"Major news initiative" coming from CPB next week

CPB next Thursday announces a major news initiative to help stations produce more in-depth local journalism. CPB President Pat Harrison will detail the project, joined by the PBS President Paula Kerger and NPR President Vivian Schiller (via live video feed). Following will be a panel discussion on the role of pubmedia in reporting, with Hari Sreenivasan, PBS NewsHour correspondent; Tom Rosenstiel, director of PEW's Project for Excellence in Journalism; Nishat Kurwa, news director of Youth Media International; Tom Karlo, general manager of KPBS TV-FM; and Kinsey Wilson, NPR's senior v.p. and general manager of Digital Media. The event will be streamed live from the Newseum in Washington. Public broadcasting has been working to step into the widening news gap as newspaper staffs diminish. CPB has issued several RFPs on "strengthening local journalism," and a network of five local journalism centers is part of pubradio's Grow the Audience initiative (Current, Jan. 11).