NPR’s Argo Project to Boost Local Journalism

NPR President Vivian Schiller

NPR Taps into Local Expertise with Argo Project

by Ron Mwangaguhunga, posted to eMedia Vitals, August 28, 2010, http://emediavitals.com/blog/1073/nprs-argo-project

Next week NPR launches its multi-platform digital initiative, the Argo Project. The project creates a dozen content verticals in subject areas ranging from Seattle-based KPLU’s Humanosphere, which covers issues involving the reduction of poverty as well as global health concerns, to WNYC’s hyper-targeted vertical The Empire, which covers New York politics.

The Argo Project aims to expand NPR’s coverage in where particular NPR member stations excel. Member stations run the blogs, which seek increasingly to fill the void where local newspapers are in decline with their own brand of non-profit journalism. “We feel that it is crucially important to the system as a whole for us to develop and deepen our local newsgathering capacity,” Kinsey Wilson, formerly the vice president and editor-in-chief of USA Today.com, presently overseeing digital operations for NPR told Current.

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