Current 7.8.13

July 8, 2013 | Vol. 32, No.13 AFI Festival spotlights both films and policy discussions

2 RMPBS gains news chops 6 through merger with I-News Public stations make inroads 11 at creating content for tablets

Current FOR PEOPLE IN PUBLIC MEDIA

Midday show leaps in carriage NPR, WBUR expand Here & Now

By Mike Janssen

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ore than 100 public radio stations have picked up the midday NPR news show Here & Now with its expansion to two hours July 1, many of them to fill the void left by the cancellation of NPR’s call-in show Talk of the Nation.

Produced by WBUR, the show now airs on 302 stations, according to NPR. The Boston station has added six full-time staffers to the program, including new co-host Jeremy Hobson, and has strengthened ties with NPR to collaborate on newsgathering for the midday hours. Fourteen stations

Driving revenue: Donated vehicles bring in big bucks

By Ben Mook

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or donors and development professionals at public stations, the process of converting a used car into a charitable

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across the country have joined a “contributors’ network” for the show, providing stories and reporter interviews stemming from local coverage already underway.

The three-part collaborative model marks a “new paradigm” for a station and NPR teaming up to produce a show, says Charlie Kravetz, g.m. of WBUR. “There has never been a time when NPR has opened up its newsroom and collaborated on a program like this,” Kravetz says.

The addition of Here & Now to NPR’s midday lineup also provides the network and stations with a go-to news team for covering breaking-news events in the midday hours.

Continued on page 9

donation that benefits their favorite pubcasting outlet is a painless, straightforward process.

Both are spared the hassle of selling or disposing of Grandma’s 1990 Ford Taurus.

The donor makes a phone call, arranges a pickup date, signs over the title and can receive a tax credit for the donation. The development director receives a payment — how much can depend on the value of the vehicle and the fee schedule of their preferred vehicle donation vendor. The limited maintenance needed to operate such programs involves little more than running on-air pro-

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motions inviting listeners to donate cars.

But the process that plays out from the donor’s first phone call to the check’s arrival at the station is opaque and can involve a number of for-profit and nonprofit companies that take 20 percent or more of the sale price in fees. These middlemen handle the complicated processes of selling cars and clearing titles, providing a valuable service to stations while competing against each other for their business.

Two third-party vendors that have established partnerships with local pubcasters are Charitable Auto Resources Inc. and Vehicle

Donation to Any Charity’s CarTalk Vehicle Donation Services. Both companies run their programs through central charities, which take legal ownership of the donated cars and receive a share of each sale. Executives of both companies acknowledge that the lack of transparency within the car donation industry has been a problem, and they have adopted practices that provide more disclosure.

Other vendors courting public media stations include the Center for Car Donations LLC and Vehicles For Charity, a fundraising subsidiary of a Colorado nonprofit.

Continued on page 21

‘Old timer’ Barzyk aims to Kickstart drama Director of iconic PBS shows now producing public access

Current Newspaper 6930 Carroll Ave., Suite 350 Takoma Park, MD 20912

Jeremy Hobson, at left, joins longtime host Robin Young for Here & Now’s expanded midday broadcast. (Photo: Liz Linder)

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irector Fred Barzyk began his career at Boston’s WGBH, experimenting with television and the emerging form of video.

He produced dramas for iconic series NET Playhouse and American Playhouse, as well as a cult-hit sci-fi thriller for PBS, The Lathe of Heaven. From there, his cutting-edge documentaries, dramas and educational programs ran on HBO, NBC, ABC and CBS. He directed an array of stars the likes of Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, Dan Aykroyd, Rosie Perez, Matt Dillon, Claire Danes and Lily Tomlin.

Now, the director who won Peabody and Venice Film awards is asking for $4,000 on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter to produce the final short film of his drama tril-

TeleMedia, the public access channel in a Massachusetts town about 25 miles northwest of Boston.

Barzyk, who says he never retired from WGBH, he just lost interest in its slate of productions, is having fun — a lot of fun.

He brags that he persuaded TeleMedia’s programmers to run the opening installment of the trilogy, The Journey, his 2011 tribute to Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame, one Saturday in May, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Or, as he Fred Barzyk, left, directs the volunteer cast of Treasure says, “over and over and over and Hunt, the second scripted drama in a trilogy he created over.” for Chelmsford TeleMedia, a public access channel in The Kickstarter campaign Massachusetts. (Photo: Courtesy Stephen Mann) backs filming of The Waiting Room, a tale of seven fictional ogy on death. It’s set to air on a far different characters who come to realize outlet than those that previously showed the that they don’t actually exist. As with the Continued on page 8 works of his professional career: Chelmsford

12 20 People 8Online Online Current.org Awards 12 Jobs 16 People 5 Obituaries 15 Jobs Output at at Current.org

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2 | July 8, 2013 | Current

Diversity of pubTV docs on display at AFI festival

By Andrew Lapin

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hen the American Film Institute overhauled its annual documentary festival in metropolitan Washington, D.C., to adjust for the loss of its longtime lead sponsor, it created a film showcase centered on policy and politics.

Instead of AFI Silverdocs, the two-weekend festival and filmmakers’ conference that had been held for 10 years in Silver Spring, Md., the institute staged the revamped AFI Docs June 19–23 in multiple Washingtonarea theatres and presented panel discussions of major policy issues underlying select films. AFI also helped filmmakers connect with White House officials and other pow-

Filmmaker Yoruba Richen’s latest documentary, The New Black, won the Audience Award for best feature film at last month’s AFI Docs Festival.

It airs on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2014. (Photo: Luke Rattray)

erbrokers through a new Policy Engagement program.

With the shift in focus, public TV was less visible in this year’s resized event. Yet several of the 10 films that had received financial support from public TV grant-makers or broadcast commitments from PBS stood out among the 53 documentaries in the AFI Docs lineup. One even took the top prize.

CPB, which contributed $100,000 as a festival cosponsor in 2012, reduced its support by half. Yet it sponsored and helped program a panel discussion on high school education, a major focus of its grant-making under the American Graduate initiative.

AFI also mounted four gala screenings centered on the intersection of celebrity and

politics. Documented explores immigration reform through the lens of prominent journalist and activist Jose Antonio Vargas, who co-directed with Ann Lupo. Caucus, directed

by AJ Schnack, digs into the chaos of the 2012 Republican Iowa presidential caucus.

Bill Couturié’s Letters to Jackie features movie stars reading letters sent to Jackie Kennedy after her husband’s assassination. And Herblock: The Black and the White, directed

by Michael Stevens, profiles a well-known political cartoonist.

None of the PBS-bound AFI Docs received red-carpet treatment, but the variety of subject matter encompassed by these films demonstrated that public TV brings diversity of form to the world of documentaries.

Though few of the pubTV-supported films at AFI Docs were overtly political, a handful critiqued America’s role in the world and examined the destructive effects of American culture on other societies. Dan Krauss’ The Kill Team, partially funded by the Independent Television Service (ITVS), explores the battle-addled mindset of a U.S. Army combat unit that murdered and dismembered Afghan civilians for sport in 2010.

Roger Ross Williams’ God Loves Uganda, also an ITVS co-production, demonstrates how American evangelicals have instilled a virulently homophobic mindset into Ugandan society through aggressive missionary work. And Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, expected to air on POV in 2014, profiles Indonesian genocide architects who were heavily influenced by American movies.

The award-winner Yoruba Richen’s The New Black, a feature that chronicles the division in Maryland’s black community leading up to the state’s 2012 ballot initiative granting same-sex marriage rights, received partial funding from

Continued on page 13

Current

6930 Carroll Ave., Suite 350, Takoma Park, MD 20912 Web: Current.org Phone: 301-270-7240, extensions below Fax: 301-270-7241 Managing Editor Karen Everhart, x 33, karen@current.org Senior Editors Dru Sefton, x 39, sefton@current.org Ben Mook, x 32, mook@current.org Assistant Editor Andrew Lapin, x 34, lapin@current.org Associate Editor Mike Janssen, mike@mikejanssen.net Project Editor Steve Behrens, stevebehrens@mac.com Business/Circulation Manager Laura Rogers, x 38, rogers@current.org Advertising Director Kathleen Unwin, 877-745-8776, x 1 unwin@current.org Administrative Assistant Dorian Jones Director of Strategic Initiatives Mark Fuerst, 877-745-8776, x 2 Contributing Editors Louis Barbash, Theodore Fischer Editorial Interns Erica Sanchez-Vazquez, Graham Vyse Founder of Current, 1980 James A. Fellows, National Association of Educational Broadcasters Published 23 times a year as an editorially independent service of American University School of Communication, Washington, D.C., and funded in part by a grant from the Wyncote Foundation.

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Rep. Lamborn bill targets NPR funding Republican Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn reintroduced legislation last month that is identical to his 2011 measure prohibiting public radio stations from using CPB funds to acquire programs or pay NPR dues.

The earlier bill passed the House in 2011 but died in the Senate.

In a June 28 statement, Lamborn criticized NPR’s recent move into its new building on North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C., describing it as an extravagance when “federal workers are being furloughed [and] schoolchildren are barred from visiting the White House.”

To finance the new headquarters, NPR used $35.2 million from the sale of its old building at 635 Massachusetts Ave. and $165.8 million in tax-exempt bonds, issued with assistance from the D.C. government.

Lamborn contends that federal funding of public broadcasting should be eliminated. “In a world of 500-channel cable TV, streaming radio over the Internet and cellphone Internet access,” he said, “government-funded broadcasting is completely unnecessary.”

APTS, NPR retooling 170 Million Americans campaign A grassroots initiative that encourages citizens to lobby Capitol Hill for continued funding to public media is changing its name, revamping its website and updating its social-media outreach.

Starting July 15, the 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting initiative, which launched in December 2010, will become Protect My Public Media, according to a message sent to supporters July 1.

In a statement posted on the National Friends of Public Broadcasting website, NPR’s Mike Riksen said pubcasting’s Washington representatives have been working over several months to make the campaign “a more capable and vital asset in our efforts to preserve federal funding for public broadcasting stations.”

NPR has been collaborating with the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) to revamp the campaign, he said. Riksen is NPR’s v.p. of policy and representation.

Representatives for NPR and APTS declined to discuss the changes with Current.

Sesame Workshop trims workforce as financial losses mount Sesame Workshop, production home to PBS’s Sesame Street, is laying off 10 percent of its workforce, or about 30 staffers.

The company’s financial condition has worsened over the past three years, according to its most recent audited statements. A $130,000 deficit posted in fiscal 2010 grew to $10.8 million the next year and had doubled to $24.3 million by the end of fiscal 2012.

Cash on hand also plunged from $50.5 million in FY10 to $29.1 million in FY11 and $10 million in FY12. In fiscal 2012, the workshop pared $9 million in expenses, largely by reducing its spending on production and development. But the budget cuts were not enough to keep up with a $20.3 million drop in revenues, mainly from declines in program support and distribution fees and royalties.

After 12 years, CPB-backed engagement work ends In a June 26 letter to colleagues, the National Center for Media Engagement announced that it would close as of July 1.

CPB ended its financial assistance to the center with a $1.9 million grant provided last year (Current, June 24).

Wisconsin Public Television, which first established the organization with CPB funding in 2000, will take over the center’s website. CPB is working with Nine Networks in St. Louis to expand what it considers a more effective approach to community engagement, modeled on that station’s American Graduate dropout-prevention work.

Over the center’s lifespan, “nearly every public media station and national organization has collaborated with NCME to infuse engagement thinking into public media’s work,” said Charles Meyer, executive director.

“Now the work of community engagement enters a new phase,” Meyer added, “one defined by the ongoing need to demonstrate relevance and impact arising from a station’s engagement with community leaders, organizations and various demographic groups to address local concerns.”

Gov. Walker vetoes attempt to evict Wisconsin journalism center The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism will live to report another day from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, vetoed an attempt by his state’s Republican lawmakers to evict the nonprofit, nonpartisan center from its university offices when he signed the state budget into law June 30. The budget provision would have forced the center, which occasionally collaborates on stories with Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television, to leave campus and cease collaborating with university staff (Current, June 10).

In a statement June 30, the center thanked Walker while announcing the creation of a new education fund to support its student internship program. WCIJ takes on paid student interns as part of the same resource-sharing agreement that grants the center campus offices and access to journalism faculty.

Current

Siler, left, retires after running WEKU’s membership program for 13 years; New steps up to manage WQLN; Lubinsky returns to commercial radio, spinning hits on request for the Jersey Shore’s classic oldies station WJRZ. Inc., parent company of 23 AM and FM radio stations in the Boston, Charlotte, Detroit, New Jersey and Philadelphia markets, along with weekly newspapers in central New Jersey.

WNET has hired Lesley Norman as director of planning and strategy for American Masters, its arts and culture biography series.

In the new position, Norman will develop media and funding partnerships, and coordinate grant proposals to foundations, government organizations and PBS. She will report directly to Susan Lacy, American Masters creator and executive producer.

Norman brings more than 20 years’ experience in production, editorial, outreach, engagement, and grant and fundraising management to the post. Most recently she was senior producer for the PBS special 180 Days: A Year Inside An American High School.

Norman also served as executive director of Filmmakers Collaborative and v.p. and c.e.o. of JumpStart Productions, providing executive in charge oversight of NOW on PBS. “She brings not only her vast experience and steadfast dedication to documentary filmmaking and public television,” Lacy said, “but the foresight to help American Masters continue to thrive as we move past our milestone 200th episode.”

Pledge legend TJ Lubinsky, whose retro musical revue shows have raised multiple millions of dollars for public television over 20 years, has returned to radio — and he’s hoping his pubTV audience will visit him on the air.

From 2005–09, Lubinsky hosted The Sunday Night Request Show on WJRZ-FM, a classic oldies station out of Manahawkin, N.J. He programmed five live hours of hits weekly from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s from his home in Pittsburgh, but the station dropped the show when it switched formats.

