The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has awarded $2 million in grants to boost local public media's cross-platform video efforts, and in the process generate more content for PBS NewsHour as well as local station cut-ins within NewsHour.
The money is going to five local journalism/noncom collaborations: EarthFix, OPB; Fronteras, KPBS; Harvest Pubilc Media, Nebraska Network; Innovation Trail, WXXI; and Inside Energy, Rocky Mountain PBS. The money will go to creating video journalism teams and unit managers for each.
The teams produce stories for broadcast and the Web. CPB currently funds seven Local Journalism Collaborations (LJCs), but the Southern Education Desk was reorganizing and Keystone Crossroads has just launched, according to a spokesperson.
"This expansion of the Local Journalism Collaborations is a testament to CPB's commitment to assist public media stations build their capacity to produce original and impactful journalism across all platforms," said Bruce Theriault, senior VP of journalism and radio. "These new grants allow the LJCs to expand on their current work and share it with an even wider national audience." Theriault was charged last fall with overseeing journalism funding initiatives for CPB, the private, nonprofit entity created by Congress to distribute federal funding to noncommercial TV and radio, about 70% of which goes directly to stations.
