DISQUS

Just want to remind folks that PRX is out there as an open site of content from all sources -- listener/producers, stations, indie producers, networks, archives and raw audio -- for stations to use on air, on the web. Mix, curate, broadcast and present!

I thought this PRPD session was especially good--McTaggart's Seven Questions being one of the many highlights. But since the session I've thought really hard about these rules and put them in the HEAD portion of the public media being.

There is a valuable HEART aspect as well. David Isay, The Kitchen Sisters, Jay Allison, Jad Abumrad and Ellen Horne --these astounding artists and practioners do not, I think, ask these questions. It begins with a very passionate idea, a sound perhaps, and from THAT beginning they create.

Do these approaches get to the same place? Yeah, many times. Perhaps excellence and talent surface no matter what, but we should also concentrate on the HEART attributes, too, to fill out the public media picture.

Good summary. It's important that what happens be more than a top-down set of content and feeds, though. That would replicate the existing media to audience structure and the existing network to station construct.

The most distinctive opportunity in this next election is the engagement of listeners -- as contributors, participants, shapers of coverage, debate, discussion and we hope the tone of the campaign.

Can public broadcasting move audience-based material beyond the gotcha-videos that have so far rattled campaigns (that's not to say they are not valuable, but...) ? Will we see more citizens as front-row questioners of candidates, putting issues, ideas and simple questions to candidates, advertising consultants and others in addition to queries from the press?

What opportunities can we create to encourage stations and producers to work with listeners to bridge the transition from passive media consumer to active contributor of meaningful perspective, informed insight, idea generator.

All told public radio does have about 1,000 'producer-reporters.' But think bigger than traditional roles of information PROVIDER: we have millions of listener/viewers who could be increasing 'coverage' a thousand fold; with guidance and editorial engagement, we could increase the meaningful coverage perhaps 100 fold; and if we are daring enough to step back and listen to what listeners and viewers tell us, we might re-shape how a campaign gets covered. By removing the bubble where candidates are protected, and freeing the media from its constrained kabuki dance, there's a chance we can make 2008 sound and look a lot more meaningful than previous election rounds.

Let's not just change the coverage. Let's change the entire tenor of campaigns and act to bridge people with the politics, the voter with the politicians, the individual with the issue.

Try this on for size: campaigns sell candidates to voters. Why don't we ask voters to 'sell' themselves to the candidates: here's what I stand for as a citizen, here's what I want in a leader; here is what I hope for in a country...will you be my president?

Call it an "anti-campaign ad" campaign. Have voters create the messages that frame the debate the candidates should enter.

We actualy have a chance to think really big and we should push ourselves to intensely focus on what listeners and viewers feel in their gut. Because behind the closed curtain of the voting booth, that's where real democracy happens. And we have a chance to understand what drives the private decisions that change a nation.

I suspect traditonal issues coverage is only the beginning: we need to get to the passionate and frequently irrational responses to issues and conditions; the hidden dimensions that shape why people vote and don't vote. How do we uncover distrust, apathy, fear, the hunger for hope? They are not policy issues. Voters have to be given the genuine chance to tell us those stories.

As much as we need to build an efficient infrastructure designed to meet the future of platforms and listening habits, I'm concerned we are not being just as aggressive with content.

News might be our franchise now...but how do we avoid becoming CBS News with mostly retirees as our audience? Our younger listeners have vastly different habits than many of us do when it comes to information and trust. Public radio has credibility among its current core listeners, but to a generation or two behind us we're invisible.

In the What Do We Care About section, #1 should be "serving the audience by paying attention to what we do best and what signals they send." Listening to listeners should be top of mind. Being open is emerging as a core value defining public service.

Technology, planning, executing -- getting the bits and bytes and pixels to all go where they should is a hard, challenging and little-p political process worth addressing.

So is the less hard-wired work of figuring out audience, changing what we do and how we do it, and looking for every opportunity to engage listeners in creating a new service for audiences we don't have just yet.

A very valuable set of observations, Todd. So many public radio gatherings are Janus-like events: we are pulled by our inherent optimism and hope but we struggle with the painful reality of our business, our habits, our own worst behaviors. The NR sessions were exactly as Rob described them: akin to a dysfunctional family deciding whether or not it had the capacity and the courage to change.

My public remarks were intended to push people beyond their comfort zones and to remember the mission---it is one that demands courage and willingness to do the uncomfortable, to overcommit in order to really make things change for the better.

I admire some of what Rob has noted: at least there was the rhetoric of common purpose and common dreams.

Let's see if the house remains on fire, in perilous terms, or if the house is on fire with the passion of new ideas, workable strategies and the urgency to get things done.

My fear is that we didn't get to the critical items we need to address if we have any chance of success:

* where to find the next generation of passionate producers, creators and managers
* where to find the talented people who can do better than we have
* how to rethink all of our structures and operations so we have faster and more open ways to advance the best ideas
* how do we engage people's hearts and passions
* as concepts of trust change (the next generation has different defintions than we do), will be be there? What is our response to the 'Jon Stewarts?'
* what is our role in regard to preserving, presenting, respecting culture in all its forms?
* can we address real threats from within to our credibility? Should we push for no more university licensees?
* why shouldn't NPR, PRI, APM and PRX all merge? Martin Neeb opened that window and it was powerfully provocative. We do all waste a lot of money, resources, time and talent on competition with not much distinction.
* Can we accept a different defintion of public radio and public media..one not defined by the past and from the top down, but defined more by the listeners who now have the capacity to produce and create?
* We should have the courage to name those stations and centers of innovation that 'get it' and 'do it' everyday. Hold up models of the best, regardless of offending those who are not on that list. We have to be brutally honest about what works and what we have to do. We need to be courageous.
* We don't pay enough attention to our audiences except in terms of what they pledge, what checks they write and the aggregate behavior of ratings. We need to listen to those who are listening.
* How can we make risk taking less frightening? Failure is ok if we learn the right lessons and apply them. Failure is not ok if mediocre performance is an excusable standard.
* Public service -- mission and leadership mixed with humility and openness -- will make public radio and public radio a bedrock of society. Who has the guts to work on that balance every day?

We need to act smartly and quickly.