“They just called me back and said they’re going back to the classic hits, and wanted to know if I’d come back,” Lubinsky told Current. “I said, in a heartbeat, ‘Absolutely!’”

His first live show premiered July 7 and runs weekly from 7 p.m. to midnight Sundays.

In an announcement, WJRZ-FM Program Director Glenn Kalina proclaimed Lubinsky “a Jersey Shore treasure!” Lubinsky spent his late teens and early 20s spinning classic hits at clubs along the shoreline.

Lubinsky said there’s a toll-free number for calls. “So anyone who watches or supports the public TV shows can call in free, and I can play their favorite song,” he said. “It’s a way to give something back without asking for money.”

WJRZ-FM is owned by Greater Media

Franz Joachim took over as general manager and c.e.o. of KNME-TV in Albuquerque on July 1.

Joachim has been in broadcasting nearly 40 years. He began at the station in 1999 as production manager, supervising build-out of automated on-air operations and developing a digital-based workflow for KNME production. He rose to director of content in 2010 to oversee scheduling, production, promotion and distribution of content across platforms.

Joachim is also a certified scuba diver and has shot underwater video for documentaries in locations including the Sea of Cortez, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Virgin Islands.

Joachim and Karen Mann, director of finance, have shared acting interim g.m. duties for the last six months, since Polly Anderson left to take over leadership of WUCF TV in Orlando, Fla.

Two staffers are taking buyouts from Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, leaving WEKU-FM stations with six full-time employees.

All university departments were directed to cut upcoming fiscal budgets by 10 percent, Roger Duvall, g.m., told Current. To provide incentives to senior employees to consider retirement, the university offered lump-sum payments.

Carol Siler, development and promotions coordinator for 13 years, took the offer and retired June 28. Siler oversaw all aspects of fundraising at the station, including membership, underwriting and event planning.

During her tenure, she told Current, membership dollars increased by 75 percent.

WEKU hopes to fill the position but with “a somewhat-modified job description,” according to John Hingsbergen, associate manager. The job will be redefined to place more emphasis on growing the station’s underwriting sales.

Music Director Michael Carter also retired June 28; he hosted programs such as Morning Classics and Kentucky Center Stage.

Previously, Carter hosted programs at commercial classical stations WQXR (prior to its 2009 sale to New York Public Radio) and WFLN (now WBEN) in Philadelphia.

A part-time employee will take on hosting duties for WEKU’s Classic 102.1/ WKYL, Hingsbergen said. From July through September, the station will simulcast some music programming from WUOL-FM, the classical station in Louisville.

Continued on page 14

| July 8, 2013 | 5

6 | July 8, 2013 | Current

‘Nostalgia is the enemy. History is the guide’

Rocky Mountain merger to serve ‘audience of the future’ Unfettered by competitive pressures and fortified by trust in their brands, public broadcasters in many states and cities are finding new ways to engage in more local journalism, especially more investigative and enterprise journalism, than ever before.

J-Lab at American University examines various efforts, large and small, through nine case studies in its new report “News Chops: Beefing up the Journalism in Local Public Broadcasting.”

The report, funded by the Wyncote Foundation with supplemental support from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, profiles statewide news cooperatives taking shape in Oregon, Connecticut and New Jersey; newsrooms built from scratch in Denver and New Orleans; the merger of two established newsrooms in St. Louis; and expansion of reporting firepower in San Diego, Salt Lake City, and the rural Blue Ridge Mountains region of western North Carolina.

The following, one in a series to be published in Current, explores the nation’s first formal merger of a public broadcasting network with a nonprofit news startup, which allowed Rocky Mountain PBS to jump-start a newsroom and put itself at the center of efforts to produce enterprise reporting for the state.

Rocky Mountain PBS gained a newsroom — and the exposure that comes with wide distribution of enterprise news coverage — from its merger with I-News. The nonprofit news organization gained “an infrastructure it would have taken us years to build,” Frank said. “We now have 65,000 members.”

By Jan Schaffer

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bout a year after journalist Laura Frank started the nonprofit investigative news startup I-News Network in her kitchen, she moved into offices at Rocky Mountain PBS in downtown Denver.

From that humble beginning in 2009, she built, bit by bit, a half-million-dollar news operation whose five-person team broke the kinds of news stories that changed laws and policy across the state.

Then, in January 2013, Frank — editor, fundraiser, partnership builder, businessperson — took on a new title. In addition to I-News executive director, she became vice president of news at Rocky Mountain PBS. More than taking on a new job, however, she stepped up to an overarching vision for Colorado public broadcasting that led to the nation’s first formal merger of a public broadcasting station with an indie news startup.

“We basically became the news operation of Rocky Mountain PBS,” she said.

For Doug Price, president of Rocky Mountain PBS, the merger was a no-brainer, even though it means his public TV network will now ultimately pick up the tab for the I-News operation.

“We have a strategic vision around pertinence,” he said. “We saw a void in the market and we think we can increase our member-

ships by filling that void, and we’re satisfied that we can do it without financial difficulty.”

A former bank executive, Price thinks in terms of big systems. Not content with being the flagship public television service in the state, reaching one million viewers in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and New Mexico, he is methodically investing in a new model for distribution that will get his broadcast assets moving “higher on all cylinders.”

And so along with the I-News merger, Rocky Mountain PBS entered into formal alliances with three of the state’s five major public radio stations: KUNC in Greeley, KRCC in Colorado Springs and KVNF in Paonia. It also formally merged with Denver’s KUVO, a community radio station that attracts strong listenership among minorities with its jazz-focused music format.

“We wanted to see what the audience of the future is in Colorado, and how we begin to serve them,” Price said. “We wanted to be demographically, geographically and economically broad.”

He also seeks to create a distribution stream that can be “narrowcast, not just broadcast, and have a focus on improving civic life.”

To sustain these new activities, Price projects that RMPBS needs to increase both

its membership and its average gifts by 10 percent.

‘What public media ought to be doing’ The merger announcement was timed to coincide with I-News’ groundbreaking “Losing Ground” special report, which used census data to document, in five parts and an e-book, how the state’s black and Latino residents are falling further and further behind white residents.

That kind of enterprise reporting — offered to every news outlet in the state and combined with a long tail of roundtables, discussions and follow-up stories — is exactly what Price had in mind when he offered to merge with I-News rather than just pay for content. He envisions more “subterranean stories,” so deep, he said, they can support months of follow-ups and have real impact.

“We got lucky,” Price said. “In the first week of ‘Losing Ground,’ every single daily except one carried it on the front page of their Sunday edition.”

“I love the series,” wrote general manager Scott Stanford, on the Steamboat [Springs]

Pilot & Today website. “I can’t wait to publish the next project.”

Indeed, even Colorado Public Radio, which is not a formal part of RMPBS’s collaboration, has run multiple stories.

“Losing Ground” is the kind of journalism that paved the way for I-News to partner with some 100 news outlets around the state.

Some of the larger newspapers had even offered to pay for I-News content in recent years, until those fees fell victim to relentless newsroom cost cutting.

“Then we started trading chickens,” Frank said. For instance, she said, one partner might work on graphic. Another might put in a house ad for I-News’ summer camp.

Even with the merger, I-News will still distribute its journalism to its network of partners. However, Frank said, she has been very upfront in discussing the merger with them. “There will have to be some kind of contribution, either in-kind or real money” to help support I-News’ deep dives.

The merger is seen as a win-win for both parties. The fact that RMPBS had no newsroom meant there were no issues of merging Continued on next page

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Federal judge dismisses three lawsuits against former Sesame Street puppeteer Three lawsuits filed against former Sesame Street puppeteer Kevin Clash were dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled July 1 that the statute of limitations had run out.

U.S. District Court for Southern New York Judge John G. Koeltl dismissed lawsuits filed

by Cecil Singleton, Kevin Kiadii and “John Doe,” each claiming that they had sexual relationships with Clash when they were teenagers.

Clash has been named in five lawsuits, four filed in New York and one in Pennsylvania.

The plaintiff in one of the New York suits withdrew his complaint in April.

The men, all adults now, said they became aware of the injuries sustained by their consensual sexual relationships with Clash only after they reached adulthood.

Federal criminal statutes that deal with coercion, enticement and transportation of minors for sex provide a statute of limitations for civil lawsuits. Under a strict reading of the rules, the plaintiffs have six years from the time of the act to seek damages in civil courts.

The laws also provide a three-year statute of limitations for any plaintiff who has a disabil-

ity, which is not defined in the code. These plaintiffs have three years from the end of the disability to seek damages.

Even under the most favorable interpretations of the law, Clash’s attorneys argued, the window during which the plaintiffs could have sought legal remedies expired between 2001 and 2010. Each of the plaintiffs claimed that his status as a minor at the time of his first encounter with Clash qualified as a disability.

But under that interpretation, Clash’s attorneys said, the three-year statute of limitations would have expired even earlier.

Koeltl ruled that the clock on the statute of limitations started at the time of the relationships. As a result, the actions brought in each the lawsuits were “time barred.”

“The dates on which the plaintiffs connected their psychological injuries to their victimizations are irrelevant to the dates on which their claims accrued under [the section].”

Barring an appeal, the judge’s ruling leaves only the Pennsylvania lawsuit still active against Clash. Plaintiff Sheldon Stephens was the first young man to publicly accuse Clash of improprieties. — Ben Mook

Rocky Mountain merger

should always be married to distribution.”

“Primarily we are an educational institution,” Price said. So he’s also looking to partner with such entities as universities and libraries “to create value over time” and longFrank lived impact.

“Given the trust PBS has, everyone is very cognizant of not putting the thumb on the scale,” he said.

But he forthrightly embraces a more involved mission than do some public stations who “tend to be more aloof and don’t want to be tainted [by] mixing it up with too many partners.”

“We follow much more of the Mother Teresa approach,” he said. “Some careful news organizations might not see that in their best interests.”

Frank now also takes charge of the RMPBS’s weekly Colorado State of Mind program. She says her sponsors have applauded the idea of the merger.

“One of them told me: You have created the bandwagon for people to jump on.” n

Continued from page 6

newsroom cultures.

“When you look at what we were doing and all the impact we’ve had — laws that have changed, changed policy — this is what public media ought to be doing,” Frank said. “They can either build it from scratch or use our stuff.”

While RMPBS has gained a newsroom, I-News got “an infrastructure that would have taken us years to build,” Frank said. “We now have 65,000 members.”

I-News had contracted with a fundraising consultant who recommended a goal of securing 5,000 members, Frank said. “It would have been a heavy lift to get to 65,000 members.”

The merger by no means liberates Frank from fundraising, but she now can participate in some joint fundraising meetings with RMPBS. Moreover, her staff members, as RMPBS employees, now get health and other benefits.

Price said he was motivated by diminishing newspapers, changing TV and the “declining amount of high-value journalism.”

He saw I-News’ objective as “laudable.”

EdNews Colorado, a news service covering public education policy and practice within the state, is also located in the RMPBS building. Price also sees opportunities for more arts and culture reporting, and journalism around STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) issues.

“We had this perspective that public media need a lot of reform. Nostalgia is the enemy.

History is the guide,” he said. “We tell our people we have to train ourselves [to move] from a linear manufacturing company of the ’50s to a tech company” of today.

Key to making that shift is developing the capacity to create content that moves across many distribution platforms and via many distribution partners, and can be shared geographically through the web, applications and social media.

While RMPBS may not be able to do daily reporting, “we can have great impact,” he said.

“From my banking days, if we did a thoughtful review of what our system should be, content

Jan Schaffer is executive director of J-Lab, an incubator for news entrepreneurs and innovators at American University’s School of Communication. A former business editor and a Pulitzer Prize winner for the Philadelphia Inquirer, she left daily journalism in 1994 to lead initiatives in civic journalism, interactive and participatory journalism, and citizen media ventures. She created J-Lab in 2002 to help newsrooms use digital technologies to engage people in important public issues. Disclosure: American University also operates Current as an independent journalism center within its School of Communication. In addition, Current is funded in part by a separate grant from the Wyncote Foundation, which backed J-Lab’s report.

Mark

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Current

| July 8, 2013 | 7

8 | July 8, 2013 | Current

Barzyk

Continued from page 1

two previous films, everyone involved in the production — the cast, crew, composer, musicians, technicians, prop wranglers, set dressers — are volunteers, many retirees. The first two installments had been funded by the Chelmsford Cultural Council, TeleMedia and Barzyk himself, but new backing was needed to green-light the closing drama.

If the Kickstarter campaign meets its goal, Barzyk says, part of the funding will allow him to stage a dramatic closing shot involving the release of “1,000 black balloons filled with helium” at the Nashua Municipal Airport in nearby New Hampshire.

But the biggest budget items cover the cost of gas to transport the actors to town, and food for everyone participating in the production.

“He feeds us well,” says Stephen Mann, the cameraman on Barzyk’s first two films.

It was Mann who helped Barzyk set up the Kickstarter campaign; Barzyk had never heard of the crowd-funding site until Mann suggested that he try it.

As he writes in an email, Barzyk views the project with a sense of nostalgia: “An Old Timer tries to create the Early Days of ETV!!!!!”

Freedom to experiment He began working for the Boston pubcaster in 1958, just three years after it went on the air; a massive fire there in 1961 destroyed some of his early pieces. By 1968 he was heading up the station’s experimental unit, later called the New Television Workshop.

The workshop created video art before the genre even existed, and its projects were fueled by “the freedom to do what could be done only by a TV station just finding out what it could really do,” he says. Among his innovative productions was “the first double-channel broadcast,” which presented a single story through simultaneous broadcasts on both of WGBH’s TV channels. One showed comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding appearing to walk between TV sets tuned to channels 2 and 44, trying to find

their scripts.

In 1979, he directed The Lathe of Heaven for WNET’s Television Laboratory, a critically acclaimed, surrealistic science fiction film that drew a 10 rating in New York and an 8 in Chicago, according to Nielsen. Twenty years later, its still-rabid fan base persuaded WNET to digitally remaster and repackage the film with additional material for rebroadcast on pubTV stations (Current, May 1, 2000). “I can’t tell you how many people tell me how important that film was to them when they watched as teenagers,” Barzyk says.

