System/Policy

Chicago Public Media to purchase Radio Arte

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Chicago Public Media is paying $450,000 to buy Radio Arte, a low-power station programmed by and for Latino youth and operated by the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. CPM also plans to buy programming from Radio Arte to add to its Vocalo service. “This is a natural partnership,” said Silvia Rivera, Vocalo’s managing director, whose career in public media began in 1998 after taking part in Radio Arte’s media training program. “This partnership between two youth-driven public radio stations builds on a collaborative history and their complementary community missions,” the new partners said in a June 22 press release. CPM will also sponsor museum activities and events as part of the arrangement.

People

Daniel del Solar, 71, believer in progressive public media

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Daniel del Solar, 71, a Chilean-American media activist, poet and photographer who headed training for CPB in its early days and later managed countercultural stations in San Francisco and Philadelphia, died Jan. 13 in Oakland, Calif. He had prostate cancer. Del Solar served as director of training and development at CPB in the late 1970s, during a period of active recruitment and training of ethnic-minority professionals. He later became g.m. of San Francisco’s KALW-FM from 1985 to 1992 and of Philadelphia’s WYBE-TV from 1992 to 1995.

Public Media Policybase

Latino producers object: PBS diversity data ‘incomplete and often anecdotal’

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The Diversity Committee of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers sent this letter to PBS about its November 2008 Report on the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content. The letter was released by Defend the Honor, a Latino civil rights group that led the protests against Ken Burns’ series 2008 The War. March 4, 2009

Ms. Paula Kerger, Chief Executive Officer
Ms. Haydee M. Rodriguez, Director, Diversity Initiative
Public Broadcasting Service
2100 Crystal Drive
Arlington, VA 22202-3785

Dear Ms. Kerger and Ms. Rodriguez:

We would like to thank you for the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content (November, 2008). As you know, NALIP strongly supports and encourages PBS in its efforts to accurately reflect the diversity of American life in its programming and staffing. While we applaud the effort to generate an assessment of the system’s diversity practices, we are concerned by the report’s statement that PBS “cannot paint the full picture of its ‘diverse’ content or the diversity of its staff.”

Programs/Content

Latino critics of The War seek assurance from PBS, WETA

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Advocacy groups protesting Ken Burns’ upcoming World War II doc asked PBS and WETA in Washington, D.C., Aug. 20 [2007] for assurance that the producers would work harder to include Latinos in “current and future programming. The statement about Burns’ The War bore the signatures of 53 individuals, ten media, policy and educational organizations and Defend the Honor, the coalition that first challenged Burns. In a response, PBS said it “continues to build upon our track record of inclusion in programming, in front of and behind the camera.” WETA has issued no response. The full statements from Defend the Honor and PBS are below.