GFEM Annual Funder Conversation: Role of Public Media in Our Democracy
Special Guests Renée Fleming, Terry Gross, Gary Knell and David Fanning
Register here (Open to funders and invited guests.)
With the decline of traditional journalism outlets, some public and independent media organizations are making significant strides in expanding news and information services to fill the gap. And public media is engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with compelling arts and culture programming, storytelling, civic discourse and much more.
Even so, many public media outlets have been slow to adapt to changing technologies and market forces. Compounding these challenges, many public broadcasters are also straining under deep cuts in public funding.
Against this backdrop we’ll examine philanthropy’s role in supporting innovations that are paving the way for a renewed public media sector, and sustaining the kind of public media system that our country and our democracy require.
Here’s the lineup of confirmed speakers to date, with more speakers being added daily.
June 27 – Funder Dinner with Gary Knell, President, National Public Radio
6:30 – 9:30 p.m., Restaurant information upon registration.
June 28 – Annual Funder Conversation, National Constitution Center
8:30 a.m.: Continental breakfast served
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.: Program
Keynote – Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air, interviewing David Fanning, Executive Producer of FRONTLINE
Plenary – Renée Fleming, world-renowned opera sensation live from Paris (via Skype)
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9:00 - 9:30 a.m: Introduction and Welcome
David Haas, Chair, Wyncote Foundation and Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media
David Eisner, President and CEO, National Constitution Center
Vincent Stehle, Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media
Craig Aaron, President, Free Press
As the daily newspaper declines in importance as a source of investigative journalism, independent nonprofit reporting organizations have developed strong partnerships with public media organizations and other outlets, to deliver critical public interest coverage. We’ll explore two interesting collaborations between the Center for Public Integrity. The first, in partnership with NPR, is Polluted Places, which reveals the impact of pollution on communities using localization strategies through national and local NPR stations. The second, in partnership with Public Radio International is the State Integrity reporting project, which exposes corruption and practices that undermine the public’s trust in elected officials. Both of these represent significant aspects of partnership and impact.
Confirmed:
William E. Buzenberg, Executive Director, Center for Public Integrity
Elizabeth Christopherson, President, Rita Allen Foundation
Paul Mason, President, LinkTV (moderator)
A very special opportunity to hear from two of public media’s most respected media makers
David Fanning has been Executive Producer of FRONTLINE since its first season in 1983. In 2010, after 28 seasons and more than 530 films, FRONTLINE remains America’s longest-running investigative documentary series on television. The series has won all of the major awards for broadcast journalism: 45 Emmys, including a special Emmy Award for excellence in documentary filmmaking; 24 duPont-Columbia University Awards; 13 Peabody Awards; and 11 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. In 1989 and 1996, FRONTLINE was recognized with the Gold Baton — the highest duPont-Columbia Award — for its “total contribution to the world of exceptional television.”
Terry Gross has been host of Fresh Air since 1975. Since 1987, a daily, one-hour national edition of Fresh Air has been produced by WHYY-FM (Philadelphia). The program is broadcast on 566 stations and became the first non-drive time show in public radio history to reach more than five million listeners each week in fall 2008, a presidential election season. Fresh Air with Terry Gross has received a number of awards, including the prestigious Peabody Award in 1994 for its “probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insight.” In 2003, she received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Edward R. Murrow Award for her "outstanding contributions to public radio" and for advancing the “growth, quality and positive image of radio.”
Breakout 1A – Public Media Working with Emerging Online Journalism Strategies
Another new player is the emerging online news organization, providing critical community information needs. Increasingly, these newcomers are developing partnerships with traditional public media organizations. In northern New Jersey, WNYC has established a new public radio organization – New Jersey Public Radio, which collaborates with a robust online news organization, New Jersey Spotlight, to deliver stories about politics and government.
Confirmed:
Molly de Aguiar, Director of Communications, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
Steven Waldman, Chair, Nonprofit Media Working Group and Columbia Journalism School
Breakout 1B – Broadband Access to Deliver Community Information and Cultivate Engagement
Featuring the Freedom Rings Keyspot partnership, focusing on how public media partnerships in Philadelphia are creating dozens of broadband access and training opportunities, in conjunction with a wide range of community organizations.