Even Barzyk’s mainstream work embodied that early, edgy spirit of public television: He executive-produced Puzzlemania, a live, two-hour, interactive children’s program from New York’s WNYC-TV in 1987 and ’88. He was executive producer and director of Destinos, a 56-episode drama-based Spanish language telecourse that ran on PBS from 1988–92, receiving six academic and production awards; it remains a top-selling Annenberg Media learning series. In 1994, he produced and directed Breast Care Test, hosted by Jane Pauley, which showed women how to examine their bodies for cancer. And The Ryan Interview, an Arthur Miller play starring Ashley Judd that he directed, was the first high-definition drama to run on PBS, in August 2000.

Retrospectives of his work ran in 1997 at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

Barzyk has total creative freedom, all the equipment he needs and an eager crew, most of whom are retirees.

‘I have fun,’ he says.

‘Why do anything if not for fun?’

Fred Barzyk, left, with cameraman Stephen Mann, a former pubcaster at KTEH in San Jose, Calif., now part of KQED. “I learn something every time I work with him,” Mann says of Barzyk.

(Photo: Courtesy Stephen Mann) in Lincoln, Mass., and in 2000 at the Haggerty Museum of Art at his alma mater, Marquette University, in his hometown of Milwaukee.

Barzyk remained active with WGBH until 2001. “I didn’t really retire,” he says, “I just wasn’t interested in the shows they were doing anymore.”

“Hell, I want to do drama” Although Barzyk had lived in Chelmsford since 1971, town leaders “didn’t know who I was,” he says, “and I liked that.”

But by 2004, they discovered that a television pioneer lived in their midst and approached Barzyk about working at their public access television station, located in the basement of Parker Middle School. “I walked up to the school, rang the bell, signed in and had to work my way through all these kids to get to the studio.”

He discovered a subterranean treasure trove of TV gear. “High-def equipment, Final Cut Pro — I could do more shows than at WGBH.” Barzyk started out by producing a behind-the-scenes documentary on the town’s big Independence Day parade. He shot features on the senior center and restaurants.

“Finally, I said, ‘Hell, I want to do drama.’”

And so he did. Treasure Hunt, the second short film in the series, premiered in May at the Chelmsford Center for the Arts. In it a soldier returns from World War II and gives

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local kids a treasure map that leads them to toys. “He disappears, and then they discover he’s already dead,” Barzyk says. “That one was written by a guy across the street from me.”

That’s the magic behind Barzyk’s work with TeleMedia, says Mann, his cameraman.

“It’s all pretty much just people from town.

Out in the field, it’s not unusual to see 12 or 18 of them, with more behind the scenes.”

Mann says Barzyk’s deep belief that art belongs to the people springs from his many years in public broadcasting. “Nobody actually owns the piece,” Mann says. “Fred grew up professionally at PBS, and ‘public’ is their main emphasis.”

Mann also worked in the system, at KTEH in San Jose, Calif., now part of KQED, some 20 years ago. He runs his own company, MannMade Digital Video, from the nearby town of Westford.

Collaborating with Barzyk “is certainly not what I thought it would be,” Mann adds.

“For somebody with his resume, I expected a no-nonsense attitude, someone who wouldn’t tolerate mistakes. It’s exactly the opposite.

I’m constantly amazed at how he overlooks screw-ups by the crew — and that happens often, with all the untrained volunteers.”

As Pete Pedulla, a staff producer at TeleMedia, says, “Most volunteers we have to train, but here was one who could train us, in a way.”

Barzyk loves the creative process. “What I have is total freedom,” he says. “And I have all the equipment I need. Most of the volunteers are retired, so I have to make sure they don’t have heart attacks — I can’t push them too hard. And volunteer actors, just like when I started at WGBH.” Barzyk, Mann and all the volunteers plan to shoot The Waiting Room one weekend in September. The characters “are coming to the end of their fictional lives. They’re all in a waiting room. They all realize they’re not people; they only exist as characters. They eventually go out to catch a plane to God knows where.”

Matthew Scott, general manager of TeleMedia, says the film will most likely premiere on the big screen at the arts center; several hundred townfolk turned out for debuts of the previous installments.

Barzyk is already excited about the trilogy’s closing scene. “Steve built a helicopter camera, and it will take off and fly up into the clouds” as the cast and crew and the volunteers, all dressed in black, release the black helium balloons, he says.

That shot is characteristic of Barzyk’s style, Mann notes. “He loves to end movies with the whole crew in the picture.”

“I have fun,” Barzyk says. “Why do anything, if not for fun?” n Questions, comments, tips? sefton@current.org

Current

Here & Now

tag, NPR and WBUR will share in making up the shortfall. “Midday is not the easiest time to monetize,” Kravetz says. “That’s why it makes Continued from page 1 sense to share risks and benefit from working NPR will have the option of extending such together.” coverage to stations that don’t carry Here Meanwhile, NPR, whose revenues have & Now, and the network could also step in not been keeping pace with spending, has when needed to take over reporting from its trimmed several hundred thousand dollars Washington, D.C., headquarters. from its budget by ending Talk of the Nation, “If there’s breakaccording to Knell. ing news, we’ll be While WBUR first responders,” expands its in-house Kravetz says. production staff for Previously, NPR’s Here & Now from breaking-news cov11 to 17, NPR has erage during midday assigned Bridget As Here & Now expands to two hours fell either to Kelley, supervising hours, producers initially will tap a Talk of the Nation or senior producer of network of 14 contributing stations as an ad hoc assembly Weekend Edition, they refine the process of incorporating of NPR hosts and to serve as a liaison locally produced news coverage into producers. between WBUR’s the midday show. The network will Stations have team and NPR. An eventually expand to include any stabeen asking for a assistant producer will tions that want to participate. Stations newsmagazine to fill also work for Here contributing during the trial phase the hours between & Now out of NPR’s include: Morning Edition headquarters.

WNPR Hartford, Conn. and All Things Another channel WHYY Philadelphia Considered, says of content for the WFPL Louisville, Ky. NPR President Gary show will spring from Knell. “This now WLRN Miami the contributors’ netprovides that vehicle, work of public radio WUNC Chapel Hill, N.C. and this really will stations around the KUHF Houston be much more of the country (see box, left).

KUT Austin, Texas ‘newsroom of the The show’s relationWCPN Cleveland nation’ that I’ve been ships with these contrying to promote.” tributors will differ WUOM Ann Arbor, Mich.

“Given what we’ve from NPR’s customKCUR Kansas City, Mo. seen since September ary approach to workKWMU St. Louis 11, there are a lot of ing with stations: Here Colorado Public Radio, Denver big events, whether & Now will work on a they’re human- or KJZZ Phoenix faster turnaround by weather-related, that adapting some pieces KQED San Francisco require the kind of already produced for coverage that you local stations and carwould get in Morning Edition or All Things rying interviews with station reporters.

Considered, but they happen in the middle The show will not commission pieces from of the day,” says Helen Barrington, executive stations and build them from the ground up director for programming at New England as NPR does, however. NPR “has very deep Public Radio in Amherst, Mass. The network back-and-forth iterations of the work,” Kravetz has carried Here & Now since NPR disconsays. “That is not our model.” tinued Day to Day in 2008, and it added the NPR’s Smith told PRNDI attendees that show’s second hour July 1. the show will aim for two pieces a day from Yet some station programmers and journalists are also lamenting the loss of Talk of the Nation, which aired on 407 stations. At the Public Radio News Directors Inc. conference in Cleveland June 21, John Dankosky, news director at Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network in Hartford, said the show’s cancellation closed down an avenue for listeners to be heard on the air. With its ending, public radio is “losing a lot of talkshow muscle,” Dankosky said in a discussion with Margaret Low Smith, NPR’s senior v.p. of news.

Smith said the decision was “painful” but that NPR should fill gaps in programming that stations can’t, and that many stations have developed their own midday talk shows.

H&N to test approach for adding local reports

Sharing risks and reporting WBUR began producing the one-hour Here & Now in 1997 and offering it nationally through Public Radio International after 9/11.

In its new role as a production partner, NPR is assisting in hiring staffers, creating content and developing the tone for the two-hour version.

To cover what Kravetz calls the “substantial additional costs” of expanding the program by hiring new staff, WBUR will seek new underwriters for the show. GEICO has signed on as a new national sponsor, and MathWorks, a Massachusetts-based software company, is continuing a decade-long sponsorship as well.

If the station is unable to cover the price

| July 8, 2013 | 9

Major layoffs ahead for New York’s WBAI Pacifica chief initiates talks with SAG-AFTRA union

By Mike Janssen

T

he Pacifica Foundation will lay off 75 percent of the staff at WBAI, its station in New York, in an effort to put the foundering station on steady financial footing.

Pacifica Interim Executive Director Summer Reese traveled to New York last week to begin negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists chapter representing WBAI employees. The talks will determine which employees in particular will be let go. If carried out as planned, the job cuts will reduce WBAI’s full-time workforce from 28 staff to seven.

In recent months the station has struggled with cash flow, falling behind on payments to its employees and rent on its antenna. Its difficulties in meeting payroll go back years, according to Reese. Pacifica’s national office no longer has funds to cover the station’s shortfalls, she said.

“We have stripped every resource available [at the national office] rather than deal with the situation,” Reese said.

The cuts to WBAI’s staff are expected to save $900,000 a year. WBAI’s payroll and benefits expenses total more than $1 million annually, accounting for half of the station’s

stations.

After WBUR works with participating stations to refine its processes for shepherding pieces to air, the contributors’ network will grow to any stations that wish to participate, Kravetz says. WBUR will pay station reporters for their contributions.

Boosting a news network By increasing its focus on news of the day, the revamped Here & Now will be a “very different program,” says NEPR’s Barrington, who visited WBUR last month with about a dozen

, tists r A , with s ians n c i o i s t r u a e vershors, Mnd othds n o C Aut ors a min Act eative cr

For more information, contact: On the Strip Radio info@onthestripradio.com 310.566.4627 Creative PR info@creativepr.org 888.233.5650

total expenses. Pacifica may reduce salaries of the station’s management as well.

The job reductions were triggered by a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Labor over WBAI’s inability to pay its workers. A department representative contacted Pacifica’s national office, prompting the foundation to create a working group to develop a restructuring plan for the station.

If Pacifica lays off any paid hosts or producers, it may have to determine how to fill airtime left vacant by the departures. “We have to evaluate all the programming,” Reese said. “We wouldn’t be in this state if the programming were reaching a wider audience.”

WBAI boasts historical significance and iconic name recognition — its hosts in the ’60s pioneered a new style of freeform radio, with countercultural icons such as Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg appearing as guests. The station also fought the FCC in the famous “seven dirty words” indecency case.

But today the station draws only a small audience, despite a signal that blankets the city. “There are large communities of interest in New York that we’re not reaching and not resonating with,” Reese says. “We can reach those populations. We need to reinvent WBAI and put it out there in a new way.” n Questions, comments, tips? mike@mikejanssen.net

representatives of stations from the Northeast to learn about the new show.

A noticeable change will also be the addition of Hobson, who previously hosted American Public Media’s Marketplace Morning Report. The matchup between Hobson and co-host Robin Young could make or break the show, Barrington says, “and I know it’s going to make it. He and Robin sound great together. It’s a very natural pairing, and there’s no way you can know that until you hear it.” n Questions, comments, tips? mike@mikejanssen.net

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10 | July 8, 2013 | Current

History Detectives promoted to investigators in series revamp

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the show to 8 p.m. Tuesdays, where in many markets its lead-in was PBS NewsHour; its average Nielsen ratings fell 30 percent, from a 1.3 to 0.9. (At the time, PBS national primetime ratings averaged 1.4). Then last summer the detectives competed for viewers with the Summer Olympics from London, and the GOP and Democratic presidential conventions displaced it from the schedule. Its average rating sank further, to 0.8.

“We just felt the ratings were less than we’d hoped for, whatever the reason,” Davis said. “The theory, in part, was it wasn’t

istory Detectives, the PBS series featuring amiable sleuths who truth-squadded stories behind historical items and artifacts, will instead take on bigger cases in a revamped and retitled series to debut next summer. History Detectives: Special Investigation will also be known as HDSI, in TV crime drama parlance.

PBS recently ordered four episodes of the reworked show, a reduction from the nine to 11 that aired during summer seasons going back to 2003.

PBS’s chief programmer Beth Hoppe sees the limited run, scheduled for next summer, as a trial for the new approach. “If it resonates with audiences, and is as excellent as we are expecting, we hope to order more” for 2015, she said. The program is on broadcast hiatus this year.

HDSI will introduce a new History Detectives researcher Wes Cowan, left, returns in 2014 with new host, a paredhost Kaiama Glover, an associate professor of French. Producers invited down team of her to audition after discovering a YouTube video of her lecturing. (Phodetectives and a to: OPB) streamlined format of gripping mysteries from the past. Instead of researchunique anymore. We wanted to reinvent it ing the authenticity of several historical with a new format.” artifacts within each program, the team will PBS programmers “loved the persondig into one cold case from American history alities” on the show, Hoppe said, but minper episode, such as the disappearance of ute-by-minute Nielsen ratings showed that Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa in 1975. viewers tuned out if they weren’t interested in “Everyone may think they know about an object. “So we came up with the idea for Jimmy Hoffa but — I promise you — they researching one big, iconic story through a don’t,” said series co-executive producer multifaceted approach, uncovering new eviChris Bryson of Lion TV in New York City. dence and telling stories people haven’t heard The original History Detectives format before,” she said. was unique when the series debuted a decade Lion, OPB and PBS “kicked around a ago, said David Davis, co-executive producnumber of ideas” for subjects, Davis said. The er and v.p. of television at Oregon Public team began with a list of “a dozen or so,” and Broadcasting. Its team of detectives revealed ended up with four: In addition to Hoffa, the stories behind an assortment of keepsake new show will investigate the disappearance items, such as a commemorative brooch sup- of big band leader Glenn Miller on a flight posedly created from a piece of the Liberty during World War II; the sinking of the SS Bell, a Colonial-era $6 bill and a guitar that Sultana at the end of the Civil War, which was said to have belonged to Bob Dylan. claimed more victims than the Titanic; and The show even made international news the unsolved murders of a string of servant last June with one artifact that its detectives girls in Austin, Texas, in the 1880s, victims of investigated and found to be authentic: a America’s first serial killer. diary that had been taken from the body of To avoid alienating longtime fans of a North Vietnamese soldier killed in 1966.

