TODAY'S TIP:
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The second round of our National Listening Sessions resume this week.
The topics are the same: Our money, voting, the American Dream, my community’s future, and mental well-being.
Here’s a recap of what we heard in some of the previous sessions.
On the American Dream, participants from Georgia, Minnesota and California shared widely different views and experiences, with several talking about the challenges they’ve faced. An immigrant from Afghanistan said discrimination has blocked his path to achieving the American Dream. A Black woman said systemic racism means she and other Black Americans face more hurdles when it comes to home ownership and income equality. Compound this effect over generations and that’s an immeasurable loss of opportunity.
Participants in the communities session came from Georgia, Florida and Minnesota. They say they value their “home” communities as a place for empowerment and advocacy. They’re proud of their resilience and say there is more diversity -- especially in rural America -- than usually represented in media.
Our next round of sessions starts Thursday, Sept. 17, with Our Money.
See the schedule here and register!
We're Engaged!
A quick look at community engagement efforts around public media.
Here’s a lesson in transparency from Colorado Public Radio, which posted an FAQ about its election coverage.
The station writes: “In 2020, CPR News has made it our mission to put you at the center of this election. … we are seeking out your voices, to hear what you think is most important, what you want to see the politicians address, and to understand the circumstances in your life that drive your participation in this democracy.”
The FAQ covers a range of topics to help explain fairness, how fact checking works, anonymous sources and how readers can ask questions. It's a great idea to steal for any news organization. The effort was also highlighted by Trusting News.
Read the CPR post here.
A mother on a hunger strike in Pittsburgh
Ariel Worthy, a reporter covering the Hill District in Pittsburgh for our partner network StateImpact Pennsylvania, recently produced a story about a grieving mother on a hunger strike.
Dannielle Brown has been sitting at Hill District’s Freedom Corner since July, demanding to know exactly how her son, Marquis Jaylen “JB” Brown, died at Duquesne University in 2018. The community has embraced Dannielle and created a “tent village” to gather with her every day.
Ariel learned of Dannielle through spending time in the community and said she gained trust by talking to people off-the-record first, before recording. Read Ariel’s story here.
Wisconsin Public Radio's diversity source audit results
Wisconsin Public Radio spent a year doing an internal review of the sources who appear on air and recently shared its findings with a detailed story.
The results “confirmed what many at WPR had suspected — sources on air are overwhelmingly white.”
According to the story, the data shows that of the people who appeared on air on WPR's two radio networks, nearly nine out of 10 were white.
There was an even split between males and females. The data was also broken down by ZIP codes.
The station also shared a plan for improvement, which includes appointing a “source librarian” who works with reporters to find new and more diverse voices for stories.
We applaud this effort (along with KUT’s tracking, which we highlighted in an earlier newsletter), as we are also in the process of helping our partner networks do source audits.
Read WPR’s post here.
Resource center
The Fund for Investigative Journalism is offering grants to support stories on police misconduct that break new ground and expose wrongdoing — such as corruption, malfeasance, or abuse of power — in the public and private sectors.
Grants average $5,000 but can be as high as $10,000. They cover out-of-pocket expenses such as travel, document collection, and equipment rental. FIJ also considers requests for small stipends.
More details here.
AP webinars on understanding its election coverage
Starting this week, AP will be offering a series of webinars on how it plans to count and cover the results in some 7,000 races this November. The topics are:
Sept. 17: Why this election is different. Sept. 24: How race calling works. Get an insider's understanding of how AP equips and trains its race caller network. Oct. 1: How AP will count the vote in November. AP will be advising and sharing information on various channels in November. Where can you go for results and answers? Oct. 8: AP Vote Cast debuted in 2018 as an alternative to the traditional exit poll and, in many ways, it uses the ideal methodology to conduct accurate research about the electorate during a pandemic. Oct. 15: Social spread of misinformation and AP's fact-checking operation. How can local newsrooms spot misinformation and do their own fact-checking? Oct. 22: The AP Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace and Political Editor Steven Sloan discuss what AP is looking for on election night and the storylines we are following. Oct. 29: Join us for a virtual news meeting to discuss our week-out planning, storylines and reminders of resources available.
Register once and you can attend any of the sessions for as long as your schedule allows. Webinars will be at 1 p.m. ET/12 p.m. CT /10 a.m. PT.
There will be a Q&A immediately following each session. Register here.
Special hour for BIPOC public media professionals
Greaterpublic.org -- an organization that supports public media professionals -- hosts a monthly virtual town hall focused on “connection and empowerment for public media Professionals of Color.”
This month’s Our Hour gathering will be Friday at 1 p.m. ET/12 p.m. CT/10 a.m. PT to talk about Racial Battle Fatigue’s impact on health and ways to combat its effects.
Our Hour events are exclusive to those who identify as Black, Indigenous or People of Color and will not be recorded.
In order to create safe space, the sessions will not be recorded.
Register here.
Reminder: PRPD/PMJA Live Virtual Summit is next week
The Sept. 21-Sept. 24 summit will not only feature a session from America Amplified (we're honored!), it will also include sessions on Objectivity and the Culture of Journalism, Covering the COVID Election, and the Six Types of American News Audiences.
The cost for members to attend the summit is $150. Register here.
Access our past newsletters Our weekly newsletters have covered a lot since launching in March, but you don't have to miss out on past issues!
See the topics on this page.
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America Amplified is supported by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
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