media policy – Josh Stearns

August 20, WAs National Radio Day. In this post I explore why radio remains relevant and how local newsrooms are partnering with community radio stations to reach new audiences.

Across the country new Low Power FM community radio stations are taking to the airwaves. This new burgeoning of local media was made possible by ten years of advocacy and organizing that culminated in the passage of the Local Community Radio Act in 2010. The Act made hundreds of new radio licenses available to nonprofits across the nation.

I’ve long been interested in the potential for low power radio stations to collaborate with other local media and news operations to better serve community information needs. In 2012 I published a report with Craig Aaron and Candace Clement of Free Press exploring the potential of a more connected and collaborative local media ecosystem. In that report we wrote, “Changes in technology, the economy and the needs of communities make it increasingly important for community and public media stakeholders to come together and find common ground in their concern for the health of local media.”

As this new generation of LPFM radio stations emerge there is a unique opportunity to build a more networked and collaborative local media. Two recent articles explore how nonprofit newsrooms, arts organizations and community radio can join forces.

Continue reading “Can Old School Low-Power Radio Help Digital Newsrooms Thrive?”

I saw a tweet last night that went something like: “People must love biased news because CNN is doing so poorly while the other networks are doing great.” This was inspired by new reports of CNN’s second quarter ratings, which New York Times reports, “plunged by 40 percent from a year ago,” for its prime-time shows. We can all debate about definitions of doing well and doing poorly, but in general I think a lot of people agree with this sentiment that bias drives views.

I don’t.

CNN isn’t plummeting in the rankings because people love “biased news.” However, what MSNBC and FOX News understand, that I think CNN doesn’t, is that people want to see themselves in the stories they consume. This is as true of novels they choose as it is of the news they decide to watch.

This aspect of the debate over objectivity has received too little attention, but it is fundamental to how stories function. For a long time objectivity was a source of trust – (i.e. “You can trust me because I don’t have a dog in this race”) – but it also had a cost. The cost was journalists’ relationship with their audience and their communities. Continue reading “Putting People at the Center of Journalism”