History Detectives, producers worked to Producers turned the diary over to U.S. retain some familiar elements. “There’s a Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who loyal viewership, so we want to bring those presented it to Vietnam’s defense minister in viewers with us to this new show,” Bryson Hanoi. said. The pacing and feel of the show will But now, at least 14 television series remain the same, as will the theme music, on multiple networks are investigating or Elvis Costello’s first big hit, “Watching the valuing found objects, and “one program Detectives.” is almost a direct clone,” Davis said. That Although the number of detectives has would be CNBC’s first reality series, Treasure shrunk, two veterans are returning: Wes Detectives, which premiered in March.

Cowan, the owner of an auction company The replication of its format has cut into who holds a doctorate in anthropology; and the audience for History Detectives, and Tukufu Zuberi, a history documentarian and inconsistent scheduling has added to its ratprofessor of race relations at the University of ings challenges. “It used to run on Mondays Pennsylvania. after Antiques Roadshow, which was a good The new host, Kaiama (pronounced lead-in,” Davis said. But in 2011 PBS moved Continued on page 20

Current

| July 8, 2013 | 11

Stations rethink, repurpose content for tablet users

By Andrew Lapin

A

s consumer use of tablet devices continues to rise, more public media stations are moving onto the platform with supplementary content and increasingly ambitious niche apps.

The latest survey of tablet ownership from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, published June 10, found that 34 percent of adult Americans age 18 or older own a tablet computer, nearly double the percentage recorded last year. Additionally, nearly half of all college graduates and 56 percent of adults who make more than $75,000 per year own tablets.

The open canvas of a tablet, much like that of a mobile phone, has been interpreted differently from station to station.

Several have developed or outsourced lo-fi, low-cost apps meant mainly as auxiliaries to the on-air viewing experience.

Public Radio Exchange C.E.O. Jake Shapiro, whose design team

developed apps for several large stations, thinks this approach is a mistake.

“If you’re going to do tablet . . . we’re arguing to have a commitment to do something distinctive,” Shapiro told Current.

“It’s not an ancillary item on a checklist of digital presence. It actually is a really significant investment.”

Native tablet apps may not always be the best investment for stations, Shapiro acknowledged. For example, radio stations may serve their brands better by pursuing mobile phone apps instead. But, at the very least, stations should make sure their websites have a responsive design that is optimized for tablets and smartphones, he said.

Shapiro sees similarities between tablet apps and live-performance venues that stations in many cities have built within their facilities: Both fall outside of public broadcasting’s traditional mission, but represent new ways to convene audiences and build community engagement around their content.

But others advise news outlets not to delay in creating con-

tent for tablets. As more consumers adopt tablets and similar devices, their media habits and expectations will change, said Sara Quinn, visual journalism faculty member at the Poynter Institute.

A 2012 study on iPad news consumption that Quinn co-authored identified a sizable majority of tablet users as “intimate” readers who frequently look for ways to interact with the screen. Quinn first presented study findings during this year’s South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin.

“I think desktops are probably going to go away and people are going to want [to take] their information with them,” Quinn told Current. She considers smartphones to be just as important for news media outlets as tablets.

“I think it’s a venue that people need to be at now, because it’s going to become even more dominant, and you don’t want to be so far out of the game that you’re behind.”

Here is a sampling of the latest tablet initiatives from public media stations.

KCRW Music Mine

Let’s Get Lost

Interactive tour of historic sites

Mother lode of new music

an Francisco’s KQED was looking to add interactivity — for both its audience and its city — to its digital offerings when it designed Let’s Get Lost.

The app uses GPS functions to take users on virtual tours of three historic locations in the city — Coit Tower, Rincon Annex and the Pan American Unity mural at City College of San Francisco. Let’s Get Lost launched in January for iPad, iPhone and Android phones, and invites users to play a virtual scavenger hunt with the app.

As of this month, Let’s Get Lost had been downloaded 2,500 times, according to Colleen Wilson, executive director at KQED. The station drew material for the app from a variety of sources, including the Smithsonian Institution and its own archives, and conducted original research that was backed by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Let’s Get Lost was initially envisioned as a more traditional, KQED-led city tour, according to Wilson. A KQED multimedia team began collecting information on local New Deal–era murals more than five years ago; later, the station decided to compile its data onto tablets and phones.

To distinguish Let’s Get Lost from KQED’s other digital offerings, the station contracted with local design firm Bayinteractive, Wilson said. KQED wanted outside minds to create a

usic Mine, one of the first native iPad apps created for a public station, was developed by PRX in 2011 for KCRW of Santa Monica, Calif. The app was designed to extend KCRW’s brand of eclectic music programming for users of iPads, the music streaming service Spotify and, as of June 10, iPhones.

The app facilitates music discovery. In addition to presenting new music curated by the station’s deejays, it allows users to learn more about featured artists. It also offers an entry point for streaming the KCRW all-music channel, Eclectic24.

The app has been downloaded to iPads 65,000 times, and has built a base of 6,000

S

different look and feel for it.

“The app needed an entirely new approach,” Wilson said.

“One of the smartest things we did was to make a deal with Bayinteractive that, if ever we fell into that groove [of traditional apps], they App users can take virtual would pull tours of three sites and go an ‘intervenon a scavenger hunt. tion.’ We did, and they did twice. And the app is much better for it.”

KQED is continuing to develop its tablet strategy and plans an arts-focused application that allows users to find information on local arts events and explore curated arts content from a variety of San Francisco media outlets.

The app, funded with assistance from NEH and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is scheduled to launch next year, Wilson said. n

WGBH Explore!

Supplementing broadcast TV

B

oston’s WGBH chose to convert its monthly members’ guide into iPad-friendly PDFs embedded with hyperlinks to streaming video and other content on WGBH.org. According to Steve Baker, senior director of creative projects, the app plays to a key strength of the tablet platform — promoting and supplementing broadcast television.

“Usage studies have shown that more than 80 percent of people who own iPads use them while watching TV,” Baker said. “This is where public TV needs to be if we want to promote programs and add additional content on the platform.”

To import the WGBH Explore! print members’ guide to the iPad, the station’s

creative staff use the enterprise version of Adobe’s digital publishing software. Each monthly guide compiles low-resolution PDFs and provides links to online videos and broadcast schedules. Designers also include promotional materials related to upcoming feature programs, such as an interview with The Central Park Five co-director Sarah Burns. Members can opt to sign up for a digital newsletter that alerts them when a new edition is available for download.

As a license-holder for Adobe’s digital publishing software, WGBH also handles digital publishing of On Q, the member newsletter of San Francisco’s KQED. n

M

to 8,000 active monthly users, according to Betsy Moyer, director of digital content strategy. Two years after its launch, the app still sees 2,000 to 3,000 downloads per month.

Though the app streams music curated

by KCRW deejays, its system uses algorithms to search the station’s archive of playlists, so humans don’t operate it.

Developers of The Echo Nest, the platform Music Mine was built on, have since disabled the parts of the software that the app relied on, so Music Mine couldn’t be built now, Moyer said. However, The Echo Nest’s inability to support Music Mine doesn’t affect the app’s performance. n

OPB Magazine

Same content, different experience

D

ual licensee Oregon Public Broadcasting launched its own iPad publication, OPB Magazine, in December 2012 as a free subscription service.

The monthly magazine repurposes feature material that has already aired on OPB’s radio or TV stations, combining it with textbased presentations previously published online, such as reporting from EarthFix, the environmentally focused regional journalism center based at OPB. Although the content is adapted from other platforms, the glossy digital presentation is all new, incorporating modern design aesthetics and heavy use of multimedia.

“We knew that we had a lot of digital content, and we knew that much of our audience did not see all the content that we produced,” Lynne Pollard, v.p. of new media at OPB, told Current. The move to the iPad was easy to plan, she said, because the state network began developing capacity to produce multimedia journalism years ago.

Each monthly edition of OPB Magazine generates about 1,000 downloads. Once an individual iPad owner signs up for the free subscription, he or she receives a notice whenever a new issue appears in the iTunes store. Pollard talked up OPB Magazine to a roomful of public media executives during a session at the Integrated Media Association conference in early March in Austin, Texas, and emphasized how the OPB team was able

to publish the iPad magazine with the addition of one full-time staffer.

OPB President Steve Bass recruited Jason Bernert from the University of Oregon, where he worked on a student-run iPad publication prior to graduating in 2011. Bernert joined OPB right out of college as manager of the digital magazine. He participates in editorial meetings with OPB’s news staff to plan editorial coverage and oversees every aspect of the magazine’s design and curation.

The promise of interactivity creates a different impression of content that has been transplanted to a tablet, according to Bernert.

“Even though it’s the exact same story and the exact same content, just the way you experience that content by actually holding it in your hands, it changes a lot of things,” he said. n

A recent edition featured climbers’ stories of Mt. Hood, the subject of an Oregon Field Guide special.

12 | July 8, 2013 | Current Entertainment Emmy category was Lidia Bastianich, cited for outstanding culinary host in Lidia’s Italy, distributed by American Public Television.

PBS’s Sesame Street captured seven Daytime Entertainment Creative Arts Emmys, including top awards in children’s program categories: It was named best preschool series and forRADIO TELEVISION DIGITAL NEWS ASSOCIATION mer puppeteer Kevin Clash was named best performer in a children’s series for his role as Pubcasters capture 21 national Elmo. Cited for the Emmys were producers Edward R. Murrow Awards for Carol Lynn Parente, Clash, Nadine Zylstra, excellence in electronic journalism. Tim Carter, April Coleman, Benjamin Lehmann, and Stephanie Longardo.

WLRN in Miami won large-market radio Additional Emmys recognized Sesame Murrows for feature reporting and use of Street for outstanding sound. Chicago’s television creative arts, WBEZ also won for including: directing news documentary and in a children’s series hard-news reporting.

(Ken Diego, Clash, The award for investiJoey Mazzarino, gative reporting went to Matt Vogel); writing KQED and the Center in a children’s series for Investigative (Mazzarino, Molly Reporting, both based Boylan, Annie Evans, in San Francisco, Christine Ferraro, for “Broken Shield: Emily Perl Kingsley, Exposing Abuses Luis Santeiro, Ed at California Valentine, Belinda Developmental Ward, John Weidman).

Travelscope host and director Joseph Centers.”

Technical craft Additional Rosendo wears a gho, the traditional naEmmys cited Sesame large-market radio tive garb for men in Bhutan. The APT-disStreet for achievewinners were KPLU in tributed show won two Daytime Emmys. ments in: main title Seattle for news series; (Photo: Julie Rosendo) and graphic design WKSU in Kent, Ohio, (Rickey Boyd, Michael for sports reporting; and Minnesota Public Lapinski, Rhea Borzak, Andrew Atteberry, Radio for its website.

WITF in Harrisburg, Pa., won three nation- Julian Herrera); multiple-camera editing (Todd James, Tim Carter, Jesse Averna, John al Murrows in the division: one for continuing Tierney); sound editing (Chris Prinzivalli, coverage and two for investigative reporting.

Michael Barrett, Michael Croiter, Jorge Five additional stations won in the small-marMuelle, Chris Sassano, Dick Maitland). ket radio division: Arizona Public Media in Two Daytime Creative Arts Emmys went Tucson for feature reporting; WFIU/WTIU to Joseph Rosendo’s Travelscope, an APTin Bloomington, Ind., for news documentary; distributed series: Joseph Rosendo won for WUFT in Gainesville, Fla., for hard-news direction in a lifestyle/culinary program and reporting; WIUM/WIUW in Macomb, Ill., for Jason Grigg for sound mixing, live action. use of sound; and Boise State Public Radio in Also, APT’s Biz Kid$ received the Emmy for Idaho, for its website. single-camera editing by Alex Carrillo and Jim RTDNA also presented three Murrows to Golingo, and Equitrekking won for single-campublic radio networks and distributors. era photography, film or electronic, by Greg The “State Integrity Investigation,” a colBarna. laborative project led by Minneapolis-based Word Girl, a PBS Kids program, won for Public Radio International, took the award for animation writing (Tom Martin, Eric Shaw, investigative reporting. It included reporting by Jack Ferraiolo, Jayne Hamil, Ryan Raddatz).

16 partner stations, including New York Public And Leeza Gibbons won for host in a lifestyle/ Radio’s WNYC; KPCC in Los Angeles; KERA travel program for PBS’s My Generation, a proin Dallas; WHYY in Philadelphia; WAMU duction of AARP. in Washington, D.C.; WGBH and WBUR in The winners of Daytime Entertainment Boston; WLRN; KUOW in Seattle; Colorado Emmys were announced June 14 in Los Public Radio in Denver; Oregon Public Angeles, and Creative Arts Emmy winners Broadcasting; WFAE in Charlotte, N.C.; were revealed June 16 in Beverly Hills, Calif.

WVXU in Cincinnati; KCUR in Kansas City; KUT in Austin, Texas; and New Hampshire Public Radio. Additional radio network Murrows went to State of the Re:Union, a series distributed by NPR and Public Radio Exchange, for the news documentary “Pike County, Ohio: As Black as We Wish to Be”; and NPR.org, which was named best website.

In other divisions, Oregon Public Broadcasting won the national Murrow for network TV news documentaries, and KPCC won for best website in the online news division.

The 2013 Murrow Awards, named for the pioneering television newsman and honoring radio and TV journalists since 1971, will be presented Oct. 14 in New York.

