Current NEWS FOR PEOPLE IN PUBLIC MEDIA
April 2020 | Vol. 39, No. 3 Fundraising tactics for a new kind of crisis
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NPR, stations join forces again to land major gifts
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L.A. collaboration defines at-home learning model
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PUBLIC MEDIA RESPONDS TO CORONAVIRUS CRISIS
Reporters overseas adjust to hazards of working in a pandemic BY AUSTIN FAST
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he coronavirus essentially froze Chinese public life in late January, but Marketplace China Correspondent Jennifer Pak kept hitting the streets of Shanghai to document the pandemic’s economic fallout. “Any reporter will tell you that all they want is to go out and speak to people,” Pak said. She loves visiting sources’ homes and businesses, finding it fascinating that people “open their doors and their hearts and tell us everything.” That’s not so easy in an era of social distancing. Security guards posted at practically every office, apartment building and shopping mall registered her name and passport number, and checked for fevers. In a day’s reporting, Pak could have her temperature checked up to a half-dozen times and not see more than 10 people on the streets. “A lot of it was just me, miking myself up and walking around and just explaining what was happening, so that I wasn’t necessarily talking to people,” Pak said. Two months later, cars and pedestrians had returned to the streets of Shanghai, but Pak said masks in public spaces, daily office disinfections and fever checks are still in full force. While U.S.-based journalists have adapted to remote reporting as social distancing has shut down American public life, inter-
PTV’s daily news shows reinvent their workflows on the fly BY JULIAN WYLLIE
W Marketplace China Correspondent Jennifer Pak interviews Shanghai resident Wu Lingmei, who says she will not dine at restaurants anymore because of the coronavirus outbreak. (Photo: Charles Zhang/Marketplace) national correspondents are making tough choices, like uprooting their lives to return home or braving the pandemic’s Italian epicenter in journalistic pursuit of the story.
Remote reporters without borders
Amid worries that border crossings might close in March, Phoenix’s KJZZ brought two of its foreign correspondents to Tucson, where they’re continuing to report on the northern Mexican state of Sonora from afar. KJZZ Mexico City Bureau Chief Rodrigo Cervantes opted to remain south of the border because he has dual citizenship. It’s a point of pride for News Director Al Macias that KJZZ opened a Mexico City bureau about four years ago to contribute to the station’s Fronteras Desk initiative, joined by a second Mexican bureau nearly two years ago in Hermosillo, Sonora. “As far as I know, we’re the only local NPR station in the country with foreign bureaus,” Macias said, noting they provide Arizonan listeners with coverage they won’t get elsewhere. “With the people that we have [in Mexico], we’re able to cover a lot of the issues that do have a direct impact on Arizona.” KJZZ pulled reporters Kendal Blust and Murphy Woodhouse out of Hermosillo just a few days before nonessential travel between the U.S. and Mexico ceased March 21. Macias said the reporters developed
a good book of sources during their time in Mexico to continue reporting, even as safety precautions limit them to internet or phone calls across the international border. These limitations are no different from the challenges facing many of the other journalists in KJZZ’s newsroom and around the country, Macias added. Although KJZZ’s foreign correspondents are itching to get back to Mexico, Macias said he’s prepared for his team to skip in-person reporting for weeks or even months. “We want to make sure the risk of anything with the pandemic is, if not eliminated, at least minimized. We want to make sure all the other political and transportation issues are not up in the air,” Macias said. Cervantes’ continued presence in Mexico City will give KJZZ “a good sense of what is going on from the Mexican government standpoint.” Recordings of action and ambient sound helps draw radio listeners into a scene, so Macias said his reporters have gotten creative. Deputizing National Guard members to gather cellphone recordings as they delivered food boxes was one way they added a little flavor to a story when the reporters couldn’t get into the field. In Shanghai, even Pak’s own radio turned into a source of ambient sound Continued on page 7
INSIDE THIS ISSUE KUOW’S JILL JACKSON SHARES LESSONS ON COVERING COVID-19 10 BUSINESS DIRECTORY 13 PEOPLE 5 Current.org
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hen Hugo Balta began directing news as EP of Chicago Tonight, he did not suspect that his first months on the job would be spent covering a global health crisis. “I’m walking on my third month at WTTW and if you were to have asked me in January how my first six months would go, I thought I would be just getting to know the team, observing and absorbing,” he said. “But then the second month this global pandemic hit, and things changed very quickly. I’m very fortunate and very grateful to be working with a team that’s experienced, talented and generous.” Like many newsroom leaders, Balta has Continued on page 15
Stations brace for downturns in underwriting income, seek new clients BY JULIAN WYLLIE
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evelopment executives and sponsorship sales consultants say public media’s underwriting income is in jeopardy as businesses absorb substantial financial losses due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Among the categories taking the biggest hits are entertainment and dining, two usually reliable sources of public media underwriting revenue. Many restaurants are closing their doors, and arts venues are postponing and canceling events until the disease is contained. Business income, which includes underwriting, accounted for nearly 14% of public broadcasting’s revenue in fiscal year 2018, the most recent year for which data is available. It’s the third-largest income source after subscribers and CPB’s appropriation. Public broadcasting revenue from corporate underwriting declined sharply during the 2008 recession, as corporations cut back on spending, and has not returned to pre-recession levels, according to CPB. It’s too early for WGBH in Boston to estimate potential underwriting losses, but clients are pulling back on spending, said Suzanne Zellner, VP of corporate sponsorship. The Continued on page 14
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