Recruiting talent for the future that pubradio wants
A few weeks ago, I received this e-mail though our website: “Hello. I am a college sophomore and an aspiring journalist. I will be living in Costa Rica for the summer, and would like to know how I can submit stories to NPR.”
I wrote back, “What makes you think you can just go somewhere and file stories for NPR?” Like other eager students who apply for our projects, she wanted to jump directly into on-air work before learning the basics of journalism and sound recording.
She replied, in part: “I am a sophomore at a small liberal arts school in New York. Currently, I am interning in New York City and engaged in a rigorous program on globalization, journalism and international affairs. I have also interned twice for the local NPR station in my home [town]. There, I was able to report, write and produce two feature stories — one on a community's response to increased homelessness and the other on the work of former death row inmates in increasing public awareness. . . . I head to Costa Rica in late May for two months of intensive language study. As a way to learn more about the region and to practice my writing, I was hoping to work for NPR. Since I was very young, it has always been my natural inclination to follow the news, and I have a deep passion for writing, literature, language and sociology. . . . Does it seem like I might be able to do something for NPR? I would be happy to submit a transcript and some clips.”
What would you do? Encourage her or dismiss her, telling yourself that you don’t have the time?
In March, I was in Tulsa, attending a regional conference of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). After lunch, 50 or so students were encouraged to meet with professionals from radio, TV, print, online and communications, who would lead two-day training intensives. A commercial radio program director and I were leading the radio practicum. Twelve students wandered over and sat down.
“So, why are you all at this table?” we asked them. Two students from Dallas said, “We’d heard Tavis Smiley on the NPR station and when we heard this NPR guy was coming to teach radio, we decided to see what it was all about.”
I thought, “A-ha! I knew it. Putting on programs that depart from public-radio-as-usual does open the door to new audiences!"
I’ve been working with college students, graduates and early career professionals for almost 10 years now through NPR. The student who’s going off to Costa Rica and the students in Tulsa represent the future of public radio and public service journalism. If we don't respond to their interests, they’ll go work for someone else.
That could be bad news for us. They could be the new radio professionals who connect best with the new listeners we're seeking.
“The major strategic issue in public radio programming today is the need for the system to prepare itself for a coming generation of new listeners and what they will want to hear," says a 2001 report to the Ford Foundation called "The State of Public Radio. It continues: "Local stations have a central role to play by deciding how they can serve new audiences. Yet it is up to the program producers throughout the system to set examples and reinforce this goal by bringing new voices, diverse experiences and dynamic sounds to the public radio airwaves.”
Public radio has to realize now that it can’t sit back and wait for the next generation to show up. The lure of television reporting and the celebrity that comes with it is very powerful.
At each conference where we train students, we see dozens who want to be television reporters. They are lined up often four or five people deep around the recruiters from ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and CNN. Major newspapers have been trawling for recruits for years, luring the best and the brightest.
We in public radio need to get out there and mix it up. There are partnerships to be had with other media as we attempt to lure talent. For our training project at the NABJ convention this summer in Dallas, we will partner with two all-news commercial radio stations. Our students and mentors will divide up and go to one or the other station at 5 a.m. We’ll shadow reporters as they file from the field for morning drive.
The students will get the chance to file stories as well. Last year, one trainee at NABJ scooped other Milwaukee media, interviewing a woman whose child had drowned in a public pool. The student, who works for a public station in North Carolina, wrote and voiced his exclusive for Milwaukee’s news radio station. The news director said he put the trainee on the air because, “This is about the story, not the individual doing the story.”
We face competition for promising young people like these, and it's not the other public radio station in town. It’s the rest of the media. If we don’t push ourselves to be open to the next generation, we won’t get the best and brightest and we certainly won’t lure young people of color.
Walled off
Twenty years ago, I was a college student planning on a future in journalism. I had won a writing award from the Dow-Jones Newspaper Fund and had been co-editor of my high school newspaper. Then I wanted to be a newspaper columnist. I changed my mind after wandering into the public radio station on my college campus that summer of 1980. My parents were always listening to that station, and I had heard other students on the air. The station was highly accessible. You didn’t need any kind special intellectual pedigree, economic advantage or high academic test scores. You did have to know the news, spot the relevant stories in the local paper, write well, understand government, know how to interview people, show up on time and be ready to work.
Our news director was a former Washington correspondent for Mutual, who could type, swear and chain-smoke at the same time. We got some serious basic training in broadcasting and journalism from him.