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS & SCIENCES

PBS and APT programs win 14 Daytime Emmys, including 13 in the Creative Arts category.

PubTV’s winner in the Daytime

PUBLIC RADIO NEWS DIRECTORS INC.

CPR, WBEZ, WUOT and WBGO led winners in PRNDI’s 2013 Awards honoring news coverage.

Presented by NPR’s Scott Simon in Cleveland June 22, Public Radio News Directors Inc. honored the best local public radio news in 16 categories based on the size of stations’ newsroom staff. In addition, PRNDI recognized stations for standout news reporting edited by a national producer.

Top winners among this year’s contenders were Colorado Public Radio, Chicago’s WBEZ, WUOT of Knoxville, Tenn., and WBGO in Newark, N.J.; each received four first-place awards in their divisions. Miami’s WLRN and WBFO in Buffalo, N.Y., both topped three categories.

For a full list of first-place PRNDI winners, see current.org/awards. —Theodore Fischer

AFI Docs

Current

The archivist

An ITVS-backed film from first-time director Jason Osder provided a riveting account of the 1985 fire-bombing of a house ITVS and the National Black Programming in Philadelphia owned by the radical-leaning Consortium. It won the audience award for MOVE organization. The bombing by the best feature and will air on Independent Lens city’s police killed 11 people, including five in February 2014. children, and destroyed 65 homes.

“Certainly you never expect to win anyLet the Fire Burn is constructed entirely thing, so it was quite a surprise,” Richen told from archival footage, Current, referring to and relies heavily on the festival prize. The televised public hearfilmmaker is no strangings that had aired live er to public TV: Her over WHYY-TV in the previous film, Promised aftermath of the fire. It Land, aired on POV in also draws on previous 2010. Richen hopes to PBS documentaries secure a limited theabout the incident. atrical release for The The film splices New Black prior to its the hearings together PBS airing. with live news footage Though the film’s of the event, as well as Maryland setting and timid, halting testimony clear sympathy for from the only child those advocating on Filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz participated to survive the fire. By behalf of same-sex in a CPB-sponsored panel on the dropchronicling every develcouples endeared it to out crisis. His multipart documentary opment in obsessive the AFI Docs crowd, follows Latino teenagers from diverse detail, Let the Fire Burn it portrays an uneasy backgrounds as they prepare to graddemonstrates how a divide within the black uate from high school. “We try to tilt series of heated impulchurchgoing commutowards success stories,” he said. sive decisions turned nity, where many of into a black mark on the most outspoken the city of Philadelphia. opponents of marriage equality hold influ“There’s nothing I’ve shown that’s never ence. Richen profiles representatives on both been seen before,” said Osder, a media professides of the divide, stepping into the homes sor at George Washington University, during a and churches of her subjects. At one point, Q&A session that followed the June 22 screenshe follows the film’s protagonist, an outspoken lesbian who works for the Human Rights ing, referring to his use of archival footage.

During production, Osder interviewed two Campaign, as she journeys to Long Island to survivors of the fire, but he ultimately decided seek acceptance from her foster mother. an all-archival approach would better suit his “I don’t think we’ve gotten yet to the ambition to depict “the past in present tense.” audience where there’s more division around “Most films, when you go to talking heads, the issue,” Richen said. “I don’t think that’s you take the tension out — you let the air out necessarily the film festival audience. But of the tires,” he said. it’s certainly the audience that I’m excited to Let the Fire Burn will air on Independent screen with.”

Lens on a date yet to be determined.

The educators The elder statesman CPB leveraged its sponsorship of the fesWhen AFI honored Oscar-winning filmtival into a panel spotlighting problems with maker Errol Morris during the festival’s June 21 high school education that contribute to rising Guggenheim Symposium, the director noted dropout rates, an issue that’s been explored that a CPB grant had allowed him to make his extensively through the American Graduate acclaimed third feature, 1988’s The Thin Blue initiative.

Line.

At the panel, part of a series of Catalyst Morris had been working as a private eye Sessions at AFI Docs, filmmaker Bernardo in the 1980s to make ends meet, unable to Ruiz discussed his bilingual documentary establish enough clout from his first two films miniseries The Graduates/Los Graduados, which follows a diverse group of Latino teenag- (1978’s Gates of Heaven and 1981’s Vernon, Florida) to raise capital for more. With CPB’s ers with unique challenges — one is homeless, support, The Thin Blue Line helped free an one is gay, etc. — as they prepare to graduate innocent man from death row and solidify from high school.

Morris’s own filmmaking reputation. Clips from During the June 20 panel discussion, Ruiz all of Morris’s films, including his 2003 Oscar noted that, as a filmmaker, he is more interestwinner The Fog of War, played at the event. ed in the human side of education rather than In a chat with Washington Post film critic in statistical analyses of the dropout crisis or policy proposals that attempt to address it. “We Ann Hornaday, Morris reflected on the controversy that had surrounded his use of staged try to tilt toward success stories,” he said. His reenactments for The Thin Blue Line, noting goal with the film is to explore the obstacles to that the year’s Best Documentary Oscar voting graduation for modern-day Latino students. body had reportedly rejected the film on those Dennis Van Roekel, president of the grounds.

National Education Association, and Sarita “Truth is not something that is guaranteed Brown, president of Latino-focused educabecause you adopt a certain kind of style,” tion policy institute Excelencia in Education, Morris said. joined Ruiz on the panel. The three debated He believes audiences in the Internet age are the merits of using pure dropout statistics as more attuned to distinguishing between truth the benchmark for success, noting that other and fiction than audiences of the past. “I think factors such as college preparedness need to the deluge of information has made us more be taken into account when discussing high aware of the possibility of untruth than ever school students. before,” Morris said.

Another education-focused film screened Morris is currently in production on his first at the festival was Samantha Buck’s Best Kept dramatic feature, Freezing People Is Easy, based Secret, which looks at a special-needs school on a This American Life episode about cryogenin Newark, N.J. The film will air on POV in ics. n September.

Continued from page 2

| July 8, 2013 | 13

14 | July 8, 2013 | Current

People

Continued from page 5

Management Tom New, WQLN’s former director of creative services, is now president and c.e.o.

He replaces Dwight Miller, who served as president since October 2002. New began working at the Erie, Pa., station in 1998 and executive produced many documentaries for the Pennsylvania Public Television Network. He is a three-time winner of the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasting’s Award for Excellence. The station also promoted Cindy Spizarny, controller, to v.p. and g.m. She has been with the WQLN since 2001, and stepped up as interim g.m. after Miller departed in March.

The new chief financial officer at KVIE in Sacramento, Calif., is Karen LelandDolce. She earlier worked as a senior auditor, controller and finance director for entities including the Institute for Local Government, which promotes good governance in California. She also owned and ran her own print company for 14 years.

Programming Los Angeles broadcaster Emmett Miller will host Genealogy Roadshow, premiering on PBS this fall, with researchers Joshua Taylor and Kenyatta Berry appearing as the show’s on-air experts. This Roadshow will investigate participants’ ancestral claims and, in front of a live audience, reveal information about them, their families and communities.

Production began on June 22 in Austin, Texas, the first of four cities to be featured in the series’ first season. Producer Krasnow Productions has developed and produced

Miller, center, hosts Genealogy Roadshow, with researchers Berry, left, and Taylor appearing as experts. The new series premieres on PBS this fall. reality series including The Weakest Link, Average Joe and Dog Eat Dog. NPR promoted Tracy Wahl to executive producer of Morning Edition in one of two staff changes announced June 26.

Wahl had been acting e.p. of the morning newsmagazine for the last six months, overseeing coverage of major stories such as the Boston Marathon bombings. She previously served as ME supervising producer. Lynette Clemetson, director of NPR’s soon-to-be-discontinued StateImpact program, will become Morning Edition’s senior supervising editor

in September. Prior to joining NPR, she was a domestic correspondent for the New York Times, where she covered politics and social issues; previously, she was a national and international correspondent for Newsweek magazine. She also was the first managing editor of TheRoot.com.

Investigative news producer Karen Foshay has departed KCET’s SoCal Connected in Los Angeles to join KPCC-FM in Pasadena. “Karen has spent the last 20 years covering many of the biggest stories in Los Angeles, from the Northridge earthquake and the O.J. Simpson trials to the explosion of pot shops and mismanagement at the city’s housing authority,” wrote Kristen Muller, KPCC managing editor for newsgathering, in a staff memo. “She has won nearly every broadcast journalism award, including a George Foster Peabody and two duPont-Columbia Silver Batons.” Foshay started her career on the assignment desk at KCAL, the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles. She also worked at CBS and NBC News, where she produced for NBC Nightly News, CNBC and Today.

She begins work July 29, reporting to Paul Glickman, managing editor, investigative and projects.

Colorado Public Radio’s new arts bureau and online arts hub will be headed by Chloe Veltman, a culture reporter with more than 10 years’ experience. Veltman was a weekly Bay Area arts correspondent for the New York Times and chief theater critic for SF Weekly. She is also the creator, host and producer of “VoiceBox,” a weekly syndicated pubradio podcast series about the human voice and vocal music, based at KALW in San Francisco; a trained dramaturge; and vocalist and musician. Veltman will hire and manage the bureau’s two full-time reporters and supervise contributors across distribution platforms. The bureau and hub are backed by a three-year, $900,000 grant from the local Bonfils-Stanton Foundation.

NPR is laying off Senior Research Manager Ben Robins effective July 26.

According to Robins, the network told him that it wanted to move his position back to Washington, D.C. Robins has been working long distance from Austin, Texas, since 2002.

He joined NPR’s research department in 2000.

Consultants Public Radio Capital, a Boulder, Colo., consultancy specializing in public radio signal expansion and preservation, is saying goodbye to one financial analyst and welcoming another. Russ Otten is bound for Shanghai, where he was accepted into the MBA program at Hult International Business School.

Otten, who has been with PRC about three years, recently contributed financial analyses for Austin’s new Triple A station, KUTX, and spent 22 months helping plan the expansion of Kansas City’s KCPT. Incoming Louis Caputo most recently worked at EDENS in Washington, D.C., developing financial models for multimillion-dollar real estate development projects, reporting on operational port-

folio assets in preparation for investor reviews and underwriting commercial real estate acquisitions. “We send our best wishes to Russ on his international academic pursuits,” said Dennis Hamilton, PRC director of consulting, “and welcome Louis to our team as we venture into new explorations in public media development and collaboration.”

Nonprofit newsrooms The Investigative News Network (INN) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) are partnering to provide data-analysis services to INN’s membership of more than 80 nonprofit investigative news entities. The two have selected Denise Malan, formerly investigative/data editor at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, as director of data services, a new position, at the IRE Data Library. Malan will report and analyze data sets for use by INN members. Her position is the latest collaboration between the two organizations: IRE was involved in the creation of INN, and that network sponsors a daylong annual workshop at the IRE Conference.

Journalist Ron Seely has joined the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism as a reporter, editor and student mentor. He recently retired after 34 years at the Wisconsin State Journal. For the past 20 years Seely taught science writing at UW-Madison’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Seely has won numerous accolades for his investigative work, including three awards for environmental reporting from the Wisconsin Press Association.

Digital NPR’s Digital Design Director David Wright has accepted a position at Twitter, where he’ll work on its website. At NPR, he helped design and build cross-platform editorial products including its home page, the web page for NPR Books, NPR Music’s live events platform and NPR Music for iPhone.

His work has been recognized with awards including a Peabody.

Andrew Golis, director of digital media/ senior editor at Frontline, is leaving to join Atlantic Media, home to Atlantic magazine, as “entrepreneur in residence,” he revealed on his blog. “Joining Atlantic Media is both a thrilling and deliberate step for me,” Golis writes. “As our news media has morphed and remade itself, I’ve become more and more convinced that the important fault line is not between left and right, or fact and opinion, but between those outlets that profit from opening their audiences’ minds and those outlets that profit from closing them.” Golis joined Frontline in March 2011. Previously he was founding editor of the Upshot blog network at Yahoo! News, and deputy publisher of Talking Points Memo, a political website.

Mark Stencel, managing editor for digital news at NPR, is leaving his post in early August to write a book. Stencel described the book to Poynter as a “Capitol Hill thriller” that he “started reporting on several years ago.” n Questions, comments, tips? sefton@current.org

Power to the arts: Norman, left, joins American Masters as director of planning and strategy; Veltman heads Colorado Public Radio’s new arts bureau.

Current

Michael Sullivan, Frontline executive

M

ichael Sullivan, an influential producer for Frontline for more

than 25 years, died at his home in Marblehead, Mass., June 23. He was 67.

Known to his colleagues as “Mike,” the Harvard University Sullivan graduate joined the PBS investigative documentary series in 1987 as a senior producer, after a stint at Minnesota CBS affiliate WCCO-TV. While at Frontline, Sullivan worked alongside David Fanning, the program’s founder and e.p., on some of the flagship documentary program’s most acclaimed projects, such as 1993’s Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?, 2004’s Ghosts of Rwanda and a series of films directed by David Sutherland, including this year’s Kind Hearted Woman.

“He was a strong character and at times quite thoughtful,” Fanning told Current, adding that Sullivan brought ambition and unique forensic skills to Frontline. “He loved to take on arguments and to challenge them.”

Sullivan left the show briefly in 2000 to work on PBS’s proposed public-affairs program Public Square, which never found sufficient funding. He returned to Frontline after Sept. 11, 2001, to become e.p. of special projects, a role in which he oversaw many complex, multipart investigations.

“He was an active and vibrant partner to us intellectually, and always pushed us to do the big stories — the ones that mattered and the ones that would be remembered,” Raney Aronson-Rath, Frontline deputy e.p., told Current.

Religion was a favorite topic for Sullivan, and he explored the subject in miniseries such as God in America and The Mormons and the documentary Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero.

“I thought we needed more sensible coverage of religion and its impact on the American scene,” he told Current in February.

