Programs/Content
Kentucky Public Radio’s recipe for a statewide voter guide success
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It takes some planning to create a voter guide that geolocates users, but the payoff is entirely worth it.
Programs/Content
How students are bringing new perspectives to 2024 election coverage
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“On Our Minds: Election 2024,” a special podcast from PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, spotlights young people’s views on issues that impact their lives — and the nation’s future.
Programs/Content
America Amplified focuses 2024 election project on underserved communities
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CPB provided a $1.5 million grant backing expansion to newsrooms in all 50 states.
Programs/Content
How KPBS expanded its reach to San Diego’s Latino communities
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A five-month sprint to deliver Spanish-language election content embraced community partnerships and social media promotion.
Programs/Content
What America Amplified learned about engagement during the midterm elections
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America Amplified’s focus on the mechanics of voting highlighted the challenges of reaching beyond public media’s current audiences.
Programs/Content
With ‘Our Body Politic,’ Farai Chideya opens a new conversation about American politics
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By centering its coverage on women of color, the radio show and podcast digs deep to bring new voices and perspectives to public media.
Programs/Content
How crowdsourced questions fueled election coverage for California stations
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Partners in the multimedia project used social media marketing and a variety of digital tools to get a broad cross-section of voters talking about ballot measures.
Quick Takes
WNYC and ProPublica join collaboration to monitor, report on voter access
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More than two dozen public radio stations will also participate.
Programs/Content
Convention coverage sparks comments from listeners, public TV stations
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The executives’ displeasure prompted a response from WETA, home to NewsHour.
Diversity
Hinojosa explores civic life in town where multiculturalism is the norm
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America By The Numbers, a PBS election special produced by Maria Hinojosa, looks at the demographic shifts found in U.S. Census data, focusing on people whose engagement in community life exemplifies the increased diversity of American civic life.
Programs/Content
NewsHour gives party conventions 18 hours, assigns female anchor team
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With the NewsHour‘s Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff stepping into co-anchor roles for PBS’s coverage of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, producers have reconfigured their set and editorial plans for the 18 hours of live broadcasts that begin airing on PBS stations on Tuesday.
The coverage, airing at 8 p.m. ET through Thursday on most PBS stations, marks the passing of the torch from retired anchor Jim Lehrer, and makes Ifill and Woodruff the first female anchor due to co-anchor coverage of the major party conventions…
Programs/Content
Late date seals fate of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s debate
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When three unlikely partners — a conservative newspaper in the nation’s capital, a blue-state Republican organization and a public broadcasting station in a quirky, liberal city — set out last fall to change the tenor of GOP primary debates.
Programs/Content
This time we let our listeners hear directly from candidates
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In fall 1992, a number of public broadcasting’s gatekeepers opened their gates to give candidates unedited, unmediated “free time” to talk with the electorate over the air. Here’s a first-hand report on the experience, from two public radio program directors — Dave Becker of WDUQ, Pittsburgh, and Dave Kanzeg of WCPN, Cleveland. We’re here to confess to breaking a few broadcasting rules. They’re not in any FCC handbooks or federal code, but they seem to be universal anyway:
Never break your regular format for politics. Never give up control of your station’s sound to politicians.
Programs/Content
Advocates of free time for candidates are many — those who try it are few
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Though the 1988 campaign prompted many calls for television networks to let candidates talk directly to the voters, candidates again this season have to buy time or squeeze through the media filter to get on the air. That’s not to say that some producers aren’t trying the idea; the ones who do, however, are finding that their success in presenting candidates in an unedited, nonconfrontational format hinges on the political considerations of candidates, networks and viewers. Voices of the Electorate, the two-part series produced by Alvin Perlmutter’s Independent Production Fund (IPF) and two minority citizens’ groups, is the most visible recent example (Current, Sept. 21). The series aired last month after PBS and the American Program Service ordered last-minute cuts to eliminate Democratic candidate Bill Clinton’s unedited comments, which both distributors deemed ”inappropriate.” APS said Clinton’s remarks didn’t respond to the minority issue discussed in the program.
Public Media Policybase
The Voters’ Channel: A Feasibility Study, 1990
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The Markle Foundation, then a major backer of public TV, proposed in 1990 that PBS develop the Voters’ Channel, a project planned to make more useful information available to voters. Here are excerpts from the 132-page feasibility study prepared for Markle by the independent production company Alvin H. Perlmutter Inc. Markle offered $5 million to help PBS undertake the project in time for the 1992 election, but the foundation and PBS could not reach agreement on plans. The project was dropped in June 1991. [Current coverage.]
Preface | Summary of Recommendations | Introduction | Is It Feasible? Preface
American government has become weaker in the age of television.