Cambridge startup Latitude News and Public Radio Exchange (PRX) have launched a podcast series aimed at bringing global stories with local importance to new audiences.
Latitude was founded earlier this year by veteran BBC producer Maria Balinska to bring “a new brand of global storytelling connects on an emotional level to audiences who are curious about the world,” Balinka said. Its journalists–based in Cambridge and abroad, use a Website, social media and podcasts to crowdsource stories that connect Americans with the world.
PRX operates public radio’s largest distribution marketplace, offering thousands of audio stories for broadcast and digital use. Signature PRX programs include the Moth Radio Hour, RadioLab, This American Life, KCRW Music Mine and the Public Radio Player.
Under an agreement announced earlier this week, Latitude will produce 12 podcasts and broadcast segments for PRX showcasing a distinctive editorial style that links Americans to the rest of the world.
The first podcasts launched this week; one looks at why the US faces a shortage of cod and Norway does not; the other examines the role that one US preacher has played in the anti-gay movement in Uganda.
The Latitude News podcasts are hosted by award-winning journalist Daniel Moulthorp.
Moulthorp is co-founder of The Civic Commons. He is also a former program host of 90.3 WCPN’s Sound of Ideas and co-author, with Dave Eggers and Ninive Calegari, of the best selling book Teachers Have it Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers (The New Press, 2005).
John Barth, Managing Director of PRX, said, “The extension of Latitude News to podcasts and broadcast is a natural step as PRX reaches engaged audiences hungry for more meaningful international stories.”
“We’re thrilled to work with PRX to illustrate how our new brand of global storytelling connects on an emotional level to audiences who are curious about the world,” Balinska said.
The podcasts and segments are made possible by a grant to PRX by the Open Society Foundations aimed at expanding global storytelling for American audiences.
http://www.prx.org/group_accounts/142068-latitudenews
–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant in Cambridge, MA.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group–an-award-winning strategic communications firm based in Kendall Square, Cambridge.
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