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[Music]
Art works to provoke and to delight. Art works to build vibrant communities. It attracts
us to the neighborhoods, towns and cities where people want to live. But for art to
do this work, we need to know it’s there. We need effective arts journalism in every
community to get access to informed opinion about what’s happening as it's happening.
So the National Endowment for the Arts joined forces with the Knight Foundation in an effort
to encourage new platforms for the future of local arts journalism. The Knight/NEA Community
Arts Journalism Challenge turned to eight communities to ask for their best thinking.
Two hundred and thirty-three organizations, individuals, and businesses came forward with
solutions. By unanimous decision, five of these ideas were thought to hold particular
promise.
Charlotte, North Carolina, has a vibrant arts community. But, unfortunately, Charlotte's
arts coverage has not been able to keep pace. So the community’s major media players will
combine forces with the University of North Carolina-Charlotte to create the Charlotte
Arts Alliance, a coalition that will train aspiring and seasoned arts journalists and
provide arts coverage through broadcast, print, and online outlets. The reporters trained
by the Alliance will be equipped to cover the myriad arts happenings in Charlotte and
all of the content would be free for any of the Alliance's outlets who want to run it.
The Alliance's online app will aggregate all of this coverage in a single place, helping
to ensure that the future of arts journalism in Charlotte will be just as vibrant as the
city’s arts scene.
Detroit, Michigan, has a growing creative community. But local media has not kept
up with this artistic growth, and Detroit lacks a robust dialogue around its local culture.
In order to connect the contributors of its vibrant arts scene with one another, and with
the population at large, Jennifer Conlin and her partner Dan Shaw will bring an interactive,
mobile video booth called iCritic to the Motor City. iCritic will physically crisscross Detroit
so that ordinary citizens -- as well as arts aficionados and aspiring critics -- will be
able to record video reviews as they are leaving performances, readings, and exhibitions all
around Detroit. These reviews will be made instantly available to the public on all types
of social media. iCritic will lend legitimacy to emerging arts organizations, while attracting
new audiences for well-established ones and will help Detroit's creative community continue
to grow.
Miami’s one of a kind art scene has enjoyed explosive growth and international attention. To
ensure that the growing number of arts events in the community is covered Creative ED, Mosaic
of Art, and the Miami Harold will team up with WLRN to create ArtSpotMiami. Building on
the success of 'crowd-financing' sites like Kickstarter and Spot.US, ArtSpotMiami
will allow journalists to pitch arts story ideas directly to the public. When their
fundraising needs have been met, the journalist will team up with WLRN and The Miami Herald
to produce the event. ArtSpotMiami is built on the belief that arts journalism must reinvent
itself to survive. This model seeks to do just that by engaging the public in helping
to select which stories will be covered in their local media.
In a bid to dramatically increase the amount of arts coverage in Philadelphia, Drexel University,
publisher of two highly regarded arts and culture journals, will embed arts journalists
who will be paid to provide arts coverage for the Philadelphia Daily News. The Daily
News has high circulation, but a limited amount of arts related content due to budgetary and
staffing concerns. Meanwhile, Drexel University publishes significant arts coverage online
and is interested in finding a larger audience for its trained cadre of student, faculty,
and freelance arts writers. This idea would curate stories by editorial teams from both
Drexel and the Daily News, eliminating the need for either to hire additional full-time
staff. By leveraging existing resources from both partners, this idea will benefit everyone
involved, especially Daily News readers, who will have a better understanding of what the
arts in Philidelphia are all about.
San Jose is home to a booming, tech-driven economy, but its arts economy has not kept
up. The Bay Area Citizen and its partners will launch a three-part arts journalism program
to encourage a better understanding of how art works in San Jose. The first initiative
will conduct a map-based design strategy aimed at raising awareness of what arts institutions
and start-ups are doing in the city, how they are connected, and where potential hubs might
exist. An App plan will build on the map by enabling people to interact with the venues
featured on the map. A series of journalistic stories will then be incorporated into the
program that will investigate what the map and app reveal about the arts ecology of the
area and what cultural funding strategies might best be employed to ensure its healthy
future. These winning ideas answer the challenge by
effectively rethinking arts journalism and, if successful, could serve as effective models
for other communities across
the nation.
[MUSIC]