Programs/Content

Local, online, news, profitable, sustainable — Which word does not belong with the others?

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“The big opportunity — and where the most disruption is — is in local media.”—Vivian Schiller, president, NPR

“I have little doubt in my mind that, whether it’s us or somebody else, [local news] is going to be a very big space in the future.”—Tim Armstrong, chair and c.e.o., AOL

In the front of the room, NPR President Vivian Schiller and AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong are laying out their corporate strategies to almost a thousand online journalists. It’s the lunchtime general session of the Online News Association (ONA) Conference, and the topic is one of the principal challenges for American journalism: how to provide and sustain local news. The distinction between national and local news often gets lost among the gloomy statistics that surface in so many discussions of the news business. Local newspapers have been folding, probably at a faster rate than many people realize. According to Paper Cuts, 171 local newspapers have closed in the three years 2008-2010, resulting in the loss of 2,800 jobs, not counting early retirements. Locally is where disruptive technology has been the most profoundly disruptive.

Programs/Content

New NPR Chair Dave Edwards to name panel on improving net’s services for radio

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Dave Edwards, g.m. of Milwaukee Public Radio (WUWM) for 25 years, who took over this month as chair of the NPR Board, announced a task force that will consider “how we serve the audience through radio programming as well as digital.” The move responds to station leaders’ concerns that NPR’s focus on digital advances has meant that it’s “not spending as much time on radio as we should,” Edwards said. Task force members will “examine the economics of the programming landscape and articulate the role that NPR should play in that space,” he said, building on the recommendations from Station Resource Group’s “Grow the Audience” report and a recent audience study commissioned by NPR Research. “We do a disservice to this work and the American people if we don’t pay attention to that research,” he said at the board meeting. The new chair is recruiting a representative task force, including NPR insiders and outsiders.

Public Media Policybase

Schiller discusses Juan Williams affair in remarks to NPR Board

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NPR President Vivian Schiller’s remarks near the end of NPR Board meeting, Nov. 12, 2010. Over the last three weeks, I’ve heard from a lot of people — we all have — challenging what NPR is, what it does, and why we’re here. We’ve heard assaults on our programming, and on our objectivity. We’ve read some critical listener letters  and comments posted on NPR.org and elsewhere.

Programs/Content

NPR sets a goal: add 100 reporters to statehouse beats

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A multiyear initiative led by NPR, Impact of Government, eventually will put two additional state-level reporters to work in each of the 50 states, along with a small team of editors and data analysts at the network. Pilot coverage in eight states will begin in March [NPR request for proposals]. The $1.8 million kickoff grant from the Open Society Foundations, founded and chaired by financier George Soros, will cover planning and part of pilot costs, but launching the full project will require $17 million, and sustaining it will cost $18 million a year, according to Ron Schiller, NPR senior v.p. of fundraising and president of the NPR Foundation. The project, developed during strategic planning talks over the past 18 months, is public radio’s first major effort to make a fundraising case for a combined local/national project. NPR will join stations in asking funders to back their aspiration to take up enterprise and long-form reporting on a beat once dominated by daily newspapers — state government and public affairs — that public radio most often covers as daily spot news.

Programs/Content
O'Reilly and Williams on O'Reilly's Fox News program

Under-explained firing makes NPR an issue just in time for election

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Top NPR officials may have thought their Oct. 20 decision to dismiss veteran journalist Juan Williams was about journalistic objectivity, but to many outsiders it sounded more like a story of arrogant lefty political correctness. That narrative opened up public radio — and all of public broadcasting — to a political attack that may help the candidates of Fox News and the Republican Party rally their conservative base for the midterm elections Nov. 2. Criticism of the firing was not limited to the partisan right.

Public Media Policybase

Schiller apologizes to pubradio colleagues for handling of Williams firing

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NPR President Vivian Schiller dispatched this apology Sunday evening, Oct. 24 [2010], six days after the network set off a pre-election political firestorm with its firing of news analyst Juan Williams. She stands by the decision but not the way it was handled. Dear Program Colleagues,

I want to apologize for not doing a better job of handling the termination of our relationship with news analyst Juan Williams. While we stand firmly behind that decision, I regret that we did not take the time to prepare our program partners and provide you with the tools to cope with the fallout from this episode. I know you all felt the reverberations and are on the front lines every day responding to your listeners and talking to the public. This was a decision of principle, made to protect NPR’s integrity and values as a news organization.

Quick Takes

NPR fires news analyst Juan Williams

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NPR fired news analyst Juan Williams late yesterday over comments he made about Muslims during an Oct. 18 appearance on Fox News. Williams, a news pundit and commentator who had contracts with both networks, was reacting to remarks by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly when he said: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried.

People

RTDNA national Murrow Awards for 2009

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NPR won four national Edward R. Murrow Awards in latest RTDNA contest honoring excellence in electronic journalism. Top winners among the 14 additional public radio newsrooms recognized by the Radio Television Digital News Association for 2009  include Boston’s WBUR, honored for overall excellence among large-market radio stations, and Michigan Radio’s The Environment Report, cited for best news series in the radio network division. Among five public radio outlets that won in the small-market division, North Country Public Radio in Canton, N.Y., won a Murrow for investigative reporting by David Sommerstein and WSHU in Fairfield Conn., for Charles Lane’s continuing coverage of attacks against Latinos in Patchogue, Long Island. The national Murrow for overall excellence among broadcast-affiliated websites went to NPR.org, which was redesigned last summer to highlight news headlines and feature more visual elements. NPR’s winning news reports include:

A Familiar Enemy for Platoon,” a two-parter reported by Tom Bowman and Graham Smith, sharing the national Murrow for hard news reporting;

“Friday Night Lives,” a series on high school football by Tom Goldman and Mike Pesca, for sports reporting;
“Can I Just Tell You?,” commentaries by Tell Me More host Michel Martin, for writing; and

“In the Kennel: Uncovering a Navy Unit’s Culture of Abuse,” an investigation of hidden abuses of homosexuals in the military by Youth Radio’s Rachel Krantz, aired on All Things Considered.

