This week: The Slap heard 'round the world. Local newsrooms and the AI Opportunity, plus creating a podcast incubator to attract new and diverse talent.
Agree that NPR stations missed the chance to be even more relevant with this. Not surprised however. "We" have long looked down our programming noses at arts/entertianment/pop-culture, as unworthy. It's a mistake, as I infer from your piece (and I agree) to assume that our listeners/users do not care about this category of topics. My fear is that they simply find it elsewhere. I'll not soon forget hearing a piece in one of the magazines on country music. I walked down the hall to our PD at that time and said "did you hear that?" as I shook my head. Their answer was "yep, it reminded me of someone finding something dead by the side of the road, and poking around at it with a stick as if to say eeeuuwww what IS that?!" One of the bigger belly laughs I've had in my career. We have to be better, and more relevant. One issue is that if the magazines are going to ignore a story, or "lightly" touch it, it's tough to then coordinate getting it into one of the talk shows because they're not produced by the network. No coordination, plus 300 program directors creates our classic free-for-all national treatment. NPR and Marketplace have had the same challenge around financial stories. Glad you called this out!
Love the shout out to twitter spaces. At America Amplified we're looking into exactly what you are suggesting -- using twitter spaces to amplify local stories and reach new audiences AND to collaborate with NPR on national stories with local touch.
I understand your points... but the subject of the slap had already been talked to death by next morning. Why interrupt legitimate news and other work that so many people produced... for something so innane and irrelevant?
Agree that NPR stations missed the chance to be even more relevant with this. Not surprised however. "We" have long looked down our programming noses at arts/entertianment/pop-culture, as unworthy. It's a mistake, as I infer from your piece (and I agree) to assume that our listeners/users do not care about this category of topics. My fear is that they simply find it elsewhere. I'll not soon forget hearing a piece in one of the magazines on country music. I walked down the hall to our PD at that time and said "did you hear that?" as I shook my head. Their answer was "yep, it reminded me of someone finding something dead by the side of the road, and poking around at it with a stick as if to say eeeuuwww what IS that?!" One of the bigger belly laughs I've had in my career. We have to be better, and more relevant. One issue is that if the magazines are going to ignore a story, or "lightly" touch it, it's tough to then coordinate getting it into one of the talk shows because they're not produced by the network. No coordination, plus 300 program directors creates our classic free-for-all national treatment. NPR and Marketplace have had the same challenge around financial stories. Glad you called this out!
Love the shout out to twitter spaces. At America Amplified we're looking into exactly what you are suggesting -- using twitter spaces to amplify local stories and reach new audiences AND to collaborate with NPR on national stories with local touch.
I understand your points... but the subject of the slap had already been talked to death by next morning. Why interrupt legitimate news and other work that so many people produced... for something so innane and irrelevant?