Journalism

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Connecting Communities, Expanding Perspectives

GBH News teamed up with El Planeta and the Office for Diversity, Inclusion and Community Partnership at Harvard University to produce the new Spanish-language podcast “Salud,” hosted by Tibisay Zea, a reporter for GBH’s and PRX’s The World. “Salud,” which focus on health issues important to the Hispanic and Latinx community, was also a Saturday morning radio show. Housing is another subject that matters to our community. GBH News launched a new multiplatform series looking at how the housing crisis is affecting the whole state. Priced Out: The Fight for Housing in Massachusetts gave voice to individuals and families struggling to stay in their homes in East Boston, Lynn, Brockton and Worcester. Mass Humanities gave Callie Crossley, host of Basic Black and Under the Radar with Callie Crossley, the Governor's Award in the Humanities. Renowned Massachusetts-based meteorologist David Epstein joined GBH, bringing his signature weather forecasts, along with reflections on trends in the weather, gardening and the impact of climate change on New England.

GBH's 'Newsroom Without Walls'

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Embracing a “newsroom without walls” approach, GBH News held listening sessions across the city, and the GBH Boston Public Library Studio continued its programs and outreach with author sessions, forums and a new summer YouTube series of Basic Black recorded at the studio. Jim Braude and Margery Eagan returned to the library for their ever-popular live broadcast of Boston Public Radio. The opening of our Worcester bureau, delayed due to COVID-19, was celebrated with a locally created mural that captures the city’s vitality and GBH’s commitment to build a bridge to our Central and Western Massachusetts audiences. GBH News regularly attracted about 400,000 users each month to its website and subscribers to the GBH News YouTube channel were up 600% from last year. On Instagram, GBH News’ monthly view average was up nearly 300% over last fiscal year. 

GBH covers all the facets of people’s lives—the programs are diverse, historical and current.

FRONTLINE Digs Deeper

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Committed to holding those in power accountable, FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, created a series of documentaries and reports on the war in Ukraine, including coverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, bringing the realities and horrors of war to audiences around the world. In partnership with The Associated Press, FRONTLINE launched an initiative to gather, verify and document evidence of more than 600 potential war crimes in Ukraine and premiered a two-hour documentary, Putin’s Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes, offering vital, collaborative reporting that could eventually spawn multiple criminal charges. FRONTLINE also told the inside stories of Russian activists and journalists risking arrest and imprisonment to protest and speak out about the Kremlin’s war effort in the documentary Putin’s War at Home. FRONTLINE also charted the evolution of violent extremism in America in American Insurrection, which examined the latest developments and where the movement might be headed one year after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The acclaimed series also received unprecedented notice for its Un(re)solved, the multiplatform investigation of Civil Rights-era cold case murders. Displayed across the country, it was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Emmy® Award, recognition from the National Association of Black Journalists and the American Bar Association, a National Edward R. Murrow Award and a Scripps Howard Award. To date, FRONTLINE has over 2 million subscribers to its YouTube channel, helping the series reach a younger, more diverse global audience. Over the last year FRONTLINE gained almost 600,000 new subscribers to its YouTube channel, driven largely by its Ukraine coverage.

 

The State of Race

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The second year of GBH’s The State of Race series, which has examined race and inequality in Massachusetts, explored a variety of topics, such as “Tech’s Diversity Mandate,” “Equity in Business Ownership” and “Black Joy.” Partners included  GBH/WORLD, the NAACP Boston Branch, The Boston Globe, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts.

Resources for Voters

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Leading up to the midterm elections, GBH News provided a critical resource for our community by hosting a series of debates and interviews spotlighting five contested statewide primary races. In a lively election year, Adam Reilly and the politics team delivered timely analysis with Talking Politics and Pint of Politics on YouTube, and GBH News reporters served up succinct videos on the four ballot questions facing voters. Election Day in November was GBH News’ most successful Election Day ever on its website, with 85,000 visitors coming to the website, more than double the traffic on any other recent election day.

The Curiosity Desk Goes Digital

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Season 2 of GBH News’ The Curiosity Desk, which won a Boston/New England Emmy® Award this year, premiered in an all-new digital format on YouTube. Host Edgar B. Herwick III answered viewer questions and examined some of the everyday mysteries hiding in plain sight, including a haunted pirate cave, how airplanes fly giant banner ads and the difference between a rotary and a roundabout.

