That’s what drives the decisions we make about the stories we tell. But we wanted to try an experiment to bring you, the audience, closer to the news and storytelling we do at KUT. So, we’re starting a project called ATXplained. The project starts with a simple question: What are you curious about?
The Outdoorsy podcast was created to share stories about the people and places of Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. Each episode, between 15-20 minutes, places the listener rock climbing, spelunking or other outdoor activities to give a feel for the parks. We feel it’s a great way to be hyper-local and take listeners on an experience that explains the places around them in a fresh way.
Ode is a bimonthly live storytelling event from KWIT-KOJI Siouxland Public Media, of which Stories Without Borders was one installment. For this particular evening, the station teamed up with two other nonprofit organizations: the Mary Treglia Community House, whose mission is to help immigrants living in the community, and the Sioux City Art Center. Six storytellers stood before a live audience to tell their stories of leaving one home for another.
In 2013 KCOS launched Only in El Paso, a web video series that tells positive and unique stories about the people and places one can only find in El Paso. The goal is to provide opportunities to area filmmakers and to expand perceptions El Paso. The project is created and produced in partnership with local filmmakers. Also collaborating are Destination El Paso and PBS Digital Studios. To date three full seasons of mini-documentaries have been completed reaching over 100,000 viewers.
New England Public Radio and Amherst College’s Copeland Colloquium have collected the personal stories of nearly 30 people from around the world who have made their new home in western New England. Traversing continents and cultures, the project illuminates the many pathways leading to our small corner of the globe, and explores the shared experience among those seeking a new life in a foreign land.
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.
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.”
Wisconsin Life is a multiplatform project highlighting what it means to live in or be from Wisconsin.
Arthur, Illinois, population 1,600, is “The Heart of the Illinois Amish Country,” a place where “You are a Stranger Only Once.” For this 7th edition of a continuing series we invited Arthur’s leading citizens too help us shape the program. We partnered with the newspaper. We trained 28 residents as “storytellers,” who captured video footage, provided photos and memorabilia. Their work was edited into a 2-hour program that became a treasured experience of community celebration, made possible by WEIU TV.
In 2015 Kansas City PBS became a partner of Hearken, a public-powered journalism initiative that collects questions from the public and bases reporting from those questions. Curious KC asks: “What do you wonder about Kansas City, the region or its people that you would like KCPT to investigate?” Reporting on community-submitted questions has added a kind of user testing to the station’s editorial process.
For over 20 years, WPSU’s Our Town video series has captured the spirit of local communities from the perspective of the residents by providing an opportunity for the community to share the unique features of their town. Approximately 25 community volunteers collect video and photos and then are on camera telling stories in the final program in each community. WPSU currently produces four “Our Towns” a year with the stories airing during a special heavily promoted evening slot.
HMPG host Stephen Joffe interview local food experts in Portland to highlight different approaches to food.
Bay Curious is a podcast that that aims to involve our community in coverage. Viewers help decide the topics and help investigate.
KPS aired 7 hours of Canada-focused programming in celebration of Canada Day on July 1st. Half our donors live in Canada and we knew they’d appreciate the love. We also secured Canada streaming rights for many of the shows that we promoted on social media and through a targeted email series. Openers received an email on the morning of reminding them of the event and following up with an ask for a “celebratory” $150 donation in honor of the 150th Canada day. We received $3,200 from 24 donors, 3,100 digital streams and 175 likes, comments or shares.