Ohio Public Radio Stations Explore Statewide News Collaborative

Collaborators?

OHIO may be the next state to get a public radio news collaborative, with the announcement that IDEASTREAM, CINCINNATI PUBLIC RADIO, and WOSU PUBLIC MEDIA have received a $70,000 grant from the GEORGE GUND FOUNDATION to start the planning process for a statewide public radio and digital news collaborative in 2020. The three operations have about 50 news staffers combined, and the plan is to get all of the state's 13 NPR-affiliated stations involved. EDISON RESEARCH has been hired to collect data and JUDITH SMELSER has been hired as a consultant to guide the project.

“OHIO is in a great position to launch a public media journalism collaborative. Its stations have a history of working together, both through the STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU and through informal content sharing among news departments,” said SMELSER. “Deeper collaboration is a natural next step, and I'm looking forward to helping station leaders and journalists design the collaborative that works best for them and for their audiences across the state.”

"There's a sense of urgency to fill some of the gaps in information that have opened up across the state. Many commercial news outlets are shrinking as digital disruptions challenge their revenue models. As public media, we are uniquely poised to continue to deliver balanced, accurate news because our funding comes primarily from individuals,” said IDEASTREAM Pres./CEO KEVIN MARTIN, whose company operates News-Talk WCBJ, Classical WCLV, and PBS affiliate WVIZ-TV/CLEVELAND. “We are focused on the first steps of creating the collaborative, which is coming together to understand how we can uniquely serve Ohioans.”

"The idea of a statewide collaborative has been percolating for years," said CINCINNATI PUBLIC RADIO GM RICHARD EISWERTH, whose company operates News-Talk WVXU/CINCINNATI and WMUB/OXFORD. "With the continued downsizing or elimination of local newspapers, we believe public radio can intercede and provide news and information to our communities on a variety of accessible platforms."

"One of the glaring holes in statewide coverage is rural OHIO,” added WOSU PUBLIC MEDIA GM TOM RIELAND, whose company, part of THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, operates News-Talk WOSU, Classical WOSA, and PBS affiliate WOSU-TV/COLUMBUS. “We believe this initiative will allow for quality reporting about the special challenges faced by many small towns and the people who live there. There are so many important stories that go unreported across OHIO, because journalism has all but disappeared in many small and even mid-sized communities." 

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