E-Media Tidbits

radioopensource.org Brendan Greeley, Blogger-in-Chief of Radio Open Source -- a job title that would be nice to see in any news/public affairs organization.

Speaking of funding for public broadcasting, yesterday the Public Radio International show Radio Open Source announced it's received a $250,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "in support of the innovative use of Internet-based tools in the production of a daily public radio program."

If you're not familiar with Radio Open Source, this is an approach worth at least serious consideration, and perhaps outright emulation, by broadcasters elsewhere. Basically, the show staff work hard online to engage the listener community -- soliciting show ideas, suggesting guests and angles, debating implications, etc. So the community is the genesis of what ends up on the radio (and the podcast, which is what I listen to). And then, of course, the conversation continues online long after the broadcast.

Fortuitously, earlier today I stumbled across this Nov. 13, 2006 posting from the blog Lost Remote: Where's the public in public broadcasting online? The gist here is: "How did MySpace get positioned to become the biggest clearinghouse of unsigned musical acts online? How did YouTube become a billion-dollar video powerhouse in less than a year? Because they gave the PUBLIC a platform and the people not only got in the game, they changed the rules... So why am I still tuning out annoying pledge breaks as I hit the Paypal donate button on the grassroots podcaster sites?... NPR has a legit claim to be the podcasting giant, but they got there by shoveling all things broadcasted to MP3. Ask newspapers how well the shovelware is working... Maybe public broadcasting is only interested in our pledges, and not our contributions."

I left a comment to that post citing Radio Open Source as a positive example of what broadcasters (public and otherwise) could be doing.

Anyway, I'm glad to see such a compelling model of community engagement that yields quality content and discussion being valued and rewarded appropriately.