“Mike was an optimist, and he always held out hope,” Louis Wiley Jr., senior editorial advisor for Frontline, told Current.

“No matter how grim the day’s headlines were, he would make the argument that reason and intelligence would prevail, eventually.”

In January, Sullivan left Frontline’s staff after his position was cut from the series budget. He continued to contribute as an independent producer and was working on a Frontline project about immigration reform at the time of his death.

A public memorial for Sullivan took place July 2 at Harvard University’s Memorial Church in Cambridge, Mass.

Nathan Shaw, DEI founding president

John Krauss, WRVO manager

athan Shaw, the founding president of DEI (formerly Development Exchange Inc.) and a public radio fundraising pioneer, died May 29. He was 76.

Shaw first made a name for himself as g.m. of Philadelphia’s WHYY in 1967 (then WUHY). CPB recruited Shaw in 1974 to become its station development manager, a position in which he developed fundraising strategies with stations across the country.

He founded DEI with Nel Jackson and Nina Kern in 1982, looking for a new approach to public radio fundraising after CPB discontinued its station development unit. DEI has since become the premier fundraising organization for public radio, and its annual Public Media Development and Marketing Conference is the profession’s biggest event of the year.

“Excellence doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” Shaw said during a 1985 DEI workshop presentation. “It must be tested, compared, supported, fought for . . . and improved. It must be constantly shared with your peers in the public radio development field and refreshed by the experiences and examples of those from outside.”

“As much as his total commitment to public radio, I remember Nate for his sincere caring,” said Virginia Dambach, executive director of DEI’s direct marketing service.

NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg, a longtime friend of Shaw’s, first worked with him in 1963 when he was the program director at Washington, D.C.’s WAMU. “He was the person who taught me radio,” she told Current. “He would talk for hours about programming, about the pace of listeners’ lives, and the need to program the station to mesh with that pace . . . . Anyone who knew him can never forget him.”

ohn Krauss, former g.m. for WRVO in Oswego, N.Y., and a public broadcasting manager for more than 40 years, died June 17. He was 64.

Krauss Krauss joined WRVO in 1969, the day the SUNY Oswego–owned station signed on the air. He rose to the rank of g.m. over time and shepherded the station’s transition from a 10-watt enterprise to one that today broadcasts at 50,000 watts.

He also took a role in front of the mic, hosting the nightly program The WRVO Playhouse, presenting rebroadcasts of Golden Age radio programs from the 1930s to the 1950s. The program continues with a new host as Tuned to Yesterday.

Krauss retired in 2010, after 14 years as g.m.

“It would be impossible to overstate John’s contribution to the growth of WRVO over the years,” current WRVO GM Michael Ameigh said.

N

Jim Nayder, WBEZ producer

J

im Nayder, a veteran producer and programmer at Chicago’s WBEZ, died June 28 at the age of 59.

The cause of death was unknown, but Nayder had battled alcoholism for years, his daughter and ex-wife told the Chicago Tribune.

Nayder was best known as host and producer of The Annoying Music Show!, a three-minute weekly program that dug up musical oddities. He launched the show on WBEZ in 1995, and NPR picked it up for national distribution two years later.

Nayder appeared regularly on Weekend Edition to chat about annoying music with host Scott Simon. The program also spawned CD compilations and live performances.

But Nayder also had a serious side, which he revealed by producing the series Magnificent Obsession: True Stories of Recovery, which aired weekly from 1992 to 2012. The show presented first-person stories of those struggling with addiction.

He began his public radio career in the late 1970s working in WBEZ’s programming department, where he helped to craft the station’s sound. He also helped orchestrate WBEZ’s first on-air fundraiser.

“Jim Nayder was a sweet soul and a cockeyed wit in a world with too little of both,” Simon said on the June 29 episode of Weekend Edition while paying tribute to his friend.

J

Ibrahim Gonzalez, WBAI producer

I

brahim Gonzalez, a longtime producer and on-air personality at the Pacifica network’s WBAIFM in New York, died in his sleep June 3. He was 57.

Gonzalez joined WBAI in 1990.

Gonzalez During his time with the station, he hosted and produced programs including In the Moment, Radio Libre! and Wake Up Call. A prominent figure in both the Latino and Muslim New York communities, Gonzalez often advocated for increased Latino-oriented on-air programming. He was known as the “Mambo Dervish” for the conga skills he displayed during his frequent musical performances.

“Ibrahim brought lots of excitement and positive challenges to my life with his views, ideas, inspiration and always positive outlook at the future of WBAI,” Berthold Reimers, the station’s g.m., posted on WBAI’s memorial page for Gonzalez.

Gonzalez is survived by his wife, Janet Norquist-Gonzalez, as well as four brothers, five children and 11 grandchildren.

Haynes Johnson, political journalist

H

aynes Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize– winning journalist who was an original panel member on pubTV’s

| July 8, 2013 | 15

Washington Week in Review, died May 24 in Bethesda, Md., from a heart attack. He was 81.

Johnson was an established journalist in Washington, D.C., in 1967 when WETA launched the public-affairs panel discussion program. He had won a Pulitzer the year before for reporting on civil rights struggles in Selma, Ala., for the Washington Evening Star. He stayed with the program, later renamed Washington Week, through the mid-1990s.

Johnson remained a regular contributor to PBS’s Washington coverage for more than four decades, appearing on both the PBS NewsHour and Washington Week to discuss national and global affairs.

Johnson also authored 11 books and held the Knight Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland at the time of his death.

He is survived by his second wife, D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Kathryn Oberly; siblings Michael, Paul and Sarah Johnson; children Stephen, David M., Katherine Autin, Sarah Johnson and Elizabeth Koeller; stepson Michael Goelzer; and six grandchildren.

Robert West, engagement strategist

R

obert West, a former community-engagement strategist for the Independent Television Service who left to form his own outreach organization for independent filmmakers, died June 6 after a long battle with brain cancer. He was 60.

West joined ITVS in 1999 as the outreach coordinator for the organization’s Community Connections Project, now known as the Community Cinema program, which connects social-issues documentaries with audiences and causes.

He left in 2002 to form Working Films, a cinema-engagement collective that networks filmmakers with organizations and each other. West continued to work with ITVS through Working Films, most recently partnering to promote the Oscarnominated Hell and Back Again, a documentary that addresses needs of young war veterans and aired as an Independent Lens episode.

In fall 2012, West was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

“Robert has been a leader in the art of grassroots engagement strategies,” said Jim Sommers, senior v.p. of content at ITVS. “Robert epitomized ‘the hope of the world’ through his courage, his actions and his contributions — back in the day at ITVS, Working Films.”

“While we’re just heartbroken at the loss of Robert, we’re really committed to the legacy that he’s left us,” said Anna Lee, filmmaker and partner-services manager at Working Films. “He had this wealth of experience around this idea of using film as a tool for change.”

ITVS has asked that donations be made in West’s name to the Robert West Reel Engagement Fund, which will support engagement efforts for future documentaries about social issues.

Donations can be made via PayPal or sent to Working Films, 602 South Fifth Ave. Wilmington, NC 28401.

Send obituary notices to lapin@current.org

16 | July 8, 2013 | Current

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Management/Finance Radio Station Manager Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN WBAA AM & FM, Public Radio from Purdue University in West Lafayette,

Board Network. You can pay by credit card or opt to be invoiced though our job board partner, JobTarget.

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Indiana, is seeking a station manager.

The position manages all day-to-day operations and administration of radio station WBAA AM & FM including programming, development, marketing and engineering activities; monitors, controls and plans budget expenditures; super-

SVP, System Development & Media Strategy Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Washington, D.C. CPB is currently seeking to hire a SVP, System Development & Media Strategy.

Leads CPB’s efforts to ensure that public television and its related digital and visual media services are universally available to the American people. Helps stations and national organizations transition to a digital media environment. Works closely with CPB’s executive leadership to achieve CPB’s corporate Goals and Objectives, to coordinate the development and implementation of CPB’s strategy for public television and related visual media, and to develop and implement CPB’s annual business plan. Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience. Fifteen years of experience in a senior leadership role with an in-depth understanding of public broadcasting and communication policy issues. Familiarity with digital content and distribution. Experience on the national level through management, consulting, board service or comparable leadership position. Submit cover letter and resume referencing job #113007 to jobs@cpb.org or fax to 202-879-9768. Salary $145,000–$160,000 annually. EOE/AA.

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vises staff; and oversees the physical plant. A Bachelor’s degree in broadcasting, management, or related area, five years of experience in public radio management, ability to foster a professional, cooperative work environment and significant experience related to fundraising programs and activities are required. A full job description is online at www.purdue.edu/hr/careers, Job Number 1300206. Purdue University is an equal opportunity, equal access, affirmative action employer.

ducer on a broadcast news show with an emphasis on fast turn-around news production and AFTRA membership are required. Excellent benefits complement the package. KPLU is a community service of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington with studios and offices in Tacoma and Seattle. This position is based in our Seattle office.

Hours: Monday-Friday, 4:00am – noon.

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Programming/Production

Program Director (P99909) University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Morning Edition Producer Pacific Lutheran University, Seattle, WA KPLU Public Radio, an NPR member station, invites applications for a full time Morning Edition Producer. The producer will assist with researching, writing, editing, fact checking, reporting and producing news stories for broadcast.

Experience working as a reporter/pro-

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news and cultural programs including programming from NPR, and KLRE, which broadcasts classical music 24 hours a day. The Program Director works under the guidance of the General Manager and in cooperation with the UALR Public Radio programming team.

The Program Director is responsible for supervising KLRE and KUAR non-news programming staff; producing and hosting live and recorded programs; overseeing quality of on-air sound; maintaining the schedule of syndicated programs; assuring proper operation of studio equipment by coordinating repairs and maintenance and providing staff with training; maintaining the music library and database; preparing music licensing reports; keeping programming information and music listings up to date on the web page; posting articles about programming for use on the web and social media; writing material for use on the air by announcers; managing the online calendar of events; determining the rotation and scheduling of promotional announcements; analyzing audience data; responding to listener inquiries and concerns; col-

laborating with community groups and educational organizations to promote classical music and other public radio programming; participating in special events; supporting efforts to market public radio programming; and working with development staff to assure the quality and effectiveness of on-air development efforts. The successful candidate will demonstrate professional experience in radio; competency in computer operations, especially digital audio production; knowledge of classical music, jazz and other public radio musical genres; evidence of supervisory skills; skill in on-air performance and audio production; familiarity with the public radio system and programming; and strong people skills. The successful candidate will be required to provide official transcripts at time of hire. Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree and five years experience in radio programming and operations is required. Degree in broadcasting, mass communication, journalism, music or related field is preferred. Additional information about this position and application requirements are available under the Jobs link on the Human Resources’ website at http:// ualr.edu/humanresources/. This position is subject to a pre-employment criminal

background check. A criminal conviction or arrest pending adjudication alone shall not disqualify an applicant in the absence of a relationship to the requirements of the position. Background check information will be used in a confidential, non-discriminatory manner consistent with state and federal law. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is an equal opportunity affirmative action employer and actively seeks the candidacy of minorities, women, veterans and persons with disabilities.

Under Arkansas law, all applications are subject to public disclosure. The person hired must have proof of legal authority to work in the United States.

programs and assigned projects. Must demonstrate knowledge and skills in researching and writing scripts for television. Requires an Associate’s degree with eight to ten (8-10) years of experience in the industry. Bachelor’s degree in radio/television production or related field, and four (4) years of experience in producing and/or directing television programs preferred. Hiring range: mid$50’s to mid-$70’s, plus an excellent benefits package. To learn more about and apply for this position, visit www. matc.edu. Applications accepted until position filled. MPTV/Milwaukee Area Technical College is an EEO/AA/ADA Employer.

Producer/Announcer WHQR-FM, Wilmington, NC

Development/Marketing

Principal duties: host All Things Considered; assist local talk show production; some news reporting and other announcing and production duties.

Friends of Public Radio, Inc. is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Position is open until filled.

Submit cover letter, resume, contact information for three references to: Producer/Announcer Search, 254 N. Front St., Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401.

Email applications to ccallison@whqr. org. See whqr.org for details on duties and requirements.

Director, Advancement/ Alumni Affairs WUCF TV, Orlando, FL

Television Producer/Director Milwaukee Public Television, WI

GENERAL MANAGER, KUED-TV, THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

The University of Utah seeks an experienced and energetic leader/manager for the position of General Manager of public television station KUED in Salt Lake City. KUED is Utah’s premier public television station broadcasting quality programming 24 hours daily. It offers the full PBS schedule, an instructional television block, award-winning, locally produced programs and documentaries, and is recognized as one of the leading public television stations in the country.

The General Manager reports to the Vice President for Institutional Advancement, and is responsible for the total operations of KUED, including strategic planning and creative leadership, effective fundraising from private and public sources, financial direction and operations, and working productively with directors and staff in the key areas of programming, production, development, finance, technical services, marketing and promotion, student training, and instructional services.

KUED has an annual operating budget of $8.3 million, 96 employees, and 19,000 contributing members. The General Manager provides primary leadership in station fundraising activities, relating directly with major donor prospects, corporate and foundation supporters, elected officials, University administration, the KUED Advisory Board, and other sources of financial support.

Additional digital channels are KUED World and KUED V-me.

The ideal candidate should have: a minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree; five years of progressively responsible experience leading and managing general administrative and operating functions within, or associated with broadcasting—preferably public television; the ability to inspire and earn the respect of a diverse and highly qualified staff; strategic and tactical planning skill, demonstrated familiarity and experience with personnel management, evolving media technologies, exceptional interpersonal, fundraising, and entrepreneurial skills; FCC and federal rules and regulations, exemplary written and oral communication skills, a demonstrated commitment to EEO and workplace diversity; personal and professional integrity; and the ability to effectively articulate and advocate the value of KUED as a premier public media organization.

Set in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountain range, the University of Utah ranks among the top 100 universities in the world. It has exceptional employee benefits, including substantial tuition discounts for employees and their families. Salary for the post will be commensurate with demonstrated skills and experience.

