Our Mini-Election Collaborations

Iowa Public Radio isn’t directly involved in the big CPB Election Collaboration – we’re small and stretched thin; a big money grant wouldn’t be that helpful in expanding our coverage. Perhaps in four years as we continue to grow. (That said, the CPB collaboration is producing some real fruit this election cycle and that’s exciting to see! If you’re going to the Public Media Conference in LA, look for an update.)

But I want to take a minute and note what collaborations we did undertake, and thank our partners.

UPDATE: in the heat of publishing, I forgot two important partners – PRX and Iowa Public Television. The post is revised.

PRX

We joined PRX as a member for the first time in 2007, but many on our staff truly got their initiation with PRX when uploading candidate stump speeches, reports, and other campaign-related audio. Back at the very beginning of the Election Collaboration-orama, PRX was in the room, raising their hands and offering to host all this stuff free, for use by all. I don’t know how many organizations took advantage of it, but the ones that did enriched considerably the content on the site. We were happy to add to it, and to make use of it. This wasn’t a direct one-to-one partnership – it was a partnership opportunity that PRX extended to the entire system. Let’s recognize the value of this offer and use it!

Iowa Public Television

IPTV is our natural partner for so many things – including a co-branded web site we launched with IPTV last fall, showcasing campaign content from both organizations. For Iowa Public Radio, it was a great way to get better reach for our campaign reporting. Our web site(s) are what we can call a work in progress, shall we say, (we’ve got great people working on making it better) so this site got our reporting in front of a lot of eyeballs, and we’re grateful for it.

New Hampshire Public Radio

We co-created a series of three specials with NHPR. Since we both have a talk show called “The Exchange,” we created “The Iowa/New Hampshire Exchange,” co-hosted by Ben Kieffer in IA and Laura Knoy in NH. Each program aired live in both states, featuring experts and callers discussing some of the pressing issues of the campaign. It takes some technical magic to pull off shows like this, but they came off flawlessly. We’re proud of the results.

NPR News

Yes, the Republicans bailed out, forcing the cancellation of that debate, but the Democratic candidates debate was, I think, precisely what we and NPR hoped it would be: two hours of serious discussion of the issues, no soundbites, no playing to a studio audience, with follow-up questions. NPR dwarfs us in size, but they were a true partner in this effort, working with Iowa Public Radio people at all levels of the organization in the planning and execution of his event. It was a cooperative spirit that started with Ken Stern and extended through every part of NPR that we touched.

Minnesota Public Radio

We played something of an auxiliary role in this effort, but it’s worth noting. Minnesota Public Radio organized a voter forum at the State Historical Society Building in Des Moines on January 2nd. Midmorning host Kerri Miller hosted the event, which included our political reporter, Jeneane Beck. We helped promote the event, to get an audience (the room was packed), and we broadcast the event on January 3rd. The conversation with voters was substantive – it was exciting to hear voters dig into the issues so thoughtfully. Kerri was a masterful host. Like everything that MPR does, this went off without a hitch.

WNYC

WNYC and Iowa Public Radio paired up for live Caucus night coverage, and I must say, for me, it was the high point of the season. Initially, there was a lot of skepticism about this project inside Iowa Public Radio; here come WNYC, offering to produce coverage for us, using our reporters. We had to do some talking and some convincing. But it worked, and it worked brilliantly. WNYC’s special was fast-paced, exciting, and in the words of another program director whom I respect greatly, “it took me there.” John Keefe, Nuala McGovern and the rest of the WNYC team worked closely with our news team on planning for the coverage. Speaking as a PD, if you can come out of something feeling good, AND your staff feels good… well, let’s just say that doesn’t happen every day.

Yes, no one cares about us in Iowa anymore… the interest has moved elsewhere. But we’re proud of the service we were able to offer our listeners – and happy to have had the opportunity to work with all of these collaborators.