The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop's Next Gen Public Media Program, Jewish Heritage Fund Provide Support
LOUISVILLE — Louisville Public Media is pleased to announce a new project focused on increasing coverage of issues affecting the city’s youth and engaging them in civic dialogue throughout 2022.
89.3 WFPL News, LPM’s local newsroom, will feature youth voices in their award-winning talk show “In Conversation” and its 2022 Voter Guide, amplifying issues impacting our community’s youth to those who can create change.
This new project is supported by the Jewish Heritage Fund (JHF) and Next Gen Public Media Accelerator.
“Intentionally including youth in WFPL’s reporting makes our coverage more accurate through increasingly diverse perspectives,” WFPL News Director Rebecca Feldhaus Adams said. “Louisville’s young community has been highly active in the social justice protests and conversations about climate change, and those in power are now poised to listen.”
JHF partners with nonprofits aligned with their vision of Louisville as a city whose youth are mentally and physically healthy, thriving and fully engaged in community. Their support will fund WFPL reporters — specifically those focused on health, race and equity, education, arts and culture — as they engage youth in civic dialogue and help tell their stories. Through engagement and inclusion in fact-based journalism, WFPL hopes to aid young people in healthy news consumption and civic engagement.
“Jewish Heritage Fund recognizes young people as the experts of their own experiences,” said Jeff Polson, JHF President and CEO. “We are excited to partner with LPM to raise the voices of Louisville’s youth, empowering them to be change agents in creating community conditions that support their health and well-being.”
The Next Gen Public Media Accelerator is a program of The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). WFPL is one of 12 public media stations and projects selected to participate.
“Our team is thrilled to partner with the public media community at this critical time for innovation in service of young people,” said Michael Preston, Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. “We feel strongly that public media is uniquely situated to center young people by partnering with them to address the social issues they care about.”
The six-month Accelerator program aims to help public media stations explore new models for engaging young people in their communities, culminating in a toolkit that will support other public media stations to develop new programming for tween and teen audiences. The stations working with the Accelerator program come from small and large, rural and urban markets, and their projects address issues that young people have identified as especially meaningful to them and their peers. All the projects offer youth an opportunity to actively shape what public media looks like through addressing issues that are important to their generation.
The first “In Conversation” youth segment on 89.3 WFPL will air in April. At least three more are planned for 2022.
About Louisville Public Media
Louisville Public Media (LPM) is an independent, community supported not-for-profit corporation serving our community with three distinct public radio stations and an investigative unit: 89.3 WFPL News Louisville provides local, national and international news, public affairs and cultural programming; 90.5 WUOL Classical Louisville is our city’s only classical music radio station; 91.9 WFPK Independent Louisville showcases independent, alternative music and an array of musical genres; and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (KyCIR) shines the light of accountability on the people and institutions in power.
Louisville Public Media is also a proud member of the Kentucky Public Radio Network and manager of the Ohio Valley ReSource, a regional journalism collaborative reporting on economic and social change in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia.
About CPB
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,500 locally managed and operated public television and radio stations nationwide. CPB is also the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television, and related online services. For more information, visit www.cpb.org and follow us on Twitter @CPBmedia, Facebook, LinkedIn, and subscribe for other updates.
About the Joan Ganz Cooney Center
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is a nonprofit research and innovation lab that focuses on the challenges of fostering smarter, stronger, and kinder children in a rapidly changing media landscape. We conduct original research on emerging learning technologies and collaborate with educators and media producers to put this research into action. We also aim to inform the national conversation on media and education by working with policymakers and investors. For more information, visit www.cooneycenter.org and follow us on Twitter @CooneyCenter, Facebook and subscribe for other updates.
About the Jewish Heritage Fund
The Jewish Heritage Fund (JHF) is a grantmaking organization dedicated to improving the
health of the Louisville community, advancing world-class medical research, and fostering a
strong, vibrant Jewish community. For more information, visit www.jewishheritagefund.com.
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