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Science

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Transforming the Science Media Landscape

Science affects all of us, in different ways in different communities. NOVA, the most-watched prime-time science series on American television continues to follow new developments, explore their societal implications and track scientists’ quest to expand the possibilities and connect us through science.  Showcasing innovation, NOVA featured Augmented, which told the story of ingenious new technology that allows prosthetic limbs to move and feel like the real thing, and Ice Age Footprints, which uncovered remarkable new evidence of people who lived on the North American continent earlier than archaeologists had previously known. Can Psychedelics Cure? and Arctic Sinkholes presented insights and discoveries that will impact societies and scientists of the future.

 

Building Young Journalists

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NOVA was recognized by the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) for innovation in education for NOVA Science Studio. NOVA’s first youth program, it empowers students with the skills to tell engaging stories about the science issues that matter to them through short-form video. Misinformation Nation, available on PBS LearningMedia, offers clever tools to identify science misinformation, helping students make informed judgments about the science media they encounter.

It is through platforms like NOVA that teenagers, teachers and others are going to learn and hear about things that are happening in the labs.

Engaging Indigenous Voices

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NOVA’s Nazca Desert Mystery explored one of archaeology’s greatest enigmas—thousands of geoglyphs spread across the Peruvian desert—while featuring the voices of Peruvians who are descended from ancient populations that left the images behind. Through their spectacular geoglyphs, textiles and ceramics, NOVA introduced viewers to the Nazca and Paracas people and their thriving civilizations, which have received less attention in science media than the better known Incas.

Awards

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NOVA continued to garner recognition for its science journalism, including Ice Age Footprints, which received the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Silver Award for Video-In-depth Reporting. Picture a Scientist was honored with a News and Documentary Emmy nomination for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary and Arctic Sinkholes won the prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.

A Commitment to Our Climate

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As a leader in public media, GBH established an organization-wide commitment to build and grow our audiences on climate change at this critical juncture. GBH has an important role to play in informing, understanding and driving discourse; presenting programs, films and information that help illuminate the profound challenges and possible breakthroughs as well as inspiring us all to take action to protect our planet. Highlights include GBH WORLD’s presentation of Burning Questions: Covering Climate Now and NOVA’s feature Saving Venice, which looks at the rising seas threatening that city. By working together to protect our planet and people, GBH aims to ensure a greener, sustainable and more resilient future for us all.

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Children's Media & Education

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Educating for the Future

All of GBH content for children stems from our approach to respond to our communities and audiences, as well as include them and represent them in our programming, resources and events. In its mission to produce inclusive content for children, GBH Kids builds on its legacy with a new animated series in production, Work It Out Wombats!, which premiered in February 2023. Created for kids ages 3-6, it stars a playful trio of marsupial siblings—Malik, Zadie and Zeke—who live with their grandmother, Super, in the “Treeborhood.” The program will introduce computational thinking concepts to help young viewers solve meaningful problems, learn flexible thinking and express themselves—all while using the practices and processes at the core of computer science. To bring diverse viewpoints to the show and give new writers a chance to launch their careers, GBH awarded five fellowships to early-career writers. Our 2Gen Science Stories educational activity leads new immigrant families with young children through an exploration of beaches and tidepools. Developed with a goal of authentic representation—developing with, not just for, our audiences—we recruited writers and advisors with immigrant experiences of their own and engaged public media professionals working in new immigrant Hispanic and Latinx communities.

Digital Molly of Denali

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Molly of Denali returned with Season 3, new shorts and additional episodes of its podcast. The new digital game Molly’s Big Gathering, features Native people from all over Alaska coming together to celebrate their varied cultures. New shorts feature 20 stories about Molly and the people of her fictional hometown of Qyah as they prepare for the gathering.

Turn to GBH any day or time and you will come away with new knowledge.

Media-Rich U.S. History Education

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The new U.S. History Collection, available on PBS LearningMedia, expands secondary school students’ understanding with culturally inclusive digital resources that bring the major people, events and trends of history alive while also integrating traditionally untold stories and helping make curriculum relevant to today’s students. Teachers and students can browse resources by era, from pre-Colonial America to imperialism and World War I to America in the 21st Century. The Collection has attracted over 250,000 users and gathered 2 million page views in just six months since launch.

Arthur Evolves

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Arthur, the longest-running kids animated series, began its new chapter with a TikTok channel that attracted more than 300,000 followers and a new podcast. With eight new episodes, the podcast reached out with an interactive component that allowed listeners to send voice messages to be aired on the show.

