NPR gets $3 million investment

National Public Radio launching Web-first local journalism project

There seems to be a hole opening in the current state of online news.  One could argue that with the rise of a real-time Internet and bloggers, the quality of news seems to be diminishing and in depth journalism is hard to find - regurgitated content.  Especially hyper-local journalism, and especially on the radio.  A large player has stepped up to try and address this issue with a new financial boost.  

NPR, on Friday announced it received $3 million in funding to develop an in-depth, local journalism project.  The funding came from Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the James L. Knight Foundation.  

It's a two-year pilot project which 12 stations will participate in.  NPR has not announced which stations have been chosen, but the stations involved with developing this pilot concept included NPR/PBS stations: Oregon Public Broadcasting (Portland), Northern California Public Broadcasting/KQED (San Francisco), WGBH (Boston) and KPBS (San Diego) – and radio stations: Southern California Public Radio/KPCC (Los Angeles), KALW, (San Francisco), KPLU (Seattle), WAMU (Washington D.C.), WXPN (Philadelphia), Wyoming Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, WNYC (New York), and WBUR (Boston).

The project will be a Web-first approach.  Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB said,

"The continued vitality of public media in the face of rapid technological and social change demands a variety of responses from CPB.  This web-first, multi-platform news approach is one of several innovative investments that CPB plans to make to strengthen local and network journalism."

Hired "journalist bloggers" will be covering local news in an online focused, communal manner.  The will focus on topics relevant in their community ranging from city politics, the changing economy, healthcare, immigration or education.   NPR said stations would feed the bloggers work into its content management system where all the participants would have easy access to each others' work to enhance and enrich content.  It's a content sharing infrastructure which NPR said would expand the power of the network.  

Going back to this new face of the news, which is online and real-time, NPR's CEO, Vivian Schiller said, "The opportunity here is two-fold. First, to beef up coverage of critical issues at the local level, and, second, to begin to establish an online network that can transform itself into a news powerhouse of unparalleled depth and quality."