NPR Launches Local News Site Network

Aggregates coverage from NPR stations on a dozen issues

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/8/2010 12:07:40 PM

National Public Radio has launched a dozen, topic-focused online news sites; the seeds of its Argo Network venture to produce in-depth local coverage.

The sites aggregate coverage from NPR stations on a dozen issues including global health, climate change, public safety, education, politics, the military and immigration.

The stations are using common tools and Web platforms to populate the sites with stories, but the flow goes both ways, with the stories then available to NPR member station sites, third-party sites and NPR.org.

With the sites including photos, links and videos, they further narrow the distinctions between local radio and TV news operations as both increasingly compete for eyeballs online.

The network was created with a $3 million grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which hands out government money for noncommercial radio and TV, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and is, in part, a response to concerns about the health of local journalism and community engagement in a tough economy and a business being remade by competition from the Web.

It is a pilot project, but if the dozen sites prove a success, NPR is looking to extend it to other stations.

Each site is run by a different station. For example, WAMU in Washington, which bills its site as DCentric, Race and Class in the District; while WNYC New York's is called The Empire, Everything you need to know about New York state politics and governance.

The venture gets its name from from ancient Greek Mythology. Argo was the ship the Argonauts (literally "Argo sailors") used in their quest to help Jason find the golden fleece, which in this case would be local journalism, "critical to communities and the nation."

The name, says NPR spokeswoman Danielle Deabler, "compares to public radio's quest on their public service mission to develop and deepen local newsgathering capacity.  And we wanted a name for the project that people would remember."