On September 20, 2012 the USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, in partnership with the American University School of Communication and Current.org presented the fourth installment of Public Media Futures forum at Bloomberg’s offices in San Francisco, CA. The fourth installment of Public Media Future’s highlighted news content innovation and social media collaborate facilitation within the public broadcasting sector.
Watch the forum below:
Social media integration is outpacing the most traditional of news organizations broadcast initiatives, and public media faces these challenges in exponential severity. The forum included a powerhouse of public media professionals and broadcasting professionals including but not limited to: NPR, KQED, KPCC, YouTube, and Bloomberg.
Click the following link for a full list of participants: Public Media Futures (SF) Participants.pdf
Kinsey Wilson, executive VP and chief content officer at NPR, presented one of the most robust public broadcasting news site initiatives to the forum attendees. NPR’s popularity exists on their ability to produce a wide spectrum of genres at a pace similar to traditional news sites.
Olivia Ma, of YouTube was on hand offering valuable insights from the number one video-sharing website. According to Ma, the holy grail for you tube consists of “how to build an audience around your content.” Her examples highlighted clear fan participation amplified and user engagement encouraged among YouTube’s most successful channels.
Offering perhaps one of the direst analyses of the public media sector was Southern California Public Radio President, Bill Davis. “The fundamental approach to public media has been to do the news a day late and call it analysis,” according to Davis. “The culture of public media is generally a production culture. It is, ‘Get the show out’ … We’re going to have to wrestle that to the ground if we’re going to be an essential part of the news ecology.”
Participants continued to discuss the challenge of facilitating online content collaboration throughout the forum. Sitting in on the forum as an attendee it was clear the challenge remained how to fund online content and support the staff needed to meet the fast paced environment of online news production.
Sourced from Current.org:
“My concern is I see that sense of community and identity stripped away piece by piece every year by other organizations,” said Michael Skoler, Public Radio International’s vice president of interactive media. “They’re doing it better online.”