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The Future of Digital Public Media

Moderator: Jake Shapiro
Robert Bole Marita Rivero Sue Schardt Kinsey Wilson Damian Thorman: March 1, 2010; Running Time: 1:09:36

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

Public broadcasting executives and producers discuss their changing roles as digital technology transforms the news and entertainment industries, and provides individuals with powerful tools for shaping their communities. Moderator Jake Shapiro asks panelists to discuss ventures that illustrate new dimensions of public media.

As a newcomer to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Robert Bole says he was attracted by CPB’s national reach, its “free, universally accessible content,” which is not necessarily true in the digital world. Bole is exploring how to reshape content for new digital platforms. He describes a project at WNYC that uses crowd sourcing to get a fix on New York’s “economic indicators” – information that informs the station’s radio broadcast. He also hopes to create an American archive of arts and culture material drawn from the many stations in the system, if he can overcome rights obstacles. And while localism is a strength of public broadcasting, he also frets about the challenge of coordinating 800-plus public stations to make the most out of “system wide investments in public media platforms.”

Marita Rivero describes World 2.0, a national, online civic engagement project launched by WGBH that enlists the “public to define issues of the day.” She believes public broadcasters are uniquely positioned for such expansive ventures, since they are “grand masters at taking complicated issues and presenting them in ways for people to digest,” have partnerships with community groups all over the country, and are respected curators and distributors of news content. New communications tools will permit stations to reach out to underserved communities. Our role, says Rivero, is “to think about how to invite participation and development of a shared space with other communities, so it isn’t just us talking.”

With Makers Quest 2.0, says Sue Schardt, radio producers were invited to invent new formats, blending traditional platforms with new content tools, to tell stories of different communities. One new format, the “participatory documentary,” may help redefine the work of the public media journalist. Rather than “go out with a microphone, gather the story on tape and cut the story up” back at the studio, this new journalist is a “mediator” who identifies the storyteller in the community, and provides that person with the tools to shape her own story. This approach will enable public broadcasters “to reflect a more democratic, colorful America.”

The technological disruption taking place now, says Kinsey Wilson, creates an opportunity to build news organizations that “can reach more diverse audiences across all platforms.” At NPR, Wilson hopes to guide member stations in understanding what their audiences want in terms of new media, and to encourage innovation that might create a common platform of new tools for news-gathering Wilson is optimistic about the ultimate transformation of public radio, especially given its explosive growth in the last 10 years, while other news programming declines. With “the trust of our audience,” he says, and the “reach of a vibrant news organization, we can build from there.”

In closing remarks, the Knight Foundation’s Damian Thorman lauds innovative efforts to move democracy to the internet. Knight is intent on giving all citizens access to news and information that enables them to “decide their own true interest,” says Thorman. While the digital age is “creating a communications renaissance,” it has not yet touched all citizens, so Knight is investing heavily in reaching overlooked communities. The Foundation has begun projects to make public broadcasting more local and interactive, to build more transparent city hall websites, and to champion news literacy in public schools. It’s about improving digital literacy, says Thorman, so “all Americans can engage and use the internet to improve their lives.”

Lecture Details

Location: Wong Auditorium

“There is enormous technological disruption going on. It has created an imperative and an opportunity. The imperative? Public broadcasting must move from a 20th century analog model to a 21st century digital future. The opportunity?... To reach larger and more diverse audiences across all platforms.”

Kinsey Wilson

About the Speakers

Moderator: Jake Shapiro

Executive Director, The Public Radio Exchange (PRX)

Jake Shapiro previously served as associate director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He was a producer for The Connection with Christopher Lydon, a nationally syndicated public radio talk show. Shapiro, a fluent speaker of Russian, has also developed web resources for a variety of Harvard research groups, including the Davis Center for Russian Studies, the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies and the Moscow Institute for Advanced Studies. Shapiro graduated from Harvard in 1993 with a B.A. in History and Literature.

