Making Contact Media Justice Fellowship

Movements begin with the telling of stories. Making Contact is committed to in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news.We tell the stories of the 99%- and air the voices of change-makers from the bottom up.

We train independent journalists and community members in radio skills, improving popular access to the media. Through our community collaborations, National Radio Project increases the media capacity of community groups and helps amplify the voices of those working and organizing for social justice.

Mainstream media, as well as progressive media, often exclude practitioners due to their race, gender, sexual-orientation, politics, and class/economic resources. By providing the resources to train and pay emerging radio documentarians, we seek to correct that injustice and support diverse radio art/radio journalism voices.

Making Contact received funding from Puffin in 2010 to train and pay representatives from the community organizations whose issues we cover. While still pursuing fairness, accuracy and transparency in our media work, we believe the people best suited to explore an issue are those living it.

This funding helped Making Contact train three emerging radio artists, recruited from community organizations focused on economic justice and racial justice. Through the Media Justice Fellowhsip, we were able to deepen our capacity as trainers to carry out this next-generation effort, and to nurture innovative progressive journalists who, 10 years from now, will win the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship!

Each Media Justice Fellow helped to produce and distribute at least one feature segment(8-min) as part of our weekly 29-minute show. We have chosen to highlight one such segment by Li Miao Lovet, entitled “Bay Area Non-Profits Help Create Jobs by Supporting Micro-Enterprise”

http://www.radioproject.org/2010/08/bay-area-non-profits-help-create-jobs-by-supporting-micro-enterprise/

Additional Websites: www.radioproject.org