PBS Annual Meeting — Day 2 Highlights
Day two of PBS’s Annual Meeting began with a celebration of FRONTLINE’s 40 years of incredible contributions to journalism. On the FRONTLINE panel, participants discussed challenges of disinformation with leaps and bounds in generative AI and that partnerships of trust among news organizations strengthen all reporting.
Following the panel, PBS President & CEO Paula Kerger presented FRONTLINE with the Beacon Award to recognize FRONTLINE’s unparalleled track record of quality investigative journalism. FRONTLINE Editor-in-Chief and Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath accepted the award on FRONTLINE’s behalf. Aronson-Rath spoke about how honored she is to be a part of the FRONTLINE legacy and is excited to lead the team as it reaches new and diverse audiences.
The NEWSHOUR panel, with co-anchors Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz, continued the theme of how important it is to be a trusted source of information for the public and hold true to our goals of inspiring and enlightening audiences.
After a preview of INDEPENDENT LENS and POV upcoming programming, the SOUTHERN STORYTELLERS panel took us on a journey to the American South and lead us through the partnership between producers and Arkansas PBS.
Following a quick break, we jumped into the digital landscape and discussed how PBS is working to build a strong local presence and a larger audience. After a special presentation from YouTube, our panel discussed how PBS is using this platform and our plans for deepening engagement with digital communities.
To bring context to our work in digital spaces, PBS COO Jonathan Barzilay presented PBS’s Strategic Framework to attendees and outlined how we are positioning ourselves for a bright and strong future.
We started our afternoon sessions with an in-depth look at the upcoming film THE AMERICAN BUFFALO. Our panel took us through some of the complicated history of this magnificent creature and how the producers carefully thought through how to gather the right voices to tell this story. We continued our discussion of complex storytelling with Vision Maker Media and Firelight Media, who previewed some of their newest projects with attendees. The music of Make It Funky: The History of Funk had everyone grooving and set us up for a great conversation amongst our panelists about the importance of self-representation in media. Our panel also touched on how to elevate stories of BIPOC filmmakers in their own communities, serving filmmakers in all parts of the country and celebrating films in the communities they are from.
Our final session of the day was a special panel with CPB President & CEO Pat Harrison and John Leguizamo, who frequently had the whole room laughing while discussing serious topics like how the history of Latin people in America is too often ignored and excluded. One of the many highlights of their conversation was when John gave a special shout out to PBS and how important it was to him that he saw representation of Latin people on PBS KIDS shows when he was young.
