New Chemistry

Want to follow up on this year's great PRPD conference experiment? Sue Schardt shares her take on the conference successes in the AIRmuse. Get the scoop, too, from AIR's Making Creative Media scholarship winners. They're just a click away in the AIRblast spotlight. PRPD session audio and conference materials are now available online. And AIR's impressive new T-shirts, debuted in style at the conference, are ready to be snatched up.

Sam Schongalla,
AIRblast Publication Manager

Issue Archives

Show the world your AIR pride with our new shirt, which debuted at PRPD. Designed by Priscilla Wilson, the shirt — 100% cotton American Apparel — proclaims what we all know, that AIR makes the world "More Beautiful Through Sound."

Purchase yours here
($10 for AIR members, $15 for non-members).

(click through for larger view)

Deadlines

November 2 – Harvestworks 2010 Van Lier Residency

November 15 – Bicentennial Swedish-American Exchange Fund

Say hello to our newest members (as of October 2009):

We've Got Talent
Peruse AIR's searchable
Producer Directory

AIRmuse

"Clap Your Hands, Now": A message from Sue Schardt, AIR executive director (10:05)

Stay on top of the latest news from AIR headquarters by subscribing to the AIRmuse podcast on iTunes.

Instantly subscribe to the AIRmuse via iTunes
Open the AIRmuse podcast feed

Audio Archives

Spotlight

(Re)Thinking . . .

I'd like to say we are here and we are a bridge. We don't simply use the term "independent" or "freelancer" as a nice way to say, "unemployed" and looking. We are skilled in traditional news reporting, but we are versatile and have trained ourselves to produce audio and video, build Web sites and employ search engine optimization. We like the versatility of working in multiple formats. We want to work with you and be a part of your news organization's solution for success.
              Cassie Chew, freelance multimedia producer
              Silver Springs, MD

The 21 Making Creative Media scholarship winners AIR brought to Cleveland this year were key to the new chemistry of this year's Public Radio Programming Conference, convened for the 22nd year by PRPD. We sought out those we felt could bring new thinking to the station-producer paradigm, those who had fresh ideas for how these two vital constituencies might build new bridges to take advantage of the opportunities that abound. We wanted a diverse group, and we wanted those who'd never attended a PRPD before — who were, in essence, a blank slate.

The group we selected to receive the $21,400 in funds provided by CPB and NEA were, indeed, diverse. They were evenly divided: half were station-based program directors and staffers. The other half were independent producers. They came from near and far — from Los Angeles, Miami, and New York, to Shiprock, New Mexico, Bloomington, Indiana, and Vermillion, South Dakota.

These first-timers did more than simply wear special green ribbons on their PRPD name badges; they had an active role at the conference, acting as our eyes and ears, reporting back to us on their impressions, and — importantly — sending us those new ideas on which we might build our future.

We share excerpts from their reports with you here, and we invite you to contribute to the discussion by letting us know you're interested in learning more about the course we chart. Send us an e-mail at editor@airmedia.org.

READ IT NOW: How can stations and producers work together in new ways? (PDF)

Calendar

The PRPD Experience
Sessions now available online

Couldn't make it to Cleveland? Don't despair. PRPD has created a special archive of sessions for AIRsters to listen in. Experience the vicarious thrill of the terrific collaboration between AIR, PRPD, and the Third Coast International Audio Festival with keynote speeches, as well as AIR's MQ2 session, Al Letson's closing benediction, and Third Coast-led sessions, Dollar Stories, The Other Pitch, And The Envelope Please!: TCIAF Winners.

Soup to Nuts: A two-day intensive on documentary radio production
November 7–8
Boston, MA

Veteran AIRster Claire Schoen heads east with her intensive for mid-career producers on the nuts and bolts of producing audio documentary. This action-packed weekend promises to take participants from developing an idea to getting a piece on the air. Very limited space and filling up fast. Contact Diane Toomey (617-489-6055) if you're interested.

Cool Tool: B is for Box.net and Better Large File Sharing

Box.net takes you beyond simply organizing and sharing large files to letting you search your items, create tasks, and exchange feedback with collaborators — all within one site. Imagine Google Docs, only pumped up with vitamins and goodness. Choose from their always-free "Lite" version, which gives you 1 GB of storage, their individual plan with 5 GB of storage for $9.95 a month, or their bells-and-whistles business plan for $15 a month, which gives you up to 30 GB of storage. Sign up for a 14-day free trial to give it a spin.

— Erin Mishkin

Funding for AIR comes from our members and the generous support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the Robert E. Davoli and Eileen McDonagh Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

Association of Independents in Radio
P.O. Box 220400
Boston, MA 02122
Phone: 617-825-4400
www.airmedia.org