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PRNDI Conference Planning Underway

The Board of Public Radio News Directors Inc. met for its annual retreat January 12-14 at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.  At that meeting, the board began planning this summer's annual PRNDI Conference.  While we're not prepared to give details until we've got speakers booked, we do expect that you'll get some great training at this conference on topics ranging from editing to digital strategies for your newsroom to elections coverage and much more.  The board is looking forward to a great conference, and hopes you'll make your plans to attend.  We'll be at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Houston.  Pre-conference training will be offered on Wednesday and Thursday, June 27 & 28.  The full conference will begin with an opening reception on June 28th and sessions all day Friday and Saturday, June 29th and 30th.  The conference will culminate with the annual awards banquet on Saturday, June 30th. 


PRNDI Announces 2011 Award Winners

Public Radio News Directors Inc. announced the winners in its 2011 awards competition at the annual awards banquet on Saturday, June 25, 2011. This is the only national contest recognizing outstanding public radio news reporting at local stations.  The contest covers work produced in 2010.  A total of 101 awards were presented to local stations at the PRNDI Awards Banquet at the Crowne Plaza National Airport Hotel in Arlington, VA.  The full list of winners is available here.

Also at the banquet, PRNDI presented the "Leo C. Lee Award" to Jonathan Kern, author of Sound Reporting and long-time employee of National Public Radio.  Kern served as a producer and editor for NPR, then was the organization's executive producer of training until his retirement. The Leo C. Lee Award recognizes lasting commitment to public radio journalism.

PRNDI Membership Elects Board Members

The PRNDI general membership meeting was held on the afternoon of Saturday, June 25th, 2011.  At that meeting, the membership re-elected one board member and filled vacancies in three other seats.  Small station representative George Bodarky (WFUV) was re-elected to his second two-year term on the board.  Board member Naomi Starobin (WSHU) was elected to replace Michael Leland (Wisconsin Public Radio) as the large station representative. Bob Beck (Wyoming Public Radio) was elected to replace Doug Doyle (WBGO) as Treasurer of the organization.  Both Leland and Doyle were at the end of their allowable terms in their respective positions.  Charlie Compton (WEKU) was elected to fill out the un-expired term left vacant when Starobin moved from medium market representative to large market representative.  President Jonathan Ahl (Iowa Public Radio) and at-large representative Amy Tardif (WGCU)  still have another year left on their terms in office. 

PRNDI TRAINING:

PRNDI is committed to helping you strengthen your newsrooms.  We do that through webinars and in-person trainings that are free to PRNDI members and their staffs. 
Our latest webinar, 10 Sites Every Journalist Should Know, took place December 8th, 2011.  For a link to view that webinar on-demand and/or to suggest topics for 2012 webinars contact George Bodarky at gbodarky@wfuv.org.

Meanwhile, if you missed or would like a link to our webinar Report Live & Present Your Talk Show Live from the Field Using Your Smart Phone, please contact George at the above e-mail address. *** NOTE ***  On-demand webinar links can only be made available to active PRNDI members and their staffs.

Related to the Smart Phone webinar, here are the report-it instruction links and the specific link to the cable users should get at KV Connections:  

For guests talking live or live-to-tape to an NPR host or reporter.

For staff or freelance reporters filing voice tracks to Newscast. 


For guests who use their iPhone to record and send a tape-sync.

iPhone XLR microphone and 1/8 inch headphone adapter.

And here are slides from some previous webinars:

Conversational Radio, can be found here. The session focuses on making your news writing more informal by ironing out the print and talking directly to your listener(s). 

Nuts and Bolts for New Producers: In this session, we demystify story selection, mapping and writing stories for the radio, and how to translate it all to the web. View the slides here.

Lead Writing 101: This webinar refocused our minds on the art of lead writing. Check out the slides
here.

Your Newsroom and the Law:  This webinar addressed many of the legal challenges newsrooms face.  Got slides?  Sure do.  Click here.

The Story in Pictures: This webinar focused on the best practices for taking photos, shooting video and other aspects of multimedia storytelling.  We've captured the slides here.


PRNDI SUBMITS FINAL REPORT: A CENSUS OF JOURNALISTS IN PUBLIC RADIO AND TV

PRNDI has submitted a final report to the CPB analyzing the numbers and duties of local journalists in public broadcasting. The information is unofficial until the final report is accepted and released by the CPB. We had posted some topline stats as a running total throughout the census... but a detailed report is forthcoming this fall.

On behalf of CPB and PRNDI, thanks for your support!

Mike Marcotte, Census Project Leader




M

Discussion Forum

Check out the new
PRNDI discussion forum.

PRNDI Training

More webinars to come in 2012.  Happy New Year!!!

Registration information will be sent to PRNDI members via e-mail ahead of each event. 

Questions?  Suggestions for webinars in 2012?  Contact George Bodarky at gbodarky@wfuv.org

PRNDI News Director Guide

The Public Radio News Director Guide (PRNDG) is now online.  Written by former PRNDI President Michael Marcotte, the PRNDG is a field guide for Public Radio News Directors around the country.  It's organized in six chapters and deals with a wide variety of topics facing today's Public Radio newsroom and newsroom manager.  The PRNDG is a joint project of PRNDI and NPR's Local News Initiative.  It's available at http://www.prndg.org/.


NPR's Local News Initiative

This NPR funded project includes many facets, some of which include involvement and support of PRNDI and its members.  All of them have the potential to help PRNDI members improve their product and better serve their audiences.  Check out LNI's web site  for more information.