Journalism

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Elevating Voices, Capturing Our Times

GBH News worked at reaching, engaging and retaining a growing digital audience, becoming more audience-focused across multiple platforms. With our tradition of distinctive, original journalism, GBH News launched The Big Quit, a multiplatform project that covered the massive life pivots prompted by COVID. 

In partnership with the NAACP Boston Branch, The Boston Globe and GBH WORLD, we produced The State of Race, a series of virtual forums examining race and inequality in Massachusetts, hosted by award-winning GBH journalist Dan Lothian.

Basic Black, the longest-running program on public television focusing on the interests of people of color, won a New England Emmy Award for its special edition of Standing Ground: The Killing of George Floyd. GBH News won six regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, including the Overall Excellence Award for the second year in a row. For its investigative series The Color of Public Money, GBH News was the first-ever recipient of the new Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award. 
 

GBH News’ Expanded Reporting

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Building on the strength of GBH News’ political reporting, the team launched Election 2021: Boston’s Race into History, which provided in-depth coverage of the unprecedented Boston mayoral race with comprehensive coverage that included a weekly television series, a politics newsletter and new podcast episodes. Special segments of Under the Radar With Callie Crossley, Boston Public Radio, Basic Black and Greater Boston also focused on the Boston mayoral race. Unseen: The Boy Victims of the Sex Trade, a GBH News investigative series, uncovered the growing evidence that thousands of boys and young men are victims of commercial sexual exploitation — far more than previously understood.

There is an educational but also a compassionate component to the way GBH delivers the radio news — you get the facts, but you also get context.

FRONTLINE Digs Deeper

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FRONTLINE, which has earned 100 News & Documentary Emmy Awards since the series’ inception in 1983, continued its unrivaled exploration of the major stories of the day, including American Insurrection, which connected the dots from Charlottesville to the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. FRONTLINE has also been at the forefront of reporting on COVID-19, with a dozen films and comprehensive multimedia coverage that opened our eyes to the myriad impacts on communities across the globe. In recent years, FRONTLINE has received numerous prestigious honors, including an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, a Peabody Award, a Walter Cronkite Award and an award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). 

Projects that Pull Back the Curtain

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GBH broadened perspectives across a variety of important themes in U.S. life — bringing in diverse teams of filmmakers for three multiplatform productions in Studio Six, our special projects and lifestyles unit. Future of Work explored monumental changes in the workplace and the long-term impact on workers, employers, educators and communities in a three-part television series, a six-part digital series and a twelve-part social media series. Mysteries of Mental Illness told the story of mental illness in science and society and was accompanied by an original GBH WORLD digital series, Decolonizing Mental Health, that focused on the racism underlying the mental healthcare industry. American Veteran was the first-ever series to reveal the veteran experience across the arc of American history and does so exclusively through the voices of veterans. Aimed at bridging a civilian-military divide that is growing now, at a time when less than one percent of Americans serve in the armed forces, the project features a PBS documentary series, a YouTube series of digital videos and a podcast available on all major audio platforms.

Getting Even More Curious

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The Curiosity Desk, Edgar B. Herwick III’s long-running radio segment, evolved to become a regular weekly video feature distributed on YouTube, Instagram, on the web and on radio, reaching a much larger audience with some of our most unique content derived from our listeners.

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Science

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The Science of Our Lives

More than any other time, science is front and center in our lives. We have confronted a once-in-a-century pandemic while also wrestling with the challenges of climate change. We are witnessing unparalleled discoveries in space and genetics while also confronting racial and gender inequities within the sciences. NOVA Universe Revealed, an epic five-part series, delved into the vastness of space to capture the powerful moments when the universe changed forever. State-of-the-art animation delivered astonishing, photorealistic renderings of the birth of the very first star, the chaos created as two galaxies collide and the power of a supermassive black hole as it flings a star across space so violently that it’s still traveling millions of years later. Looking for Life on Mars, which featured a diverse cast of scientists and engineers, was one of NOVA’s most popular programs of the year, garnering more than 5 million viewers on YouTube. NOVA developed a new game that invites students to join the hunt for exoplanets and trains them to use the very same techniques that scientists use every day. NOVA continued to lead the way in fostering science literacy, civic engagement and inquiry into the pressing issues of the day. Secrets in our DNA asked, what can DNA testing companies reveal about our ancestry and health, and at what risk? Beyond the Elements picked up where Hunting the Elements left off, and Out of our Elements, a new digital series, introduced viewers to a diverse set of chemistry experts who explore the surprising molecular connections of our everyday worlds.

