Still Here: NPR's Next Gen Radio 10 (More) Years Later

Recently, I finished watching "The Mandalorian." If you've seen it, you know the catch phrase. It stays in my head as I take a minute to thank the many who have helped us to the 10th anniversary of the relaunching of NPR 's "Next Generation Radio Project ."

Here is where we are:

I founded the program in 2000, formally naming this one-week radio journalism "sprint" during an NABJ (National Association of Black Journalists) annual conference held in Phoenix, Arizona, that summer. This officialness was me going ahead and deciding. I spent my own money to "rent" a few domain names and openly branding the work. Looking back, I was fortunate that no manager at NPR got in the way, stating I needed permission first. A few (I know who) in the C-Suite worked to ensure we kept going.

From 2000 to 2008, generally, we did projects at five journalism conferences and three NPR member stations, North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC in Chapel Hill, NC, KUT & KUTX Public Media in Austin, and KALW in San Francisco.

Right after the presidential election in 2008, NPR eliminated my position, and "Next Gen" went on hiatus. It all could have ended then. I had yet to keep numbers, as you see above. Lesson learned. Proof of concept requires, well, proof.

But, there are times during a career when consistently doing good, by doing right (walking the walk), can keep ideas alive. That's exactly what happened. In 2012, Dr. Al Stavitsky became Dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno . We'd known each other for some years, and he said he'd always wanted to host a Next Gen project.

In 2013, he made good.

We did one program in 2013.

In 2014, we did two.

In 2015, it was four.

In 2016, it was eight, which I thought was our capacity. We did 8-9 projects a year through 2019.

The pandemic slowed us down, a little. However, here in the first world, we've learned that you don't have to be anywhere, and during 2021 and 2022, we completed 11 hybrid projects. That's 11 one-week projects in 11 separate locations with 11 different sets of people across as many as four time zones. And, in January of 2022 we did a project that crossed the International Dateline where we worked with students attending the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji.

Today, it's a much more significant project management/organizational/logistical and budgetary challenge: maybe half of a full squad gets to be in the room on any project. Also, significantly, this program is a station/university-funded initiative. This year, our 11-12 projects will be funded by 11-12 different sponsors. We've deployed cloud-based tools like "Canva," "Slack," and "Miro" along with a vastly improved Zoom. Old-school use of shared folders, spreadsheets, and docs help us elevate as well.

Since 2020, this work has felt much more authentic. Our reporters can come from unserved communities and they do not need to leave them to participate.

Our reporters will find people in those communities with a story to tell, and we have them tell it through a technique called "non-narration," meaning, there's no reporter IN the story. (h/t to StoryCorps Founder David Isay).

Another milestone: Last year was the first time every selected Next Gen reporter was paid a stipend for their work. That's getting paid to participate in a free program. The barriers to entry are economic too.

There are too many people to appreciate, and I'm thankful there are so many. Still, thanks to Keith Woods of NPR for bringing me back, Dean Al at the University of Nevada, Reno, for bringing *us* back.

Thanks to long-game advocates, Arvid Hokanson of KUOW Public Radio , Amara Aguilar of the University of Southern California , Catherine Stifter - RES-CPT , Brent Wolfe of WUNC FM , Rachel Hubbard of my old station KOSU and KUT & KUTX Public Media .

Thanks for your patience, Sylvia Li and Gabriela Tylenda . Saying the same to, Elaine Heinzman , Amy Tardif , Michael Marcotte , Drew Jostad , Patrice Mondragon , Tristan Ahtone , and the non-profit and for-profit leaders who have and continue to raise their hands.

Finally, thank you, Traci Tong . It's her fault I started doing any of this work in the first place.

This Next-Gen community has more than 600 people (alumni, leaders, managers, non-profit and for-profit journalists, communicators, and young and not-so-young). Now, we're a small town with an eight-member "council."

We all see the way.