LOCAL CONTENT AND SERVICE 2019 WGBH enriches people’s lives through programs and services that educate, inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of learning, and the power of diverse perspectives. wgbh mission statement wgbh local content and service 2019 WGBH serves our local audiences with trusted content and engaging experiences that are rooted in and reflect our region. Through TV and radio broadcasts, online and mobile content, educational activities, screenings, performances and forums in our Brighton and Boston Public Library studios, WGBH fosters citizen participation and community connections. WGBH operates a variety of public television services: WGBH 2, WGBH 44, WGBH Kids, and Boston Kids & Family TV (an educational service for Boston cable subscribers, in collaboration with the City of Boston); WGBH WORLD and WGBH Create. WGBH 2 and WGBH Kids are also available to YouTube TV subscribers. WGBH operates three public radio services: 89.7 WGBH, Boston’s Local NPR; 99.5 WCRB Classical Radio Boston; and WCAI, local NPR for the Cape, the Islands and the south coast (90.1, 91.1, 94.3). We offer six web services—wgbh.org, wgbhnews.org, wgby.org, classical wcrb.org, wgbh.org/jazz247 and capeandislands.org—that provide streaming, podcasts, blogs, news updates and a wide range of program resources. WGBH’s services offer a mix of national fare and locally originated content designed to serve the specific needs and interests of New England area audiences. COVER: WGBH hosted Boston Public School students for a year-end Excellence for All event. © Sam Brewer 1 WGBH NEWS WGBH provides comprehensive news coverage to our community via TV, radio, the web and mobile. We take the approach of connecting the Commonwealth, covering the issues that citizens across the state care about. WGBH is among the fastest-growing local news providers in Greater Boston, drawing on the talent of our 100-person multiplatform newsroom, which garnered five regional Edward R. Murrow Awards in 2019. Earlier this year, we invested in the expansion of our newsrooms to provide more local coverage across our region. We laid plans for a bureau in Worcester that will be equipped with a broadcast studio and technology to stream digital video and provide radio and digital stories for 89.7 FM and the news website. Our TV affiliate in Springfield, WGBY, joined together with New England Public Radio to form a robust new multiplatform public media organization called New England Public Media (NEPM). Reporting from NEPM will bring greater awareness of western Massachusetts to audiences and policymakers in the Greater Boston region. Through our Woods Hole radio station WCAI, we are sharing important stories from Cape Cod, the Islands and south coast. And we are leading the way on local investigative reporting with our newest colleagues from the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) who officially joined the WGBH family in July, ensuring that we will continue to lead the way in hard-hitting, in-depth regional investigations. Our newsroom offers perspective and analysis across media, allowing WGBH to reach audiences in multiple ways and to take advantage of each platform’s unique storytelling abilities. WGBH’s partnership with The GroundTruth Project, along with our co-productions with The World and The Takeaway from PRX, greatly expand our local news resources. WGBH’s multimedia approach informed all of its local programming in 2019: The WGBH newsroom is growing and • 89.7 WGBH offers more than 30 hours every week of original, local expanding coverage across the Commonwealth. programming that brings listeners a wide range of voices and opinions. © Meredith Nierman • Boston Public Radio, our three-hour live midday radio program, hosted by seasoned Boston journalists Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, offers thought-provoking discussions on the day’s news and issues. The show regularly hosts our region’s most influential policymakers, business leaders and cultural mavens. Monthly one-hour, in-studio conversations with Governor Charlie Baker, Boston Mayor Marty 2 Walsh, Attorney General Maura Healey, in addition to appearances by Boston Police Commissioner William Gross, offer citizens an opportunity to directly connect with their elected officials about the issues they care about. • Greater Boston, our signature weeknight TV news program hosted by Jim Braude, continues to provide insight into the stories and newsmakers that matter to our local community. • Emily Rooney and a media-savvy panel of journalists on WGBH television’s Beat the Press review the news of the week every Friday night, holding the media accountable for journalistic lapses and giving credit to local and national news coverage that get it right. • Under the Radar with Callie