Hi Freelancers,
Making Contact is an award-winning, 29-minute weekly magazine/documentary-style public affairs program heard on 140 radio stations in the USA, Canada, South Africa, and Australia. Amplifying voices and perspectives rarely heard in mainstream media, Making Contact focuses on the human realities of politics and the connections between local and global events, emphasizing positive and creative ways to solve problems.
We are seeking pitches on these themes
World Cup vs The People?
Reclaiming our urban spaces
Please scroll down for more detail on each theme. Please reply to pitches@radioproject.org.
World Cup vs The People?
With the 2014 World Cup set to kick off next year- we’re looking for stories about football/soccer. Maybe you’re in Brazil and can report on communities being displaced to make way for stadiums. Or you’re in South Africa, South Korea, Japan, and can provide a retrospective look at what happened after the tournament. Reports on positive stories about soccer benefitting local communities are also welcome.
Reclaiming our urban spaces
Making Contact is seeking pitches for 5-8 minute sound-rich features that examine community-led efforts to reclaim public spaces. From Placemaking to Tactical and Guerrilla Urbanism, residents across the country are collaboratively building spaces that bring people together and address community problems. Some of these efforts are more temporary and seek to increase public social engagement, like Park(ing) Day and Chair Bombing. Others, like Ron Finley’s work in South Central, LA and Seattle's Food Forest, aim to address long-term problems, like the lack of locally-grown, healthy food. Some initiatives are sanctioned by those in power, others are not. But all of the efforts have something in common: they are ground-up approaches that create connections, build social capital and improve our urban environments.
We’re especially interested in pitches about cities and projects that often fall under-the-radar, and projects from marginalized communities that are led by long-time residents. We’re open to reviewing and/or repackaging work you’ve already recorded/produced, as long as it’s something that took place within the last year or so. And we’d love to hear your ideas for creative ways to tell these stories.
Pitches for this show are due by Monday December 23rd. We’re aiming to commission pitches by the end of the year, with a script due around mid-January.
Specifications
This call for pitches is for segments of about 8 minutes, but we also occasionally take longer pieces (12 or 26 minutes). For shorter pieces we generally pay $350 per story. As with any pitches you send us, please check out our show and read our guidelines before you pitch. http://www.radioproject.org/production/submission-guidelines/
Consider the following. Does the story:
-
Link grassroots issues and human realities to national or international trends?
-
Give listeners a historical, political, or social context of major national and international events?
-
Shed light on social and economic inequities?
-
Explore any alternatives or solutions?
Send pitches to pitches@radioproject.org. Please be detailed but succinct, and include a description of your idea, narrative/story arc, interview subjects, scenes, and sounds/ambi. If you’re pitching to us for the first time, please include a brief bio and relevant audio clips.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Nancy Lopez, Andrew Stelzer & George Lavender
Making Contact producers