Applications must include: (1) a detailed cover letter describing how the candidate’s education, training, and experience specifically meet or exceed each of the listed skill sets and job responsibilities, (2) a detailed professional resume, and (3) a list of five professional references and their contact information (title, address, telephone number and e-mail address) who have worked directly with or for the applicant, or for whom the applicant has worked. The position is open until filled; the initial review of applications will begin September 2, 2013.

Applications should be submitted via e-mail to: netaconsulting@aol.com More information is available at: www.kued.org

THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER D/M/F/V

| July 8, 2013 | 17

Milwaukee Public Television, the premier non-commercial media organization in southeastern Wisconsin, is seeking a Producer/Director to create, develop, write and direct segments of and/or single or multi-camera television programs.

The successful candidate will plan and coordinate all aspects of television

Job Description: Serves as a primary fundraiser for WUCF TV. Designs, implements, evaluates, and refines WUCF TV’s development activities.

Personally identifies, cultivates, solicits, and stewards donors and prospects in accordance with performance targets set by the Executive Director. Provides leadership, direction, and training to staff, volunteers and others in support of the station’s development goals and objectives. Researches, writes, edits, or oversees the preparation of persuasive, accurate, and grammatically correct solicitations, proposals, case statements, reports, correspondence, and other development-related communication materials in support of the station’s fundraising activities. Develops and implements a comprehensive membership program to build an individual giving Continued on page 19

Director of Development Illinois Public Media University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The Director of Development provides leadership and administrative WUCF-TV of the Development Department at Illinois Public management Director Development Media, with of overall responsibility for fund development and Orlando, FL marketing of the WILL stations. The Director supervises staff engaged funda development, including membership, corporate WUCF-TVinseeks Director of Development.

A great opportunity to build a development operation in grants, a major and market. support, major gifts and staff engaged in marketing, including advertising and promotion, press relations, graphic design, Serves as a primary fundraiser for WUCF-TV. Designs, implements, evaluprogram and newsletter production.

Bachelor’s degree and ates, andguide refines WUCF-TV’s development activities.

Personally identifies, ficultivates, ve years non-profi t development experience required. solicits, and stewards donors and prospects in accordance with

performance targets set by the Executive Director. Provides leadership, direction, and training to staff, volunteers and others in support of the staSALARY: Commensurate withobjectives. experience, but not less than $80,000 tion’s development goals and

annually.

Minimum Job Requirements: Bachelor’s degree; at least 6 years of documented professional experience Illinois Public Media at the University of Illinois is an Affirmative directly related to the duties and responsibilities specified.

Action/Equal Opportunity Employer dedicated to building a EO/AA community of excellence, equity and diversity.

Complete candidate profi le at https://jobs.illinois.edu and upload Livingstona Associates is assisting WUCF-TV in this search.

Please a cover letter, resume, and list of three professional references. visit www.livingstonassociates.net for the full job posting. InquiFull beLivingston given to applications byconsiderJanuary ries consideration are welcomewill with Associates.received For best ation apply Contact by 08/15/2013.

14, 2011.

Dee Breeding, HR Specialist, at breeding@ forFlorida more information, or visit http://will.illinois.edu/ Apply at the illinois.edu University of (UCF) application database.

UCF posting jobs/ Search assistance provided by Livingston Associates – Public url: https://www.jobswithucf.com/postings/35578.

Media’s People.

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UCF posting # 32652 UCFLivingston title: Director, Advancement/Alumni Affairs Associates, 3000 Chestnut Avenue, Suite 208, Baltimore, MD 21211

P 410.243.1974 | www.livingstonassociates.net Livingston Associates, 3000 Chestnut Avenue, Suite 208, Baltimore, MD 21211 P 410.243.1974 | www.livingstonassociates.net

18 | July 8, 2013 | Current

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program for the station. Responsible for all fundraising activities including but not limited to on-air pledge drives, direct mail campaigns, Online giving campaigns, major giving campaigns, planned giving campaigns, special event and corporate support fundraising. Minimum Qualifications: Master’s degree in an appropriate area of specialization and four years of appropriate experience; or a bachelor’s degree in an appropriate area of specialization and six years of appropriate experience. Please submit all applications via the webpage provided: https://www. jobswithucf.com/postings/35536.

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Major Gifts/Capital Campaign Manager WSHU Public Radio, Fairfield, CT WSHU Public Radio Group, serving Connecticut and Long Island with a staff of 27 and operating at $4.5 million annually, seeks an experienced professional with a track record of success in

| July 8, 2013 | 19

major giving, to manage a growing major giving program and to take charge of a $6.5 million facility campaign. This individual joins a leadership team of staff and volunteers preparing to embark on a campaign, while completing a multi-year expansion of the service area, including planning launches of major giving into new geographies. The ideal individual will be an independent self-starter, a seasoned and successful communicator and a deadline-oriented achiever who can manage teams of diverse individuals within a clear and articulated plan. WSHU is owned

by Sacred Heart University, the second-largest independent Catholic university in New England, offers more than 50 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs on its main campus in Fairfield, Connecticut (one hour from Manhattan). EEO/AA Employer. Salary and benefits will be commensurate with experience, apply with cover letter and resume by email to: Gillian Anderson, Development Director, WSHU Public Radio, anderson@wshu.org.

Director of Development Illinois Public Media University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Continued on page 20

The Director of Development provides leadership and administrative management of the Development Department at Illinois Public Media, with overall responsibility for fund development and Friends of WLRN marketing of the WILL stations. The Director supervises staff Director of Membership engaged in fund development, including membership, corporate Miami, major Florida support, gifts and grants, and staff engaged in marketing, including advertising and promotion, press relations, graphic design, Reporting to the President and CEO of the Friends of WLRN, Inc., the Direcprogram guide andis newsletter Bachelor’s degree andof a tor of Membership responsible production. for the planning and implementation development plan, which includes overseeing 4 television pledge fimulti-year ve years non-profi t development experience required.

drives, 3 radio pledge drives; coordinated direct mail, telemarketing, and ephilanthropy annual giving program, volunteer and special events, and other SALARY: Commensurate withaugment experience, but not less than $80,000 donor relations activities that the annual operating budget.

annually.

Job Qualifications: A Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Public Relations, or reIllinois Public Media at the University of Illinois is an Affirmative lated field of study preferred.

Action/Equal Opportunity Employer dedicated to building a EOE community of excellence, equity and diversity.

Complete a candidate le at https://jobs.illinois.edu Livingston Associatesprofi is assisting Friends of WLRN inand thisupload search. aPlease cover visit letter, resume, and list of three professional references. www.livingstonassociates.net for the full job posting consideration and application Full will instructions. be given to applications received by January 14, 2011. Contact Dee Breeding, HR Specialist, at breeding@ information, or visit Livingstonillinois.edu Associates, for 3000more Chestnut Avenue, Suite 208, http://will.illinois.edu/ Baltimore, MD 21211 jobs/P 410.243.1974 Search assistance provided by Livingston Associates – Public | www.livingstonassociates.net Media’s People.

HOW TO

APPLY

Livingston Associates, 3000 Chestnut Avenue, Suite 208, Baltimore, MD 21211 P 410.243.1974 | www.livingstonassociates.net

Vice President of Development and Marketing New Hampshire Public Radio New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR), an award-winning public radio organization, is seeking a Vice President of Development and Marketing. This individual is responsible for NHPR’s broad range of marketing and fundraising efforts. He or she will lead a dynamic and complex development program and design and implement an integrated marketing, communications, and outreach program.

We are looking for a creative individual who is an effective and strategic leader and collaborative team member with a track record of success in fundraising; a minimum of seven years of senior management experience in a mature nonprofit environment; a demonstrated ability to initiate and cultivate key donor and opinion leader relationships; and excellent communication skills. A minimum of a bachelor’s degree is required.

We offer competitive compensation and a generous benefits package. Interested applicants should submit a cover letter, resume and three professional references through the job opportunities page at nhpr.org or go directly to nhpr.iapplicants.com.

20 | July 8, 2013 | Current

KPBS in San Diego is again inviting viewers to recommend ideas for its expanding lineup of local programs, after backing two shows from last year’s crop of suggestions.

Through its Explore Local Content Initiative, KPBS supported development of two of the 52 shows that viewers suggested in 2012 for seed funding: Savor San Diego, a cooking show; and A Growing Passion, about eco-friendly local agriculture and horticulture. Both premiered last month as part of the station’s “Explore San Diego” block from 8 to 10 p.m. Thursdays.

“It’s our goal to increase the amount of local programming on KPBS-TV, and this seemed like a great way to discover new community producers,” said Nancy Worlie, station spokesperson.

KPBS is looking for programs that are in or near production. It provides producers with $30,000 from an anonymous donor for the shows, and encourages content creators to secure additional support such as corporate funding and grants. Last year’s winners each received $15,000.

Classifieds

Continued from page 19

Resource Development Specialist Koahnic Broadcast Corp., Albuquerque, NM Koahnic Broadcast Corporation seeks a dynamic, qualified person to solicit and manage underwriting contracts for our

Su-Mei Yu, at right, hosts Savor San Diego, a new series created through KPBS’s Explore Local Content Initiative. Yu is the owner and chef of Saffron, a Thai restaurant in the city, and author of three cookbooks on Asian cuisine. (Photo: KPBS)

dren’s programs are not eligible.

Proposals for this year are due July 31, with a winner (or two) to be announced in mid-September. — Dru Sefton

has more than 650,000 users plus a library of more than 15,000 podcasts, including many from public radio. Users can build playlists or listen to personalized recommendations generated by the app. Stitcher is also partner-

NPR and American Public Media are partnering with a new mobile app that curates talk radio and podcasts according to listener taste.

History Detectives

So far, the new shows are performing well for KPBS. On June 6, A Growing Passion scored a 1.0 rating in its 8:30 p.m. timeslot, compared with the PBS national average of 0.8; Savor San Diego pulled in a 1.9 at 9:30 p.m., compared with PBS’s 0.8, Worlie said.

KPBS hopes to continue the initiative indefinitely, Worlie said. “We’re extremely proud of the two inaugural KPBS Explore programs. They are well done and capture perfectly what we are aiming to do,” she said.

A station committee reviews submissions and evaluates them on criteria such as how the proposed show would capture a unique sense of place. News, public affairs and chil-

Swell, which launched June 27, is the latest venture to bring radio programs to listeners through digital rather than terrestrial means. Built

by Silicon Valley–based startup Concept. io, the free app uses an algorithm similar to Pandora’s to curate a random, continuous stream of audio content, including NPR and APM programs. The app is currently available for iPhone, but its makers plan to add Android support soon.

Swell will need to distinguish itself in this space from Stitcher, a free app for iPhone, iPad, Android and personal computers that streams on-demand podcasts and radio programs. Stitcher was founded in 2008 and

national programs Native America Calling, National Native News, Earthsongs and on the internet stream, NV1. Full job description and application information online at: www.koahnicbroadcast.org/ employment. Position located in our Albuquerque, NM offices. KBC is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Underwriting Representative WHQR-FM, Wilmington, NC

HITN Director of Development Director of Development Illinois Public Media Brooklyn, NY University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Principal duties: research, solicit, and secure corporate underwriting; some other development activities. Commission plus base salary to cover non-commissionable duties. Friends of Public Radio, Inc. is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Position is open until filled. Submit cover letter, resume, contact information for three references to: Underwriting Representative Search, 254 N. Front Street, Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401. Email applications to ccallison@whqr.org. See whqr.org for details on job duties and requirements. See more at: http://jobs. current.org/jobseeker/job/13988714/ Underwriting%20Representative/__ company__/?vnet=0#sthash.3gYZV2TG.dpuf

Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network Inc. (HITN) is a

The Director of Development provides leadership and administrative national public media entity with various technology related, not for profit, management of the Development Department at Illinois Public business activities.

Media, with overall responsibility for fund development and HITN, one of activities,The is a Director PBS-like television marketing of its thebusiness WILL stations. supervisesnetwork. staff It is the first and only non-commercial network targeting the US Latino Market, engaged fund development, including membership, reaching in over 40 million households throughout the Unitedcorporate States and Puerto Rico. HITN services distributed overstaff the largest television platform in support, major giftsare and grants, and engaged in marketing, cable, satellite, Telco’s and internet.

It also provides its viewers content including advertising and promotion, press relations, graphicwith design, that “educates and entertains” consistent with its mission “to advance the program guide and newsletter Bachelor’s andcomeducational, socio-economic andproduction. cultural aspirations of thedegree US Latino fimunity” ve yearsthrough non-profi t development experience required. technology.

HITN is seeking an accomplished Director of Development with a pro-active

SALARY: Commensurate with experience, but not less than $80,000 style and a proven ability to create opportunities and develop long-term annually. strategic relationships. The ideal candidate will have experience in suc-

cessfully securing government and foundation grants as well as developing

programs, fundraising events, and underwrite sponsorships HITN and our Illinois Public Media at the University of Illinois is an Affifor rmative cable network HITN-TV. Action/Equal Opportunity Employer dedicated to building a EEO Employer community of excellence, equity and diversity.

HOW TO

APPLY

Complete aAssociates candidate profi le at https://jobs.illinois.edu upload Livingston is assisting HITN in this search.and Please visit a cover letter, resume, and listfor of the three professional www.livingstonassociates.net full job postingreferences. and apFull consideration will be given to applications received by January plication instructions.

14, 2011. Contact Dee Breeding, HR Specialist, at breeding@ information, or visit Livingstonillinois.edu Associates, for 3000more Chestnut Avenue, Suite 208,http://will.illinois.edu/ Baltimore, MD 21211 jobs/P Search assistance provided by Livingston Associates – Public 410.243.1974 | www.livingstonassociates.net Media’s People.