Exchanging Ideas and Feedback

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GBH Education’s Educator Ambassadors program brings rewards to both GBH and the participants. The 18 members from the 2022-2023 cohort represent multiple Massachusetts school districts and have experience across grades and subjects. As advisors to GBH on outreach to educators, they act as a sounding board and co-present with GBH at conferences and webinars.

Culturally Responsive STEM Education

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GBH Education invited diverse learners into our resources, whether in classrooms via  PBS LearningMedia or in communities, including Design Squad for older kids in out-of-school settings, Math at the Core for middle schoolers and the NOVA PBS LearningMedia resources for high school students. Design Squad Maker, a new iteration of the beloved brand, was extended to younger children and their families, promoting kids’ sustained engagement in engineering projects no matter where they are. GBH Education also translated student materials into Spanish and made much of the collection accessible to students with disabilities who use assistive technologies. In total, the team produced 325 resources featuring more than 2,700 assets for PBS LearningMedia.

Search It Up: The Game

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GBH Kids and PBS KIDS launched Search It Up: The Game, now available through Ruff Ruffman on pbskids.org. Based on the award-winning digital miniseries Search It Up, the game is designed to help kids ages 4-7 learn to safely navigate technology and the internet as part of the GBH Kids’ digital team’s ongoing work in media literacy. Designed to resemble a series of apps, the game offers eight mini-games based on kid-friendly themes—such as connecting with friends, setting up passwords and getting ready for school—while teaching healthy tech habits.

"Pinkalicious and Peterrific" Podcast

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Season Two of the “Pinkalicious & Peterrific” podcast launched with eight episodes, encouraging kids to dance, sing, use their imaginations and more, with the pinktastic sister-brother team as hosts. The series also saw the launch of two new digital games. “Splashtastic Beach Day,” engages players with a visit to the ocean where they can build sandcastles, embark on a treasure hunt and more, and “Coloriffic Art Show” allows players to use art tools within a gallery space to make their own unique creations for the Pinkville Art Museum.

Youth Media

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GBH worked to expand its reach into the “missing middle” audience with a variety of multidisciplinary initiatives. High School Quiz Show, GBH’s award-winning locally produced series, returned for Season 13 using an innovative hybrid production model that combined broadcast and digital technology. The series also expanded its digital and social media efforts. The winning North Quincy team and coaches were honored by the Mayor of Quincy and Massachusetts’ Speaker of the House and were featured on a High School Quiz Show float in the Quincy Flag Day Parade (the largest in the county). The Youth Media team continued to play a key role in the Next Generation Public Media Initiative, led by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The team was a stakeholder cited within Gen Z in the Room: Making Public Media By and With Youth for the Future, a recent report that documents what public media stations have learned from youth projects over time and identifies ways that the public media system can develop strategies for serving and providing a platform for this audience. In collaboration with The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life, GBH launched an Emerging Adults Content Strategy Team, the first phase of a Foundation-wide effort to define a strategy to include and represent emerging adults (16-25) within our existing general audience adult-facing content. The team includes representatives from NOVA and GBH News.

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History, Arts & Culture

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Where Culture and History Meet

 

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, in its 34th season, delivered a sweeping saga of our nation’s past through broadcast and complementary digital shorts, including Taken Hostage, which examined the Iran hostage crisis, its roots and legacy. Expanding on the success of its multiplatform Stories from the Stage series, the national award-winning “Stories from the Stage: The Podcast” releases weekly and features the most memorable stories from the show. Stories from the Stage, now in its sixth season, reached its 100th episode as it continues to spotlight powerful, multicultural storytellers who explore our similarities and connections while celebrating our differences. Building on 10 years of producing Boston Symphony Orchestra, Brian McCreath, director of production of GBH Music and Radio, became the primary host of the BSO on CRB Classical 99.5.

Lives and Legacies

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This year AMERICAN EXPERIENCE reached over 13 million broadcast viewers and its films were streamed over 1.7 million times. The American Diplomat explored the lives and legacies of three African American ambassadors who pushed past historical and institutional racial barriers to reach high-ranking appointments in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Plague at the Golden Gate captured the bubonic plague outbreak in 1900 in San Francisco’s Chinatown and the hunt to identify its source, which led to a wave of violent anti-Asian sentiment. Riveted: The History of Jeans delved into the complex story of this iconic garment, with its roots in slavery and its connection to the Wild West, youth culture, the civil rights movement, hippies, fashion and hip-hop.