People

George Foster Peabody Awards for 2009

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Producers for public broadcasting — and developers for its websites — received 14 Peabody Awards, announced March 31, 2010
Regarding websites, the judges honored two in public media:

Sesame Street’s (“prodigious adaptability . . . delightfully educational, interactive,” the Peabody announcement said) website
NPR’s (“one of the great one-stop websites. And there’s music you can dance to”) website

Peabodys went to six PBS programs — double the number won by any other organization:

“Jerome Robbins: Something to Dance About,” about the great New York choreographer, from WNET/American Masters, produced and directed by Judy Kinberg, with Susan Lacy, e.p. — website

“The Madoff Affair” from RAINmedia and WGBH/Frontline, written and produced by Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith, edited by Jordan Montminy, with Chris Durrance, co-producer — website, watch online

two films on Independent Lens—

“The Order of Myths,” about the black and white Mardi Gras traditions of Mobile, Ala., by Margaret Brown, with Folly River Inc., Netpoint Productions, Lucky Hat Entertainment and ITVS (“highly original, moving and insightful”) — website
“Between the Folds” from Green Fuse Films and ITVS about the art of paper-folding (“makes you gasp at the possibilities — of paper and of human creativity”) — website

“Endgame,” a dramatization of secret talks that helped end apartheid in South Africa, from Daybreak/Channel 4/Target Entertainment, presented on WGBH’s Masterpiece Contemporary — website

“Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times,” from KCET, Los Angeles (“drama enough for several feature films”), written, directed and produced by Peter Jones, with Brian Tessier, supervising producer, and exec in charge, Bohdan Zachary — website

KCET also scored with with its regional broadcast SoCal Connected—specifically two reports on the medical-marijuana conflict (“lively, eye-opening coverage”)—“Up in Smoke” by correspondent Judy Muller, producer Karen Foshay and editor Alberto Arce, and  “Cannabis Cowboys” by reporter John Larson, producer Rick Wilkinson, editor Michael Bloecher, and associate producer Alexandria Gales.

People

Jim McEachern, 71, NPR’s point man for infrastructure

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Jim McEachern, who was the principal technical leader for the Public Radio Satellite System for its first two decades and was a key planner of NPR’s technical facilities, died March 3 at age 71. He was one of NPR’s first employees in 1971 and worked for the network for 33 years until he retired in 2004. McEachern leaves his wife, Mary E., children Terrance, Elizabeth and Molly, and sister Janet Macidull. The family will hold a celebration of his life Saturday, April, 3, at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rockville, Md. In lieu of sending flowers, friends may donate to their local public radio stations.

Programs/Content

News cycle attracts record listening

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NPR programming on public radio stations topped its previous audience record by reaching 27.5 million listeners a week during Arbitron’s fall 2008 survey period. The weekly cume audience for all NPR programs and newscasts, Sept. 10 to Dec. 10, beat the previous high of 26.4 million set last spring. It is one of several ratings gains announced March 23 by NPR Research:

Measuring audiences for non-NPR as well as NPR programs on those member stations, the weekly cume hit another all-time high, 32.7 million, 6 percent larger than fall 2007.

Programs/Content

Schiller: ‘No reason for NPR to go it alone’ on the Web

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An often touted and tabled proposal to recast public radio’s web presence as a combination of content from NPR and its member stations is gaining traction among leaders in the field. With strong support from its new president, Vivian Schiller, NPR is beginning to plan a pilot project that would demonstrate how stations’ local news efforts could be integrated with NPR content. Creation of a news portal that integrates pubradio’s world, national and local news coverage will also be endorsed by Grow the Audience, a research and consultation project managed by the Maryland-based Station Resource Group and funded by CPB. The recommendation in the Grow the Audience report, which has yet to be released, was developed in consultation with web strategists who described the online service opportunity that public radio could seize, said Tom Thomas, SRG co-chief executive. The report will call for pubradio to build a collaboratively managed “world-class public-service media news portal” that integrates international, national and local content.

People

Schiller hit ‘every point’ on NPR’s c.e.o. wish list

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NPR’s next president made one giant leap in the news business two years ago when she moved from long-form documentary production into digital media for the New York Times Co., but it wasn’t the first or the last of Vivian Schiller’s career.In the early 1980s, Schiller was living in the Soviet Union, working as a translator and guide for professional groups touring the country, when she was hired as a “fixer” for the Turner Broadcasting System. The job required her to do everything from translating during negotiations for TV productions to making dinner reservations, and it gave her an entrée into television. “I fell in love with media,” she said. Schiller rose from entry level to executive v.p. of CNN Productions, an award-winning documentary unit. Her predecessor in the job was Pat Mitchell, who left CNN in 2000 to become PBS president.