Livingston Associates, 3000 Chestnut Avenue, Suite 208, Baltimore, MD 21211 P 410.243.1974 | www.livingstonassociates.net

Technology/Engineering WKAR Chief Engineer Michigan State University, East Lansing WKAR at Michigan State University seeks applicants for a telecommunications engineering technician to maintain the WKAR-AMand FM/HD existing physical facilities as Chief Engineer. The successful candidate will have experience with professional quality analog and digital mixing consoles including digital playout systems Audio Vault and Zetta, as well as a knowledge of IP based audio mixing and distribution systems such as Telos Axia equipment.

Command of online web streaming techniques, systems and formats required. Prior non-commercial and/or commercial radio broadcast experience is preferred. BA/BS preferred. For additional information about WKAR, please

Continued on page 22

Continued from page 10

ki-YA-ma) Glover, is an associate professor of French at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches literature of the French-speaking Caribbean as well as sub-Saharan West African cinema.

Glover came to Bryson’s attention through a YouTube video of one of her lectures. In the clip, “she was energetic and fun,” he said, “and you could tell students were watching her intently. She looked like she might be good on television.” During auditions with some half-dozen candidates, producers were “really impressed by her ability to take direction and treat the camera as a friend,” Bryson said.

While the detectives and their producers investigate their next batch of mysterious stories from history, stations can continue to run the original History Detectives. The rights to the first 10 seasons have been cleared for 10 years, Davis said. n Questions, comments, tips? sefton@current.org

visit www.wkar.org. Application deadline is July 14, 2013. Qualified applicants can apply online by visiting jobs.msu. edu and refer to job posting #7842.

MSU is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. MSU is committed to achieving excellence through cultural diversity. The university actively encourages applications and/or nominations of women, persons of color, veterans and persons with disabilities.

Engagement/Outreach Manager, Marketing and Community Engagement Milwaukee Public Television/ Milwaukee Area Technical College, WI Milwaukee Public Television (MPTV) is seeking an experienced marketing professional to develop and implement comprehensive, strategic communications and marketing plans that strengthen the MPTV brand and convey relevant information to external and internal audiences. The ideal candidate will perform duties using considerable independent judgment, creativity and ingenuity to analyze and develop a variety of strategies and initiatives, using a variety of media platforms, to communicate with the public and promote MPTV’s programming and services.

Job Requirements: A Bachelor’s degree in communications, marketing, public relations, or a related field is required; plus five (5) years of progressively responsible occupational experience, and considerable knowledge of marketing, advertising, and public relations practices and processes for broadcast, online, and print media. To Apply: http://www. matc.edu/, Contact Person: Teresa Scaggs, scaggst@matc.edu

Driving revenue Continued from page 1

Current

| July 8, 2013 | 21

Money left on the table The increasing popularity of vehicle donation programs caught Heiplik’s attention as the Contributor Development Partnership studied how to help stations improve their fundraising results by adopting best practices. For many stations, vehicle donation programs provide only 1 to 1.5 percent of their total donations, according to CDP’s research.

But the results varied widely: Top stations are earning around 7 percent of their donations from cars.

“We’re not realizing the full potential of this,” Heiplik said. “This is a huge program for a number of stations. If we work on it, I think we could be bringing back $2 million

With so many players competing for stations’ business, pubcasting development experts don’t know how much revenue vehicle donations generate systemwide.

Michal Heiplik, director of the Contributor Development Partnership based at WGBH, estimates that total returns could be as much as $20 million annually.

CDP, a fundraising cooperative backed by the Public Television Major Market Group and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, recently entered the field as a potential disruptor to the vendors now working with stations. The partnership unveiled a program that standardizes the fees paid to vendors, which can vary widely depending on the condition and sale value of the car, and frequently are not disclosed to donors or the station. The 18 stations participating in CDP’s program pay a flat fee for each vehicle prior to sale, regardless of its condition.

At stake are millions in fees and proceeds to the vendors and the stations they work With millions in revenues raised annually from sales of donated with. Public media is a vehicles, third-party vendors compete for business by offering latecomer to vehicle-dostations’ higher margins of return and lower costs. CarTalk’s nation fundraising, but vehicle donation program, run through V-DAC, trades on the the practice has spread exponentially during the show’s reputation of providing straight-shooting advice about car repairs. Above, a still from a marketing video created by CarTalk past five years, accordVehicle Donation Services. ing to station-based development officers and executives at vehicle more a year to public media.” donation programs.

And, in a shot fired at the established WAMU in Washington, D.C., raised a net business model of processing the car sales $1 million annually from vehicle donations through centralized charities and assessing over the past four years, according to Walt varying fees, CDP negotiated a flat-rate deal Gillette, development director. The proceeds outpaced the $850,000 generated by WAMU’s with Insurance Auto Auctions Inc. About 18 stations, including Boston’s WGBH and workplace giving program in fiscal 2012.

Indianapolis’s WFYI, have signed on for the “It’s been a big winner for WAMU,” Gillette said. “Vehicle donations have become program that charges a flat $150, regardless of the condition of the donated vehicle, to indispensable to our fundraising efforts.” handle the sale.

WAMU receives as many as 35 car donaIAA is a wholly owned subsidiary of tions each week, and they’re usually handled KAR Auctions Services Inc. The Carmel,

by CARS. Under its fee system, the station Ind.–based company reported a $29.1 million earns an average of $450 on each car, and the profit for the first quarter of 2013 that ended vendor charges fees up to 30 percent of a car’s on March 31. gross sale value.

According to Heiplik, this new approach There are exceptions and oddball situacould increase stations’ net return on each tions, such as the recent donation of a 1939 vehicle from 65 percent to 70 percent and to Packard in mint condition that sold for as much as 85 percent. $17,000.

“That’s pretty significant,” he said. “We’re Smaller stations don’t have the same cutting out the middleman taking his cut, volume of donated cars as those in major while still making sure the same services are markets, but the programs have become an delivered to stations. ” important part of their fundraising efforts.

Stations and donors should not notice a Since introducing its car program five years difference in service and marketing to donors ago, WCQS, in Asheville, N.C., now receives under CDP’s program, Heiplik said, but there as many as three car donations each week. will be less marketing directed at the stations WCQS uses CARS as its primary vendor, themselves. according to Michelle Keenan, member“We’re not interested in giveaways, ship director, but it also accepts donations tchotchkes or parties,” Heiplik said. “All we’re through V-DAC, which is associated with interested in is getting the most return we Car Talk. The volume of donations ebbs and can for the stations. ” flows based on the amount of airtime the sta“Once you switch to a flat fee, the revenue tion can commit to promotional spots. impact is immediate, ” he added. “And there Keenan sees vehicle donations as a crucial won’t be any change in the level of service. component of the station’s fundraising mix.

All we’re doing is switching the background “It’s the easiest turnkey thing that we offer,” vendor. ” Keenan said. “When the checks come in, The simplicity of vehicle donation prothere’s almost a feeling like it’s free money. It’s grams has been a bonus to station developreally become quite important to us.”

Continued on page 22

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22 | July 8, 2013 | Current

Driving revenue Continued from page 21

ment professionals because they earn the revenue without adding staff or diverting scarce resources, Heiplik said. But by not scrutinizing how cars are converted to cash — and how the money is divided — they are losing money.

“The stations never see the cost; they just get the check and are happy,” Heiplik said.

“If they did see the costs, they would be working hard on fixing it. There is a lot of money being left on the table that could be put toward content or costs for public broadcasters.”

Vendors such as CARS and V-DAC criticize CDP’s flat-fee approach as simplistic because it stifles creativity and limits options for how vehicles are sold.

Both companies assess fees based on a car’s condition, how it is sold and the work needed to prepare it for sale.

“It looks good on paper when you talk about flat fees, but with flat fees there is no incentive to try a more creative way to sell the vehicle,” said CARS c.e.o. Rick Watkins.

“One way doesn’t fit every situation.”

V-DAC has tried CDP’s approach of relying on auction houses to handle sales

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ing with Ford and General Motors to bring its app to car dashboards.

Nancy Cassutt, APM’s managing director for national distribution, sent a memo to stations in advance of Swell’s announcement, explaining why the distributor chose to partner with a direct-to-listener company.

“As a public media company, our mission is to expand public radio audiences, and that means delivering programming how, when and where they desire it,” Cassutt said in the memo, which was posted by the Public Radio Programming Directors blog. “At the same time, we remain committed to your success.

Radio is our core platform; it is essential to

through an earlier relationship with IAA, according the Mark Jones, c.e.o. V-DAC and IAA decided to split ways in 2008 because his company wanted to offer customers more options for selling their cars.

“We just felt there was a bias when it came time to choose where to send cars,” he said. “We felt [IAA] would choose to send it through their auction houses.”

Additional options beyond auctions include selling vehicles to used car lots or other sellers with whom the vendor has a relationship. For popular models with a high resale value, the companies also turn to online services such as eBay to fetch a higher sale price.

Donations without overhead V-DAC has leveraged its relationship with Car Talk, one of public radio’s most popular weekend programs, to expand its service to broadcasters and their donors. The California-based company forged a partnership with the producers of Car Talk in 2004 to co-brand and market its donation program to stations, especially the radio outlets carrying the show.

“The Car Talk brand wasn’t built accidentally — their level of integrity and straightforwardness is really what they’re all about,” Jones said. V-DAC saw the association

us and the content we produce.”

Swell’s staff includes “founding audio editor” Aimee Machado, who has previously worked for WNYC, KPCC and KQED. — Andrew Lapin

PBS is planning a weeklong commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

The special lineup of shows planned for broadcast in late August includes a new documentary, The March, co-executive produced

by Robert Redford. It debuts Aug. 27, the eve of the anniversary.

The next day, the PBS Black Culture Connection website will host an online screening of the documentary and interactive

with Car Talk as a way to align itself with those values and give it a competitive edge.

Nevertheless, Jones said, it took a long time to get the program up and running properly.

In V-DAC’s business model, ICA is the central charity that serves as the legal recipient of the donated cars. For this, ICA receives a 3.75 percent cut from the gross value of each car sale. The charity, which is comprised of member nonprofits, earned $34 million, according to its 2011 Form 990 filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

ICA’s largest grant recipients that year included $1.43 million to the Correctional Peace Officers’ Foundation; $1.11 million for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and $652,955 to Catholic Relief Services. ICA also paid $295,737 to Minnesota Public Radio.

Running car donations through ICA reduces overhead costs and legal liability to its member nonprofits. “With our approach, the stations are never in the line of title,” Jones said. “And, by going through the central charity, the money sent to the stations is 100 percent free and clear of fundraising costs. It can be marked down as complete revenue.”

Expenses involved in converting a car into cash can reach 20 percent or more of the sale price, Jones said, but he sees it as a good deal

chats with participants of the historic event.

The site also will premiere The March @50, an online series to run over the following five weeks, exploring how far America has come in delivering on the original demands of the activists. Local PBS stations will contribute to Memories of the March, a video series of vignettes, also running on the website.

Additional programs scheduled for broadcast include the American Masters biography “James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket,” profiling the famous author; In Performance at the White House with “A Celebration of Music From the Civil Rights Movement”; and the Independent Lens presentation of “The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights,” a profile of the activist who turned the Urban League into a tool to fight unemployment among minorities. — D.S.

for stations. “The reality is, the cost we might add to the process is nominal compared to the costs of running a program in-house.

It’s quite a bit of work and would strain any charity running with a tight staff.”

But Jones acknowledges that vehicle donation companies haven’t been forthcoming about disclosing details of the transactions; V-DAC, he said, has tried to change that.

“The top companies working with stations are reputable, but, unfortunately, there is a lack of transparency in the industry,”Jones said. Many offer such similar services that they’re indistinguishable from each other.

“So, at the end of the day, we tell the charities to look at how the cars sold and how much did they get for it.”

As a way to improve its own disclosures V-DAC posts its fees on its website.

In one example, a “recycler” car that fetches $125 in a salvage sale would return $53 net to the station; V-DAC would earn a $22 management fee.

A “premium vehicle” that sells for $2,600 would generate $1,827 to the station and $609 for V-DAC. In both transactions, a portion of the sale proceeds covers towing, auction expenses and paperwork fees required by the various states’ departments of motor vehicles.

Differentiated by disclosures CARS is one of the biggest vendors that V-DAC and public TV’s CDP compete against for public media vehicle donations.

CARS, which operates as a for-profit vehicle donation company, is owned by Jewish Family Service of San Diego, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

According to its tax records, Jewish Family Service brought in $18.8 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012. The charity’s total expenses were $15.8 million for services that included geriatric care, counseling and a nonprofit adoption agency.

Jewish Family Service also owns Charitable Adult Rides & Services, a nonprofit started in 2010 that acts as the central charity for the for-profit CARS, similar to V-DAC’s relationship with ICA. When CARS began business, it also sought to differentiate itself from disreputable firms that handled the transactions with little disclosure to the beneficiary charities.

“When I came into this industry, no one had access to information,” Watkins said.

“They had no idea who was selling the vehicle, or how much they would get paid. It was such an icky business.”

CARS launched a web portal to inform its client stations about the sale process, and it recently unveiled a new “cloud marketing” system that uses search engine optimization to increase donations, among other features.

The various approaches for managing vehicle donations will be on display this week during DEI’s Public Media Development & Marketing Conference in Atlanta. CARS, CDP and the CarTalk Vehicle Donation Program are all sponsors of the conference, while Vehicles for Charity and the Center for Car Donations are planned exhibitors.

Public media’s base of loyal audiences and engaged donors, and their demographic profile as highly educated and affluent, make the system an attractive market for vehicle donation firms.

“There are definitely a lot of oars in this water,” Watkins said. “And, in the end, we have our way of doing business and they have theirs. What it’s all about, though, is providing a service that’s going to be a benefit to public broadcasters.” n Questions, comments, tips? mook@current.org

A 13-week rAdio series: “Mr. de Waart [conducting the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall], no surprise, showed full command… And the responsive orchestra shone everywhere, with warm strings, characterful woodwinds and strong brasses.”

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Edo de Waart Photo of Edo de Waart by Steve J. Sherman

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