We’ve had decades of education, enlightenment and entertainment from GBH

On the Road with Social Media

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Following a meteoric launch on TikTok, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW hosted a live broadcast on the popular video-sharing app, giving fans a look behind the scenes at one of the 2022 production events. Joined by producers, appraisers and a TikTok influencer, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW introduced a new audience to the core of the brand–what happens before and while the cameras are rolling. In the first year of being active on TikTok, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW had more than 800,000 followers and is the biggest public media channel on the platform. One of its most popular TikTok videos appears on YouTube (above), with more than 13 million views.

MASTERPIECE’s Adventures

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MASTERPIECE rolled out a season that took viewers into an English beach resort and through the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales for Season Two of All Creatures Great and Small and on a global tour via Around the World in 80 Days.Viewers enjoyed myriad mysteries and adventures with Grantchester Season Seven, Guilt Season Two, Ridley Road, Miss Scarlet and The Duke Season Two and Magpie Murders; and fought crime in the waterways of Scotland with Annika. The MASTERPIECE Studio podcast portfolio hit the 200-episode milestone. The podcast collection has grown in scope over the past six years to include “Mining Poldark,” “Making MASTERPIECE” and “Making Sanditon” and has more than 14 million subscribers.

Music that Crosses Genres

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GBH Music continued to open its doors to local and global musicians, expanding our multi-genre repertoire by using all platforms to reach audiences near and far. As a way to end a fabulous year, GBH Music presented its annual Holiday Music Celebration in December, bringing together in one show GBH Music’s core pillars—classical, jazz and Celtic. In addition, GBH Music presented several classical events and collaborated with Jazz Boston to create several streamed jazz shows, including Emerald Jazz, with an intriguing blend of improvisational jazz and traditional Irish music; Tango Libre; The Legacy of Tony Bennett; Donal Fox; Master Jazz Composers; and Dream Alliance. Jazz 24/7 delighted listeners with fresh new songs and treats from our extensive library. Classical CRB 99.5 was a constant companion on air and online, providing the best mix of classical music all day, every day, all while producing more than 65 broadcasts of local music organizations. A Celtic Sojourn’s Saturday afternoon shows brought a glimpse of Ireland and the world’s folk traditions to listeners on GBH 89.7.

20 Years of Celtic Splendor

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A Christmas Celtic Sojourn gloried in a 20th anniversary, four-city tour, live and online. With performances in Boston, New Bedford, Worcester and Rockport, the show drew on Celtic, Pagan and Christian traditions to celebrate music of the season. Host Brian O’Donovan warmed concertgoers with poetry and traditional readings, while dancers, instrumentalists and vocalists brought music and merriment to the packed venues.

Open Studio with Jared Bowen

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Season 11 of Open Studio with Jared Bowen allowed viewers to venture inside the creative process. The weekly GBH arts and culture series offered a blend of profiles, performance and contemporary exhibitions. As Boston’s only remaining television arts and culture reporter, Bowen, GBH’s executive arts editor, in 2022 interviewed filmmaker and visual artist John Waters, poet Martin Espada, Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart and artist Lesley Dill, among many others.

Accessibility Counts

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GBH’s Media Access Group played a vital role in ensuring that eleven of this year’s nominated films were accessible to viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who are blind or have low vision. The MAG team captioned or described the following nominated films: Belfast; Licorice Pizza; The Lost Daughter; Parallel Mothers; Being the Ricardos; Cyrano; No Time to Die; Coming 2 America; House of Gucci; The Mitchells vs. the Machines; and Spider-Man: No Way Home. GBH also released an updated version of its Inclusive Language Guidelines, which provides a guide to communicating accurately and being culturally inclusive.

Special Honors

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The Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame honored CRB Classical 99.5 Boston morning host Laura Carlo and posthumously honored jazz expert Eric Jackson of Eric in the Evening on GBH 89.7. Liz Cheng, general manager for television at GBH and GBH WORLD, earned the prestigious Silver Circle award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for her significant contributions to television.

In Memoriam

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Our friend and colleague Eric Jackson, host of Eric in the Evening on GBH radio for over 40 years, passed away on September 17, 2022. Eric began broadcasting at GBH in 1977 with his overnight jazz showcase, Artists at Night.  Eric in the Evening debuted in 1981 and, with it, his emergence as one of public broadcasting’s most popular on-air personalities.  He was truly the “Dean of Boston Jazz Radio,” and he shared his knowledge and his love of music with all of us. Eric was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame on September 22.  Studio 5 at GBH Studios has been named for and dedicated to him.  We have all been blessed to have Eric as our passionate guide all of these years.

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