WTIU 2014 Local Content And Service Report

LOCAL VALUE
WTIU is an integral part of south central
Indiana’s advancement. We’re a trusted,
community-based convener and facilitator for
public dialogue, a multiplatform content and
information provider, a valued partner, and
education service provider that helps raise
awareness and address local issues.
Localism: We are partners with organizations in all the communities we serve.
Quality: We serve viewers, not
advertisers.
Respect: We respect the intelligence of
all our viewers.
Knowledge: We encourage a sense of
discovery and wonder through learning.
VISION:
Children: We produce children’s television
not to make a profit, but to make a difference.
Citizenship: We are committed to providing a forum for discourse, a voice for the
underserved, and a platform for analysis
and understanding. There should be no cost
of admission to participate in our country’s
democracy.
Community: We promote understanding
through preserving the past, enlivening the
present, and preparing for the future.
Culture: We are a museum, theater, concert hall, and library all in one. We inspire,
enlighten, and entertain.
Knowledge: We challenge the mind, ed-
ucate and inform—from teaching children
their numbers and alphabet to providing college credit classes. We recognize that learning
is not limited to a classroom.
KEY SERVICES
In 2014, WTIU continued to use media to tell the stories of people,
places, and events in south central Indiana that make the area an
outstanding place to live.
Elementary school-aged children, parents, and teachers across the
state watch The Friday Zone, our Emmy-award winning children’s
program that features STEM based content aligned with Indiana’s
curriculum standards presented in a fun, lively, format.
The Weekly Special is WTIU’s award-winning local cultural affairs
program that celebrates the people, places, and events that make
Indiana a unique place to live and work. Recurring segments include
Indiana Spotlight, tank trips, musical acts, and artist showcases.
When viewers want to know more about the economy, politics,
education or the environment, they turn to Indiana Newsdesk, our
weekly news program that focuses on stories that affect our community, state, and region. Last September marked
the first anniversary of Indiana Newsdesk
completing one year of producing a news
show every week.
In March we premiered Bill Cook:
A Heck of a Ride, a WTIU
documentary about Bill Cook,
visionary founder and leader of the
medical devices company Cook Group.
In May we aired O’Bannon Institute:
Cultivating Leadership – Food For Thought.
This program featured General Colin Powell along with experts,
and presented Hoosiers talking and learning about their local
involvement and the politics of food supply.
In August we premiered Indiana Motoring: Concours d’Elegance at
French Lick. Shot at the prestigious Concours d’Elegance car show,
the program explored Indiana’s rich automotive manufacturing
history with such luxury models as the Auburn, Duesenberg, and
Studebaker.
KEY SERVICES (continued)
We aired several programs throughout the year that
celebrated Indiana’s rich basketball heritage. Hoosier
Rising: The Past and Present of Indiana University Basketball explored IU’s history and the rise to
national attention. Bobby “Slick” Leonard: Heart of
a Hoosier showcased the inside story of a seminal
figure in Indiana history. Independent Lens: Medora
was the gripping, critically-acclaimed documentary
about one high school basketball team’s determination to compete, and the challenges facing American
small towns.
IN THE COMMUNITY
The year 2014 saw a great strengthening of WTIU Kids’
partnership with a regional children’s museum: The
WonderLab Museum of Science, Health and Technology.
In March, WonderLab and WTIU Kids co-presented a
special weekend event, WTIU Kids
Presents TV Technology. The
event featured hands-on
activities related to
television production,
including green-screen
digital effects, scriptwriting
and teleprompter, audio
recording and podcasting,
and special-effects make-up.
In July, WTIU co-hosted WTIU
Kids TV Tech WonderCamp, a week-long
half-day camp for 22 4th to 6th graders, culminating in
a WTIU studio tour and an appearance on an episode
of WTIU’s weekly state-wide children’s program The
Friday Zone. Out of over a dozen camp sessions offered
by WonderLab, the WTIU Kids TV Tech WonderCamp
session was the highest-rated by both kids and parents.
In August, WTIU again partnered with WonderLab at
Bloomington’s 4th Street Art Festival, co-presenting the
Kids Tent that included individual and cooperative art
projects for kids.
WTIU Kids increased its participation in area events
overall, adding appearances at the Project School
Carnival, the Stinesville Stone Quarry Festival, Indiana
University’s Statewide IT Conference Robot Rumble
(where the WTIU Kids team advanced to the semi-finals), the WYIN Curious George BooFest, and the
OWEN County YMCA Halloween to its roster of events
attended in 2014.
The largest event added in 2014
was WTIU Kids day at the
Monroe County Fall
Festival in Ellettsville.
It built on our success
hosting our annual
large-scale
summertime
event, WTIU Kids
Day at the Monroe
County Fair. The event
attracted more than 400
elementary school students
in attendance.
WTIU Kids increased state-wide distribution of
its weekly children’s series The Friday Zone by adding
two more Indiana PBS stations: WIPB Muncie and
WNIT South Bend.
LOCAL IMPACT
WTIU’s local services had deep impact in
south central Indiana in 2014.
