Of Special Interest to:
Broadcasters
“With our local version of the Television Race Initiative, we created opportunities for dialogue. We raised the visibility of existing community initiatives. And we connected organizations with one another. We even inspired dialogue—groups which aren't even formally participating in the project are using our newsletter to identify public TV programs they can use for their own conversations about race. That's what we do; we're media.”
Mary Pruess , Station Manager
WHRO (http://www.whro.org), Norfolk
Making Television Matter presents models and case studies of outreach campaigns around documentary broadcasts that step beyond traditional thinking. As Pat Aufderheide of American University writes in her introduction: “The old media model - make a program, place it on television, put together an outreach campaign that lets relevant communities know about it - has been flipped. Now, the documentary is often the centerpiece of sophisticated, multi-layered and multi-constituency campaigns.” The most radical idea in these new campaigns involves throwing open the station doors and welcoming in nonprofits, community groups and filmmakers as essential partners in planning and implementation. This is creating opportunities for stations to ground themselves firmly in their communities, creating new relationships and new sources of funding.
We recommend that broadcasters read the following chapters
(if they don’t have time to review the entire site):
Chapter 1: A High Impact Television First
The Getting to the Heart of the Matter Campaign
Chapter 2: The Television Race Initiative
Sparking Dialogue That Can Lead to Action
Chapter 3: Take this Heart
A Coalition Model
Chapter 6: From the Broadcaster’s Corner
A Success Story in Coalition Outreach
Chapter 8: Grantmakers on Funding Social Issue Media Projects
The Ford Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
“Community outreach is the heart and soul of Public Television’s mission. Over the last 10 years, the industry has become more dependent on outreach to make inroads beyond our traditional broadcast. In the future, community outreach will be an even more valuable resource as the industry anticipates the many opportunities, and challenges, to reaching our communities through digital technology.”
Tania Jones, KCTS Outreach Director