Keeping Pace with the Research

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Keeping up with the fast pace and increasing complexity of science research is essential in today’s turbulent times. NOVA’s distinctive storytelling brings the latest breakthroughs in technology and the deepest mysteries of the  natural world to life. In Fighting for Fertility, NOVA explored barriers to fertility, from the social to the biological, and the state of assisted reproductive technologies. The film followed the journeys of people navigating challenges from structural inequalities and racism to falling sperm counts, egg freezing and in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Cannabis Question covered the wider story of cannabis in the U.S., from the criminalization that has disproportionately harmed communities of color to the latest medical understanding of the plant.

GBH was the one place where my son could see himself reflected in the world of science, math, engineering and technology.

Science Communication Behind the Scenes

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To teach and engage young people in science communication, digital media literacy and video production, GBH created NOVA Science Studio. Offered to high school students across the nation, the program seeks to empower youth with the skills to tell engaging stories about science through short-form videos and create a platform to amplify the voices of young people who have been traditionally underrepresented in science communication. First piloted in Boston during the 2018-2019 academic year, the 2021 program has expanded to include 30 middle and high schools in five regions around the country.

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Children's Media & Education

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Respond, Include, Represent

Working with communities and educators, and understanding their needs and context is at the heart of GBH Education’s work to create quality media resources. We work to ensure that our materials respond to and represent diverse peoples and perspectives. Everything GBH Education produces is informed by extensive research — our own and independent studies. When our teachers’ survey during the pandemic revealed that they needed new and greater professional development, we stepped up to provide resources and training. Using family feedback, we enhanced our set of Molly of Denali-themed offline games, streamlining them and improving the durability of game pieces. Revised game sets have been distributed to libraries in rural areas across the U.S., where families can check them out on loan. 

What the Research Tells Us

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In a two-part study conducted in 2021, Molly of Denali was shown — after only nine weeks of access — to improve children’s ability to answer real-world questions. This impact is equivalent to the progress in reading skills a first grader typically makes over three months. Molly of Denali has a television reach of more than 29.3 million viewers and over 4 million users and 400,000 monthly users on PBS KIDS digital platforms. Another study among rural communities found that the Molly of Denali Family Game Club was not only related to higher knowledge of informational text and targeted social studies concepts among children, but also to greater amounts of time families spent together.

GBH’s emphasis on education aligns with my overall goals.

Two Generations, Learning Together

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2Gen Labs, a GBH Education research and development pilot program to learn more about how to address parents’ educational needs in order to boost student learning, made significant progress. Focusing on immigrant students and their caregivers, the initiative uses a participatory design process, applying the feedback and expertise of families and educators from traditionally underserved communities to create interactive graphic novels centered on culturally responsive science practices.

Delights of Digital Games

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The Pinkalicious & Peterrific team launched its newest game, Pinkamagical Fairy Houses, where players help Pinkalicious and Peter design unique houses for all the fairies in Fairyland. This game was inspired by fan-favorite stories and characters from the series, content brainstorms by the team and a goal to offer children a delightful way to design with elements from nature in a playful digital space. This game, along with several others from Pinkalicious & Peterrific, have remained very popular with PBS Kids audiences, garnering not just high numbers of play sessions but also longer-than-average play sessions. Five new Arthur games were unveiled in 2021, including  Back to School, where Arthur has new responsibilities helping Mr. Ratburn. In George’s Moving Art Machines, kids can create amazing moving designs that can be as simple or complex as a child’s imagination. In Tower of Cows, players stack cows in a series of increasingly difficult challenges, Muffy’s Party Planner gives players the chance to join Muffy in designing parties and Kindergarten Helpers lets players follow the Elwood City kindergarten kids’ preferences to create a fun school experience for all. Since launching on the Arthur website and in the PBS Kids games app, the games have garnered approximately 2 million plays.