Today, you can’t walk into my old station. Like so many public radio stations on college campuses, they have literally walled themselves off from the rest of the university and I fear, from the future.
It's especially important for us to remain open and accessible to potential young journalists of color whose parents don't listen to public radio, or who don't already have their hearts set on being Sylvia Poggioli or Anne Garrels, Scott Simon or Ira Glass.
When you ask them what do they think of public radio the general answer is “Not much,” or worse, “Why bother?”
They are reacting to what they hear on the air, if they listen at all. They believe there’s no one like them on public radio, and no stories of lives like theirs or experiences they've had. They may not be right about that, but it's their perception. And if they don't hear anything that represents their lives and their thoughts, they're not good prospects for our future audience, either.
We try to correct that by holding ourselves up as examples. We still think that public radio is there for anyone who wants it. Often I stand in front of our students (especially our students of color) and say, “If I can succeed, you can, too.”
But this perception cannot be corrected, if a station (or a network, for that matter) has walled itself off from those who could diversify its sound.
The e-mail from the student going to Costa Rica is representative of the future in another way. The student attended an elite, private school. We attract a lot of young people from the upper socioeconomic groups, who know NPR and aggressively pursue opportunities in public radio. They go straight to the top and do not look to their local station as a way in. Their parents represent the stereotype of public radio listeners today, and unless public radio broadens its audience, they could also represent the limited range of tomorrow's.
We will want to have people like that young woman in public radio. I told her how she can submit audio postcards from her laptop computer in Costa Rica, and said I'd consider cutting them for broadcast or our Next Generation website.
But we will also want people like Danielle Wagner of Kent State University, a former intern who wrote this e-mail: “I did some research, and I found out that there is an NPR station [here]. In fact, it is right across the street from our campus. I overlooked it because they really don't do much with the university. However, I listened to the morning show and it sounds pretty good. I did not get to hear it very much because when I got back in my car, the classical radio program was on, and I am not in to classical music. I hope that is not a crime (smile).”
Danielle did not come from the traditional public radio demographic. When she came to us through a training project last year, she and admitted she was not a listener. I encouraged her to apply for a summer internship at NPR this summer, and she was selected through our partnership with NABJ.
We put the interns to work — and not fetching coffee. They conceive, report, write and produce their own newsmagazine while at NPR called Intern Edition. They have their own senior staff with a full set of producers and editors. They spend the summer learning how to put stories together and produce a newsmagazine.
This is how public radio will thrive with an audience that's broader and more representative of the nation. Going outside the norm, yet remaining true to the mission. Creating and promoting programs (on the air, off the air and on the Web) that are open invitations to those who are not there or naturally inclined to listen. Change is good, but change is hard.
On behalf of the 50 to 60 public radio and commercial radio professionals who serve as mentors with Next Generation Radio every year, I have to say thank you to the people at NPR who have kept us funded. Even in these difficult economic times. Usually, when times get tough the first thing that goes is training and outreach. I think NPR knows that if we do not consistently and aggressively get out of the building and compete for the best and brightest of the next generation, we will be putting what we have now at risk.
One final e-mail from a young woman soon to graduate from college, who interned at NPR last summer:
"I'm writing to ask your advice. I've just applied for a position [at NPR] and I'm really psyched about it. I really don't know what my chances are, but I want to try as hard as I can to get the job. I'm a bit concerned about crossing the line between persistence and suction-cupping 635 Massachusetts Avenue like Spider Man. I was wondering if you could give me some pointers on how to get a foot in the door. What would you do in my situation? Any advice you could give me would be much appreciated!"
Her time at NPR last summer was well spent and did enough for her that she wants to work in the system. Like the rest of us, she understands that public radio is fun, creative, enlightening, intelligent and yet difficult, with high journalistic and ethical standards — standards that set us apart in today's media environment.
It’s imperative that we openly promote our values and our range of experiences as a means of developing new, diverse audiences, and grooming talent to replace us and keep the system growing.
Try doing this: If you see a student who appears lost and is wandering the hallway in the building where your station is, offer to show him or her around. Ask if they have ever thought about public radio as a career. Just ask. You never know. That “kid” may run the place someday and if all goes well, you’ll be able to brag about it.
Doug Mitchell, project manager of NPR's Next Generation Radio, joined NPR as an editorial assistant in 1987 and later worked with its weekend shows, rising to supervising producer of the old Weekly Edition. Mitchell been running outreach training workshops since 1994. Nineteen former participants are now working in U.S. broadcast media and three are now project mentors
Web page posted Dec. 11, 2008
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