A Radio Program Turns to a Blog to Cull Ideas
By TANIA RALLI
Published: July 25, 2005
With its long reliance on talk formats and call-in programs, radio was arguably the first open-source media form. Now a new Public Radio International program, "Open Source from P.R.I.," will test whether the collective intelligence permeating the Web can make not just loud radio, but smart radio. Not only does the program pull from unfiltered voices and opinions found on blogs, Open Source uses its own blog (www.radioopensource.org) to cull ideas and sources from its listeners.
Listeners are invited to make suggestions on Open Source's blog, where they are openly posted along with ideas from the program's five producers. When the comment flow starts and suggestions are made - including recommendations for guests - the audience can watch the program come together, sometimes over the course of a week, other times in an afternoon.
And even when the program goes off the air, listeners can continue the discourse online. Recent programs have looked at Muslims in Europe, recovery from war in Bosnia and poker in the days before it became a staple on ESPN.
Christopher Lydon, the program's host, who created it with its executive producer, Mary McGrath, said, "We are trying to push talk radio to a new range with the kind of Internet extensions in both getting the signal out and harvesting the energy and insight that comes on the Web."...
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Before his radio career, Mr. Lydon covered Washington politics for The New York Times in the 1970's and anchored the evening news on WGBH in Boston for almost 15 years. Ms. McGrath previously was a producer for "The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour" and for a television program, now defunct, at The Christian Science Monitor....
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/business/media/25source.html
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