A growing push for data-driven documentary filmmaking

Wendy Levy, the director of arts consultancy group New Arts AXIS, called for documentary filmmakers to embrace big data tools as a permanent part of their storytelling process during the keynote address at the Media That Matters Conference, held Feb. 15 in Washington, D.C.

Upcoming American Graduate specials tackle lax schools, juvenile justice system

A pair of documentaries to be released for public TV broadcasts next month focus on two of the most difficult aspects of the nation’s dropout crisis — under-performing schools and at-risk youth. 180 Days: A Year Inside an American High School will be presented in conjunction with Tavis Smiley Reports: Education Under Arrest as part of CPB’s American Graduate initiative. Both premiere in late March, and were previewed during a Jan. 30 webinar from the National Center for Media Engagement. For 180 Days, “our goal was to share the perspective of students, how they view the things they have to go through,” Alexis Phyllis Aggrey, production manager of National Black Programming Consortia, told webinar participants.

WBEZ turns to matchmaking in ads aimed at younger listeners

Dubbed the “2032 Membership Drive,” the station’s newest citywide marketing blitz encourages young “interesting people” to “make babies” who will grow up listening to public radio. The ads appear on billboards and buses; a Facebook app created for the campaign has a matchmaking feature to help curious listeners connect.

WXXI and Rochester Museum promote dialogue on race

WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., is teaming up with a local museum to encourage a community dialogue on race relations. The Rochester Museum & Science Center is hosting “Race: Are We So Different?” The traveling exhibit from the American Anthropological Association examines the history, human variations and personal experiences surrounding racial differences. WXXI-FM produced five feature-length reports prior to the exhibit’s Jan. 19 opening. The reports aired during Morning Edition and All Things Considered and examined the political and cultural history of racism, the science and genetics of human biological diversity, the link between race and health, and other matters. WXXI Radio’s daily 1370 Connection public affairs show also is producing four one-hour programs with WDKX-FM, a local urban contemporary station, which run weekly through Feb.

Utah educator named director of state’s broadband network for schools

Utah Education Network, the only public TV licensee to receive a federal broadband grant and to join the national US Ignite project to develop broadband apps, has appointed a Utah school superintendent, Ray Timothy, as its c.e.o. and executive director, effective Oct. 1. Timothy is superintendent of the Park City School District, former super of the rural Millard County district and a former deputy super of the state Office of Education. He succeeds Mike Petersen, who took a faculty position with Utah State University. Since Petersen left in January, the network’s interim chief has been Eric Denna,  co-chair of the UEN Board and chief information officer of the Utah System of Higher Education and the University of Utah.

US Ignite partnership will push for apps using a faster, smarter Internet

The state-operated Utah Education Network and several municipalities are among about 100 members of US Ignite, a new partnership creating services for future broadband networks running up to 100 times faster than today’s Internet. This White House announced the partnership this morning, and President Obama will sign an executive order streamlining the approval process for building broadband infrastructure on and under federal property and coordinating excavations. It will reduce costs, for instance, by permitting broadband construction during highway-building. For a vivid demo of the power that the new networks make possible, John Underkoffler of Oblong Industries, showed off a video of G-speak, a commercially available human-machine interface based on Oblong’s design for the Wii-like technology used in the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report. The press conference kicked off a day-long series of sessions and other events.

Lubbock, WBUR's FB Page

In social media metrics, ROI is more than a sum of fans

… Building and maintaining a meaningful social media presence requires a significant investment of time — and it’s not always easy to measure the return on that investment. What does social media success look like, anyway? Is it when you reach 1,000 followers? 10,000? …

@acarvin’s example

After the Arab Spring began, NPR’s Andy Carvin remains a rare breed. More journalists are using Twitter to find stories and connect with sources, but Carvin says few use it as he does….

Listen closely: What matters to your community — and to donors?

“Outreach is about changing somebody else. Engagement is when you have been changed,” says Mikel Ellcessor, g.m. of WDET in Detroit. “And we have to be open to being changed as a result of these activities.”

“If you’re truly listening to the community,” he continues, “you’ll learn something you didn’t expect, and you’ll have to rethink your position or approach. We still retain the editorial decision-making and control, but we’re opening our minds to consider that there are things that matter to people that we may not know about. If we’re really listening and willing to get new information and be challenged, that’s both good reporting and true engagement.”

WDET’s approach can be good business, too.

High stakes + direct access = full engagement

Noel Gunther remembers the moment when he realized that public broadcasting had to get involved in traumatic brain injury education. It was 2001. Gunther was producing a segment for WETA’s documentary series Exploring Your Brain. He was interviewing hockey Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine, who had been forced to retire at age 34 after several concussions. The first, in 1990, knocked him unconscious and put him into convulsions — and yet LaFontaine was back on the ice 10 days later.

Instructional TV sales exec moves to NBR’s bigger league

In his career in the media niche of instructional television, Mykalai Kontilai worked with several respected names in public broadcasting as well as parts of Scholastic Inc., one of the world’s largest producers of educational materials for children and classrooms.

Two of these key relationships for Kontilai or Teacher’s Choice, the ITV sales company where he was a major marketing presence, fell apart abruptly and after a matter of months — those with a past education chief of NETA and a former CPB finance exec. Kontilai finally left the ITV field after Scholastic ended its business relationship in 2006 because, a spokesperson told Current, the company was “dissatisfied with Mr. Kontilai as a distributor of Scholastic product.”

Some of his ITV customers remain strong supporters, nevertheless, while others cut ties with him. Two station executives said they dissolved contracts with Teacher’s Choice early. Leaving the cloistered and shrinking ITV world opened new opportunities, however, culminating thus far in the announcement Aug. 13 that the for-profit company NBR Worldwide, with Kontilai as c.e.o. and partner Gary Ferrell as c.f.o., had purchased Nightly Business Report, a well-established weeknight show trusted by millions of PBS viewers to provide investment news and advice (Current, Aug.