Robert Bole

Vice President, Digital Media Strategy, Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Robert Bole leads the development and execution of CPB’s strategy for investing in digital media. Previously, Bole served as the senior vice president of Media for One Economy Corporation, a global nonprofit organization that uses technology and online content to help low-income people improve their lives and enter the economic mainstream. Working at One Economy for nearly nine years, he helped launch the Beehive, an online platform that connected over 15 million low-income families to information to healthcare, financial services, education and workforce development.

Over the years, Bole helped launch local programs in more than 45 communities, as well as four additional media properties, most notably the Public Internet Channel. Bole has nearly 20 years' experience in managing nonprofit programs, including work for The Enterprise Foundation, the city of Portland, and the city of Philadelphia. He has an undergraduate degree from George Washington University and a Master's from University of Pennsylvania.

Marita Rivero

Vice President and General Manager for Radio and Television, WGBH-Boston

Marita Rivero oversees the programming, marketing, and administration of WGBH's TV and radio stations. Rivero also oversees WGBH's national radio production activity and its local television production unit, Boston Media Productions.

Rivero was named manager of WGBH Radio in 1988. Award-winning radio productions developed under her leadership include the daily global news program The World, the Marketplace Health Desk, Sound & Spirit, the international music service Art of the States, and The Takeaway, a national morning news program in collaboration with BBC World Service and The New York Times. She also served as Executive-in-Charge of WGBH's Peabody Award-winning multimedia project Africans in America. Rivero has developed the WGBH Forum Network; new satellite radio services; and a substantial community partnership program with media, arts, and education partners.

Rivero holds a B.S. from Tufts University and has participated in post-graduate training at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and the Stanford and Wharton schools of business.

Sue Schardt

Executive Director of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR)

Sue Schardt is a radio veteran and award-winning producer whose path has taken her through public, commercial, community, and international media. She founded SchardtMEDIA Strategies in 1998 to focus on independent, ideas-driven projects, and has worked extensively with the networks and leading stations and producers across the country. Schardt assumed leadership of the AIR, a growing, 740-member organization, in September 2007. AIR marked its 20th anniversary in September 2008 with the launch of Makers Quest 2.0, a new, producer-driven initiative funded by CPB.

Schardt also serves as a Director of the DI Committee of the NPR board, sits on the board of the World Sound Foundation and is an Artistic Advisor to NPR’s From the Top. She is a musician, and a long-time volunteer music DJ on free-form radio station WMBR in Cambridge.

Kinsey Wilson

Senior Vice President and General Manager, NPR Digital Media, National Public Radio

Kinsey Wilson joined NPR as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Digital Media in October 2008, with responsibility for NPR's web, podcasting and mobile operations.

Wilson began his journalism career at Chicago's City News Bureau. He was a print reporter for 15 years, seven of them at Newsday, before he made the leap to online media in 1995. Prior to joining NPR, Wilson was executive editor of USA TODAY, with shared responsibility for strategic planning, product development and day-to-day news management. From 2000-2005, Wilson was Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of USATODAY.com. From 1995 to 2000, Wilson served in a variety of senior management positions at Congressional Quarterly, where he helped spearhead the company's early web strategy. He is past president of the Online News Association (2007), chaired the national advisory board of the Poynter Institute from 2006-2008 and served as a juror for the 2008 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism.

Wilson received a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Chicago in 1979, specializing in African studies.

Damian Thorman

National Program Director, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Damian Thorman joined the Knight Foundation in April 2007. He works with the vice president for strategic initiatives in the foundation’s efforts to support innovative leadership, organizations and ideas with the potential to drive transformative change nationally and in Knight’s 26 communities. He will help develop new grant opportunities with philanthropic organizations and nonprofits at a national level that target systemic change.

Thorman most recently served as assistant prosecuting attorney and deputy director of the Family Support Division of the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office in Kansas City, MO. He founded and ran the Thorman Group, a consulting practice that assisted foundations, nonprofits and for profit organizations from 2002 to 2005. He served as adjunct political science professor at Avila College in Kansas City, Mo. He was the director of public affairs and policy at the Ewing Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City from 1994 to 2002. In Washington, D.C. he served as assistant director at the American Academy of Pediatrics, and performed staff work with the House Education and Labor Committee, and congressional staff work with then-U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson. Thorman has a law degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a master’s in business administration from Rockhurst University.