CPB Awards Grant to Four Arkansas Public Radio Stations to Form News Collaboration

KUAR’s Ben Fry to Coordinate Natural State News

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Nov. 16, 2015) — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has awarded a $278,300 grant to a group of four radio stations in Arkansas, coordinated by KLRE/KUAR General Manager Ben Fry, to support the establishment of a statewide journalism collaboration. UALR’s public radio station KUAR will be the lead station for the project, joined by Fayetteville’s KUAF, Jonesboro’s KASU, and Texarkana’s KTXK. Together, these stations will form Natural State News (NSN), which will create and distribute multimedia content relevant to the interests and needs of Arkansans, particularly those in rural areas.

Though the four stations have often collaborated in the past, NSN marks their first official joint venture. The stations’ staff will work together to report stories centered on three themes: education, health, and energy. NSN will cover breaking news as well as produce related special interest stories. The resulting multimedia content will be published online and be heard on local and national public radio programs such as NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Here and Now.

“CPB is pleased to support this historic collaboration of Arkansas public media stations,” said Bruce Theriault, senior vice president of journalism and radio, CPB. “The Natural State News collaboration is an example of increased media integration and a pathway for stations to work together to maximize resources while expanding their high-quality journalism.”

The grant will help fund four new positions: a managing editor, two additional reporters, and a partner manager who will raise additional funds for the project. Three of the new positions will be based in Little Rock, with one reporter to work out of Jonesboro.

Natural State News plans to break ground with in-depth multimedia reporting that reaches extensively into rural parts of the state for the first time to tell unfolding stories about wealth, poverty, race, and decision making in education, healthcare, and the environment. Little-told stories from these regions will give a distinctive vantage point for understanding larger national experiences.

NSN will partner with the UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN), and the print publication El Latino to provide and promote its diverse, nuanced content. All stories will be available in both Spanish and English, and NSN is committed to supporting diversity in its staff, student interns, and stories.

For more information on the partner stations, go to their websites: KLRE/KUAR, KUAF, KASU and KTXK.

 

About the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

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 1,400 locally owned and operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services.

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