The Public Media 2.0 series on MediaShift is sponsored by American University’s Center for Social Media (CSM) through a grant from the Ford Foundation. Learn more about CSM’s research on emerging public media trends and standards at futureofpublicmedia.net.
Ira Glass. Gwen Ifill. Big Bird.
These are some of the public faces of public media, but behind the scenes lies a nationwide army of talented, passionate individuals whose efforts often go unrecognized. This weekend, around 300 of these workers — producers, designers, strategists, engineers, and more — gathered at American University in Washington, D.C. for an unconference called Public Media Camp, or “pubcamp,” as the cool kids call it. A few game souls took a moment in between sessions to answer my question, “What’s the coolest thing you’re working on right now?”
With apologies for my rudimentary video skills, I hope you’ll take a minute to take in the diversity of innovative projects happening throughout the public media ecosystem:
I also have to share a contribution that came in via Twitter from Annie Shreffler, a producer at the WGBH Lab who couldn’t attend PubCamp in person, but followed the weekend’s events closely via Twitter and a livestream. She said the coolest thing she’s working on right now is building a community of public media audiences, video journalists and aspiring filmmakers to document today’s gay rights movement. This is being done in conjunction with a documentary, “Stonewall Uprising,” that’s airing on American Experience this spring (watch a preview of the documentary here).
How about you? What’s the coolest public media project you’ve come across lately? And if you work in public media and I didn’t get you on camera – tell us, what’s the coolest thing you’re working on right now?
The former editorial director of PBS.org, Amanda Hirsch is a writer, improviser and digital media consultant. Learn more at amandahirsch.com and follow Amanda on Twitter at @amanda_hirsch.
The Public Media 2.0 series on MediaShift is sponsored by American University’s Center for Social Media (CSM) through a grant from the Ford Foundation. Learn more about CSM’s research on emerging public media trends and standards at futureofpublicmedia.net.