AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA RECEIVES $2.1 MILLION FROM TIDES FOUNDATION FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY DESK
Press Contacts:
Christine Coleman
Tides Foundation
415-561-6354
coleman@tides.org
www.tidesfoundation.org
Connie Stelter
American Public Media
651-290-1113
cstelter@americanpublicmedia.com
www.americanpublicmedia.org
AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA RECEIVES $2.1 MILLIONFROM TIDES FOUNDATION FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY DESK
New editorial desk for Marketplace™, nation's leading business news program, supported by Tides' Kendeda sustainability fund
San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA — August 9, 2005 — Tides Foundation (www.tidesfoundation.org) today announced that its Kendeda Sustainability Fund has awarded $2.1 million to American Public Media to support expanded news coverage and programming on global sustainability and the economy.
The grant will primarily support the creation of a new desk for American Public Media's Marketplace business programs, including Marketplace™, Marketplace Morning Report™, and Marketplace Money™, a personal finance program. With a weekly audience of more than 8.5 million, the combined Marketplace programs have more listeners than any other business news program on television or radio.
The new editorial desk will focus on covering sustainability and the economy, including environmental, economic, technological, cultural and other factors influencing the future of humanity. Coverage will be aimed at helping the public better understand global realities that affect domestic and international economies and cultures. The grant, which will be disbursed over three years, will enable Marketplace to seek out diverse perspectives on sustainability related topics.
"Nothing is more important to the future of the economy and, ultimately, to our survival than awareness of how our actions affect global sustainability," said JJ Yore, executive producer of Marketplace and vice president, programming, for American Public Media. "Through this generous grant, we gain the resources to give these issues the attention they deserve."
"More businesses today are contemplating a 'double bottom line'—how their activities impact their profitability and the greater social good. This was almost unthinkable 20 years go," said Idelisse Malavé, executive director, Tides Foundation. "People are adopting a broader view of their activities and how their decisions today will affect all of us tomorrow. Yet this has been a neglected perspective in the news media. We are very excited to support an expanded analysis of major business trends from such a respected and independent news source."
The grant also will fund coverage of sustainability on other American Public Media programs, including American RadioWorks documentaries; Being, a program on belief, meaning, ethics and ideas; and Weekend America, a magazine show which explores lifestyle, leisure, culture and attitude.
"By providing support for sustainability coverage on these programs, the Tides Foundation grant provides a groundbreaking opportunity to reach a large and important audience," said Jon McTaggart, senior vice president and chief operating officer of American Public Media. "Our ability to serve the public will be significantly enhanced as we offer coverage on sustainability across many programs, from many perspectives and at different times of the day and week," said McTaggart.
The Kendeda Sustainability Fund, a donor-advised fund at Tides Foundation, was created in 2003 to explore how to live within the limits of the natural world in ways that promote community, equity, prosperity and health. It funds organizations in the areas of higher education, religion and faith, healthy buildings, materials and processes, and communications/media and the arts.
Through its grantmaking programs, Tides Foundation strengthens social change organizations and increases the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit and public sectors. It supports activities in the areas of economic and social justice, environmental sustainability and democratic renewal. In 2004, Tides Foundation awarded over $70 million to more than 2,000 nonprofit organizations.
Marketplace, produced in Los Angeles, maintains five domestic bureaus plus bureaus in London and Tokyo. The 16-year-old program has been called the best business show on radio or television by the Columbia Journalism Review, and it has won the duPont-Columbia Award and the Peabody Award.Marketplace is distributed worldwide by American Public Media. It is broadcast by more than 325 public radio stations and heard around the world via American Forces Radio & Television Service. American Public Media also makes the program available via World Radio Network (WRN), a direct broadcast satellite channel serving Europe, Asia and Africa.
About Tides Foundation
Since 1976, Tides Foundation has partnered with donors and institutions by offering donor-advised funds, philanthropic advice and management services for social change philanthropy. Tides Foundation is committed to strengthening community-based nonprofit organizations through national and global philanthropy.
Tides Foundation is a part of the Tides Organizations, a group of nonprofits that share a common vision for a healthy society—a society based on principles of social justice, broadly shared economic opportunity, a robust democratic process and sustainable environmental practices. The Tides Organizations also include Tides Center, Tides, Inc., Groundspring.org, Thoreau Center for Sustainability and Community Clinics Initiative. For more information, go to www.tidesfoundation.org.