Our Universe in the Classroom

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The six-year GBH collaboration with NASA, Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms, was completed, having produced more than 300 earth and space science resources that over 1.2 million users have checked out. We accelerated efforts to make the resources accessible to students with disabilities using assistive devices, and to students who are English learners by adding embedded vocabulary supports, audio functions and Spanish language translations. Two third-party evaluations of the educational resources indicated they support upper-elementary and middle-school student learning of targeted science concepts. One study showed that students exposed to Bringing the Universe materials on weather and climate made greater gains than those using other materials.

Literacy and Problem-solving

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Team Hamster!, an interactive digital series that helps kids ages 4-8 think creatively and use engineering skills to solve everyday problems, was inspired by a game associated with GBH’s animated Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman series. Viewers can build, test and redesign to save the day with hamsters who are classroom pets by day, secret engineers by night. A new literacy app Small Wonders offers families a co-play experience of original games, activities and songs with embedded prompts to help parents support language development through conversation, a key pre-literacy skill. The project, which began in the fall of 2018 and was completed during the pandemic, conducted formative research in public housing; completed extensive prototyping and user testing at Head Start day care centers and the Boston Children's Museum; and finalized digital games, songs, guide videos and supporting print materials.
 

Youth Engagement

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Responding to user feedback, GBH Education continued to refine its pilot program Youth Stand Up, a civic education program for grades 7–9, by using TikTok-style videos to explain complex topics and expanding the resources students could use as they research, plan and advocate for a social change that is important to them. GBH launched the 12th season of High School Quiz Show using a new innovative hybrid model with students competing remotely and Host Billy Costa emceeing from GBH studios. High School Quiz Show and Search It Up!, a digital series focused on healthy screen time skills, were recognized with Public Media Awards from the National Educational Telecommunications Association for their commitment to impactful youth media.
 

Culturally Responsive Education

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Design Squad, GBH’s family of multimedia STEM activities for middle school students, expanded this year with Design Squad Latinx. Building on the successes of Design Squad, which has reached millions of young people through videos featuring career and student engineers and hands-on activities, Design Squad Latinx will cultivate young Latinx students’ existing engineering strengths in hopes of sparking interest in STEM careers. 

Education that Extends Understanding

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GBH Education partnered with our major national programs to extend the impact of our content — from Arthur Civics, to Molly of Denali Family Games with libraries in Indigenous communities, to AMERICAN EXPERIENCE’S The Blinding of Isaac Woodard, FRONTLINE’s Un(re)Solved, research on MASTERPIECE, NOVA Universe Revealed and GBH Studio Six’s American Veteran.

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History, Arts & Culture

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Cultural Treasures, Hidden History

GBH continued to produce entertaining and illuminating cultural content, overcoming the production and access hurdles of COVID-19 and bringing forward hidden history and featured  stories from multiple cultures and perspectives. MASTERPIECE celebrated its 50th anniversary this year and featured such films as The Long Song, about the end of slavery in Jamaica, All Creatures Great and Small, Us and Guilt. The production prioritized diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in programs that were currently in development — making changes to scripts, revisiting cast decisions and adding more diverse characters. MASTERPIECE’s Elizabeth is Missing, featuring Glenda Jackson as a woman with dementia, and Atlantic Crossing, about the World War II relationship of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Norwegian Crown Princess Martha, were recognized with International Emmy Awards. GBH’s events series provided opportunities for our audiences to meet the makers behind the cameras, interact with filmmakers and authors and explore current affairs with newsmakers and journalists. Stories from the Stage, now in its fifth season, spotlights powerful, multicultural storytellers who explore similarities and celebrate our differences during these divisive times. While the series hopes to bring back live audiences, recent episodes were taped in GBH Calderwood Studio as well as in Houston and Seattle, thanks to partner stations Houston Public Media and KCTS 9 and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. A new podcast offers behind-the-scenes interviews with tellers and ‘next chapter’ details in their compelling stories. “Stories from the Stage: Growing Up Black” won a juried 2021 Webby Award, and “Stories From the Stage: The Podcast” won a Division 1 Public Media Award in the content category. 