This has been an award-winning year for
WTIU. Two WTIU productions were awarded
a bronze award in the 35th Annual Telly Awards.
The Weekly Special: Thanksgiving Tidings
episode, produced by Sarah Curtiss and directed
by Jay Kincaid, received the bronze award in
the TV Program – Cultural category.
Spirit of Brown County, produced by
Jim Krause, was awarded a bronze award in
the TV Programs – Documentary category.
IN THE COMMUNITY (continued)
Locally, WITU Kids produced a series of seven locally-branded anti-bullying PSAs featuring children’s
author and classroom speaker Brad Tassell.
WTIU Kids participated in new, non-traditional methods of outreach in 2014. In February, WTIU Kids
hosted a visit from the Indiana University chapter of
College Mentors for Kids, an organization that pairs
college students with at-risk elementary and middle-school students. More than 100 kids participated
in a studio tour and videotaping of a special segment
for The Friday Zone.
In May, WTIU Kids was approved for a small grant to
paint three utility boxes as a part of the Bloomington
Utility Box Project. The artworks selected to be painted on the boxes were reproductions of children’s work
submitted to the PBS KIDS Writers Contest. Each
child’s first name, grade, and title of his or her story
was included on the boxes along with the WTIU Kids
logo. WTIU Kids’ partnership with Monroe Smart
Start and Riley Physicians also grew, adding the main
pediatric offices of Bedford and Martinsville to our
Pediatric Waiting Room Monitor Program, which
puts WTIU Kids content and messages from local pediatricians on dedicated branded screens in pediatric
waiting rooms.
STORIES OF IMPACT
Literacy Labs
In 2014 the WTIU Literacy
Labs program expanded its
scope. A $15,000 grant
from Boston Scientific
enabled us to purchase
five new Literacy Labs.
The grant also enabled us
to hire an Outreach Associate
whose main responsibility will
be getting the Labs out into the
communities of Southern Indiana. The primary goal
of the initiative is to provide no-cost educational
resources to parents of preschool children at venues where
their families already have a relationship. With these new
Labs, we anticipate reaching hundreds of families.
Early Childhood Excellence Awards
In April we held our first Early
Childhood Excellence Awards.
We partnered with Monroe
County Smart Start to
recognize early child
care providers and
organizations working
to improve quality child
care in Monroe County. We
were thrilled to recognize
more than 60 providers and
organizations that are helping to
prepare young children for school
and for life.
News Coverage
The WFIU/WTIU News Bureau won an unprecedented
number of rewards in a single year. These included seven
prestigious Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association for its on-air and online reporting, one of which won first place nationally. The awards
make ours the most-recognized small-market broadcast
operation this year, and, following WBHM in Birmingham,
Alabama, the second-most-decorated radio or TV newsroom
in America. The News Bureau was also much honored in this
year’s Society of Professional Journalists contest, collecting
25 awards.
Shadows of Innocence, our documentary about the high
rate of sexual assault among Indiana’s teenage girls, won an
Emmy nomination and prompted legislation to study the
problem of sexual assault in Indiana among teenagers. That
study will be discussed during this legislative session.
We have focused this year on following stories from start to
finish. Examples include HJR3, Peter Kassig, Pre-K expansion, the Affordable Care Act, Bloomington deer hunting,
Kirkwood development, and many others.
STORIES OF IMPACT
News Coverage (continued)
We have increased our focus on investigative
reporting. Recent examples include the decline of
defense contracts in Indiana, the lack of regular
inspections at funeral homes, logging in the back
country of state forests, and the rise of PTSD
among National Guard members.
We produced a half-hour special for Indiana
Newsdesk in June when Indiana’s ban on same
sex marriage was lifted.
We produced a great deal more digital content.
We treated digital users as an audience distinct
from our radio and TV audiences by giving them
more in-depth articles, opportunities to interact,
and by presenting stories in a way that can only be
done online.
We expanded our statehouse reporting by both
adding a part-time reporter and by
getting more content on air through
live shots on Indiana Newsdesk.
We expanded election coverage adding more live breaks
during the primary and general election nights.
Our delays/closings and severe weather special coverage
continued on-air and online and grew with additional
entities signing up for our delays service.
“There are so many excellent programs on
WTIU that I very seldom watch commercial
TV. I give so that WTIU can continue to
provide both educational and entertaining
programs.”
- Harriet from Bloomington
“WTIU is an essential local asset. Your
programs are such a breath of fresh air
compared to other programming on cable.”
- Pam from Columbus
We hired consultants and we
are in the process of working
with other Indiana Public
Broadcasting Stations to
develop a statewide plan to
deliver news across all platforms.
The news department along with
the IU School of Journalism hosted
the Radio in the American Sector Fellows. Two
journalists from Germany divided their time
between observing and working in our newsroom
and lecturing in the journalism school.
The News Bureau Chief guest-lectured in a number of journalism classes on reporting, writing,
covering a beat, and public relations.
We redesigned our graphics and background for
newsbreaks to provide a consistent, clean look
between Indiana Newsdesk and newsbreaks.
For more public information and reports, visit
indianapublicmedia.org/about