Confirmed:
Laura Efurd, Vice President and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, Zero Divide
Breakout 1C – Documentary Film Impact and Outreach
Explore successful partnerships between social issue documentarians and Facing History and Ourselves, an educational organization that works extensively with documentary filmmakers to craft lessons for young people, bringing history to life.
Confirmed:
1:30 - 2:30 p.m.: Plenary Panel 2 – The Metropolitan Opera Goes Digital
Perennially the largest performing arts organization, The Metropolitan Opera is opening more doors to arts participation through multiple media outlets and new digital strategies. The Metropolitan Opera has long been a mass media producer, reaching millions of listeners through its Saturday afternoon broadcasts going back over 100 years, and continuously from 1931, as well as being carried from the earliest days of television and continuously on public television for the past 35 years. In recent years, the Met has expanded its digital distribution to include live HD broadcasts over hundreds of screens, reaching as many people in movie theaters and other remote locations in a handful of broadcasts as it does in its large theater over an entire season. Learn how the Met is extending its reach and deepening its impact through the use of new technologies.
Confirmed:
Elena Park, Assistant Manager, Creative Content, Metropolitan Opera
Breakout 2A – Cultural Organizations as Digital Content Producer
Building on the plenary discussion, this will be a hands-on discussion with arts organizations embracing more democratic, distributed information technology to reach new audiences and expand the public benefit of increased access to cultural content. Traditional arts organizations have been slow to take up these communications tools, in part because they are conservative in their nature, but also because they cling to a notion of expertise and authority that does not necessarily embrace the aesthetics of a more democratic distributed information technology. What is the potential to reach new audiences and expand the public benefit of increased access to cultural content? And what are the challenges in maintaining excellence, focusing on the experience in classical music and art museums?
Confirmed:
There are increasing opportunities for public radio to serve diverse audiences and younger audiences. Beyond traditional public broadcasting, there is a new opportunity for community radio opening up, as the FCC is getting ready to open up a window for new low-power radio licenses in the spring of 2013. We’ll explore two public radio organizations reaching beyond the traditional market, and succeeding. WXPN is the flagship of the AAA public radio format. They host the Non-Commvention, the conference for alternative pubcasters and are a strong exemplar of a University licensee that actually thrives. Vocalo.org is a radio station developed by powerhouse WBEZ that seeks to reach a diverse urban population in Chicago.
Silvia Rivera, Managing Director, Vocalo.org
Breakout 2C – Measuring Media and Philanthropy
A new initiative led by the Foundation Center and Guidestar, with funding from the Ford and Knight Foundations, is seeking to track and map media funding. And another inquiry led by the Gates and Knight Foundations is seeking to get a better handle on measuring impact and engagement of media projects and programs. We’ll discuss these initiatives and their eventual impact on media funding.
Confirmed:
Jessica Clark, Media Strategist, AIRmedia
Lisa Philp, Vice President for Strategic Philanthropy and Director of GrantCraft, Foundation Center
Craig Aaron, President, Free Press
Louis Massiah, Executive Director, Scribe Video Center
4:15 - 4:45 p.m.: Wrap-up
How can we reframe public media and use technology to advance public media? What can 30 years of making public media teach us?
Steve Engelberg, Managing Editor, ProPublica
Andrew Sherry, Vice President of Communications, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Register here Open to funders and invited guests.
We are convening our conversation this year in Philadelphia, which is rich in history, but also rich in public media. Philadelphia is a community where there are strong institutions producing national broadcast programs, like WHYY radio and television and WXPN radio at the University of Pennsylvania. But there are also myriad other public and community broadcast outlets.
Join your funder colleagues for a vital conversation on the role of public media in democracy, and what public media means to America in this, the 225th anniversary of the United States Constitution.
Or follow along using #mediaimpact12
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For out of town attendees please see the list of nearby hotels below:
We have two blocks of rooms reserved under “Funder Conversation” until June 18th:
Omni Hotel $199.00 and the Holiday Inn $149.00
Holiday Inn Historic District 1 block away
Omni Hotel 3 blocks away
Sheraton Society Hill 5 blocks away
Penn’s View Hotel 5 blocks away
The Independence Park Inn 5 blocks away
Loews Hotel 6 blocks away
Marriott 7 blocks away
Hyatt Penns Landing 8 blocks away
Courtyard by Marriott 9 blocks away
Hampton Inn 8 blocks away