Discovering History’s Nuances

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AMERICAN EXPERIENCE uncovered the stories of contralto Marian Anderson; Black Sergeant Isaac Woodard, the victim of a horrific incident of racial violence; Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; and media mogul William Randolph Hearst. The series revived 1993’s Goin’ Back to T-Town, the story of Tulsa, a thriving Black community in Oklahoma that was torn apart in 1921 by one of the worst racially motivated massacres in the nation’s history. One of the most popular films of the season, The Codebreaker, told the story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a cryptanalyst whose decoding brought down a massive Nazi spy ring during World War II. Many broadcasts were complemented by a virtual events series, PAST FORWARD, connecting history to today. The series won a number of awards including an American Advertising Award (ADDY) for the digital interactive experience She Resisted: Strategies of Suffrage. The Vote won two Telly Awards. The Daughters of the American Revolution honored the series with its 2021 DAR Media and Entertainment Award and the International Documentary Association recognized the series as the best curated series. Chasing the Moon won a prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and two Telly Awards.

GBH gives me what I want. If anything were to happen to GBH I don’t know what I’d do.

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW at 25

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ANTIQUES ROADSHOW was back on the road in 2021 visiting five distinctive historic locations and wrapped up a quarter-century of discovery with a road trip unlike any other. By selecting items in advance from among those submitted online by fans, the team filmed invited guests on closed sets, while still delivering the program’s signature excitement. Season 26 episodes were shot at some of the East Coast’s most scenic settings: Wadsworth Mansion in Middletown, Connecticut; Omni Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire; the Sands Point Preserve in Sands Point, New York; Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia; and Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey.

Music that Shapes our World

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A diverse lineup of more than 70 musicians performed in the GBH Fraser Performance Studio and Calderwood Studio, and GBH later streamed those sessions for audiences around the world. A Celtic Sojourn perfected its virtual performances, winning four Tellys for A Christmas Celtic Sojourn and another for the virtual St. Patrick’s Day Celtic Sojourn. GBH Music provided radio and streaming playlists in Celtic/folk, jazz and classical genres.

Presenting the Past

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The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration of GBH and the Library of Congress, launched a new podcast series “Presenting the Past: Exploring the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.” Through conversations with scholars, educators, industry professionals, researchers and archivists, listeners learn about significant events, issues and topics documented in the more than 70 years of programming available in the AAPB collection. The AAPB is in its eighth year of service and has preserved for posterity more than 122,000 audio and video materials.

Broadcasters Honored

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CRB Classical 99.5’s Laura Carlo and Eric Jackson of Eric in the Evening, heard on GBH 89.7, were named as inductees to the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Hailing Carlo as the most listened to stand-alone female music announcer in the U.S., the announcement also noted that Jackson has hosted more than 3,000 interviews with music greats ranging from Wynton Marsalis to Ornette Coleman to Dizzy Gillespie.

Beyond the Page Book Club

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Dozens of authors joined GBH’s virtual Beyond the Page Book Club, allowing readers to ask questions and discuss books. With its broad range of fiction and nonfiction, the club has attracted more than 1,000 readers to join the club’s Facebook page. ​​The series is offered in partnership with local bookstores to help support them.

GBH Hosts Hundreds of Virtual Events

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In 2021, GBH offered more than 300 virtual events to provide opportunities for engagement and exploration of diverse perspectives. GBH partnered with organizations such as the NAACP Boston, Get Konnected!, The Latino Legacy Fund, The Partnership, the Asian Community Development Corporation, and more.

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