About American Public Media
American Public Media™ is the nation's second-biggest producer of public radio programs, reaching 14.7 million listeners nationwide each week. Its national programs include A Prairie Home Companion®, Weekend America®, Saint Paul Sunday®, Marketplace®, Marketplace Money®, The Splendid Table®, Being® and special reports produced by its national documentary unit, American RadioWorksÆ. American Public Media is the national production and distribution division of Minnesota Public Radio®. Minnesota Public Radio, along with its sister company Southern California Public Radio, belongs to a larger family of companies within American Public Media Group, a national nonprofit organization whose purpose is to develop resources, services and systems to support public media for public service. A complete list of stations, programs and additional services can be obtained at www.americanpublicmedia.org.
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Source: Data are copyright Arbitron, Inc. Arbitron data are estimates only.
Fall 2004
Copyright © 2005, Tides, Tides Foundation, Tides Center, Tides, Inc., Groundspring.org, Thoreau Center for Sustainability, Community Clinics Initiative. Other names used in this press release may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Backgrounder
Expanded Coverage of Sustainability at American Public Media
WHAT?
The $2.1 million, three-year grant from the Kendeda Sustainability Fund of the Tides Foundation will support expanded coverage of sustainability on American Public Media (APM) public radio programs Marketplace, Marketplace Morning Report and Marketplace Money, Being and Weekend America, as well as in documentaries produced by APM's American RadioWorks.
WHY?
Sustainability can be broadly defined as policies, practices, and perspectives aimed at supplying the present without compromising the future. It merits a distinct Marketplace desk because it is no longer a concern of environmental groups alone. It's a topic of growing interest for corporations, business schools, university science departments, theological seminaries, entrepreneurs and consumer groups, among others.
Sustainability is a broad news beat, encompassing natural and economic resource management, agriculture, technology, ecology and economics, law, policy, diplomacy and taxation and embracing spirituality, religion and social philosophy.
HOW?
The grant will fund two levels of expanded coverage:
* Creation of a ìMarketplace Sustainability Desk,î which will generate regular features and spot news stories on sustainability as seen through the lens of business, money, and personal finance. Topics of likely coverage include:
- Corporate innovations — technical, philosophical and administrative
- New market niches — for consumer products, alternative process, resources
- Government policies
- International treaties and conventions
- Opinions, attitudes and values — by consumers, pundits, business leaders
- Ethical and faith-based issues and answers
- Architecture and design
- Urban planning
* Enhanced, in-depth reporting on topics related to sustainability on APM programs Weekend America and Being and in American RadioWorks documentaries. Coverage by these programs will bring different approaches to and introduce diverse perspectives in the exploration of sustainability issues. In addition, because these programs serve different audiences, their coverage will expose the topic of sustainability to a broader audience. Examples of the coverage on these programs might include:
- Weekend America (http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/): How lifestyle, technology, trends and the environment affect issues of sustainability.
- American RadioWorks (http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/): Sustainable extraction; scavenger culture and what can be learned from it and how chemicals, such as flame retardants in computers and sofa cushions, are accumulating in human bodies and animal species worldwide.
- Being (http://being.publicradio.org/): The intersection of such sustainability issues as religious environmentalism, alternative visions of a sustainable society, and the integration of traditional Hindu practices in today's emerging global high-tech industry in Bangalore.
ALSOÖ
The grant will enable Marketplace and the other APM programs to augment their sustainability coverage through the use of:
- New Media: including a web site that will serve as a repository for information, contacts and calendars on sustainability topics and, later, interactive simulations.
- Public Insight Journalism, an approach to reporting developed by American Public Media that uses a wide and diverse database of sources with expertise in specific disciplines, as well as online collaborative tools, to tap knowledge and insight from the audience.
WHO?
- Margaret Koval will be editor of the Marketplace Sustainability Desk. She currently is the program's Washington desk editor and also serves as a domestic features editor.
- The Marketplace sustainability reporter will be hired after a nationwide search. In the interim, Sam Eaton will report for the desk.
WHEN?Marketplace listeners will begin to hear the expanded sustainability coverage made possible by the Tides Foundation grant early this fall.