Producer's Journal: From Distribution to Community Outreach

Posted by jesikah maria ross

June 27, 2008

It's been tremendously exciting for a first time radio documentary producer like me to see how well our hour-long radio special is doing in terms of getting airtime across the nation.

To date, Saving The Sierra: Grassroots Solutions for Sustaining Rural Communities has played on over 170 station in 28 states (not to mention in Canada and Australia!). And not just in the West! Places as far afield as Massachusetts, Iowa, and Florida are running the program.

It tells me that people of all stripes in many places appreciate media that draw connections among the health of our ecology, economy, and community and want to hear success stories on how folks are coming together across divides to generate local solutions to thorny conservation issues.

Catherine and I had hoped to air on 150 stations, but now our goal is 200! Getting on 100 stations is considered a huge success by public radio standards.

But we don't just want the work to reach audiences through radio. That's why we're now turning our attention to connecting with non-profit organizations that deal with the issues, places, or people profiled in the documentary. We're exploring with various organizations how they might use our professionally made media to advance their public outreach goals.

For example, the third segment of our documentary is called "Long Live Mono Lake " and focuses on the relationship between the rural Mono Basin and the city of LA that depends on the basin's water. The segment gives a brief history of the historic water battle between the Mono Lake Committee and Los Angeles, introduces the different caretakers of the land (from Native Americans to environmental activists to the LA Dept. of Water and Power), shows how LA youth are learning about where their water comes from, and examines how the city of LA has--through challenges brought on by rural activists--has gone from draining Mono Lake to hosting one of the most successful urban water conservation programs in the country.

In conversations with The Mono Lake Committee (MLC), we figured out that they have thousands of tourists who come by car to visit their shop in Lee Vining every summer to get information, maps, and sign up for various public education experiences like canoeing down as South Tufa State Park. And they wanted to share the story of how their relationship with LA has shifted to one of collaboration as well as let folks know more about the history of the area and their public education programs (all covered in our segment).

So we hatched a plan: why not make a CD that has a short recorded introduction by the MLC followed by our Long Live Mono Lake segment that folks who come visit can play in their car when they are driving around the area?

So we did it. Here I am recording Geoff McQuilken recording a 2 minute script!

The MLC plans to burn about 1000 copies to pass out to both tourists who come through the area and also to give to doing presentations to colleagues, policymakers, and funders. Pretty cool huh?

If your organization can use either the stories in our documentary or on the Storybooth page on this website, let us know!