Crossley focuses on local stories from alternative press outlets and community sources often overlooked by mainstream media. A sample of segments in 2019 include the uptick in hiring of workers with disabilities and its long-term effect on the job market, multiple programs dedicated to Boston’s hotly contested City Council elections, a project by young female researchers uncovering the forgotten women programmers who helped found the field of population genetics, the hidden history of Puerto Ricans serving in the Callie Crossley, winner of the prestigious U.S. armed forces and the conditions faced by Puerto Rican veterans Yankee Quill Award for journalism. © Meredith Nierman today and an ongoing discussion tracking the impact of the #AsianAugust phenomenon (sparked by the blockbuster appeal of recent all-Asian movie casts) on Asian on-screen representation. • The longest-running program on public television focusing on the interests of communities of color, Basic Black, hosted by Callie Crossley, has been at the forefront of emerging social media engagement and broadcast by incorporating a simultaneous Facebook and Twitter stream and discussion with live TV to connect directly with audiences. Basic Black continues to be responsive to current events, providing a platform for local voices on national issues. Topics covered in 2019 included mental health, education equality with the new Boston Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Brenda Cassellius, minority ownership in the emerging cannabis industry, the impact of colorism, the challenges of solving cold cases in communities of color and a look at the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved people to arrive in America. Basic Black, in collaboration with Berklee College of Music, produced an episode featuring three-time Grammy winner and 3 founder and artistic director of the Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice Terri Lyne Carrington, Berklee student Dreion and Grammy-nominated saxophonist and former Beyoncé band member Tia Fuller. • On Open Studio with Jared Bowen, Boston’s only full-time multimedia arts reporter pulls back the curtain on the creative process, with interviews and stories on local, regional and national artists and arts organizations. Highlights of 2019 include the exhibit, “Ancient Nubia Jared Bowen and Dolly Parton. © Meredith Nierman Now” at the Museum of Fine Arts; a tour of Orchard House, the historic home of author Louisa May Alcott; photographer Graciele Iturbide, one of Mexico’s most celebrated living photographers; a view of the rare collection of British painter J.M.W. Turner’s watercolors; and the Peabody Essex Museum’s new 40,000 square-foot wing. Interviews included actor Billy Porter, musician David Byrne, country star Dolly Parton and iconic actress Liv Ullmann. The program continued its in-studio performances with Grammy winner singer- songwriter Paula Cole, actress and singer Alicia Witt and “Concert for One” creator and violist Rayna Yun Chou. Local News Events and Initiatives In addition to our regular programming, which includes local guests and features on Morning Edition and All Things Considered, a number of special news events and reporting initiatives benefited from our hyperlocal focus in 2019: • Massachusetts lags behind most of the country when it comes to electing women to public office—that’s what an in-depth report from WGBH News found after spending six months collecting and sorting through the data. • WGBH News produced extensive coverage around the mid-term elections, including an online voter guide for our digital audience. Reporters asked candidates a series of questions and produced a summary of each candidate’s top priorities, background and positions on issues. Arun Rath, executive editor/host of All Things Considered at WGBH News. © Meredith Nierman 4 • WGBH News reported on the forgotten story of the Reverse Freedom Rides. In 1962, one year after Freedom Riders rode Greyhound buses south in an effort to integrate interstate transit, Southern segregationists decided to retaliate. They tricked impoverished African Americans from the South into boarding buses that dropped them in unsuspecting Northern cities, including Hyannis on Cape Cod, where President John F. Kennedy had a summer home. WGBH News found Betty Williams tells the story of her family’s one of those families and told the story from their perspective, journey north. © Meredith Nierman/WGBH News weaving in newly discovered historical documents and archival tape in a two-part series and digital video documentary. • WGBH News teamed up with a network of PBS stations and examined the patchwork of laws that govern the growth, use and sale of marijuana. During a 30-minute special presentation, we took viewers to California, Arizona,