Holy WOW – what a great opportunity from PRI's The World. (Important topic! Travel budget! Multimedia!!) The word from the acting editor is that they're looking for a very high level of reporting here, so not for newbies. Details and contact info below. -Mia
@bluepearmain
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We wanted to let you know about an exciting new initiative The World and our partners at pri.org are undertaking over the next 18 months.
It’s working title is Across Women’s Lives, and it will focus on the relationship between the status of women around the world and the status of their larger communities and societies. In particular it will examine the questions of whether, and if so how, particular improvements in the status of women leverage improvements in “development” and quality of life indicators for everyone. (And if not, why not?)
Our working project summary is below. The reason I’m writing to you now is that we’re looking for pitches. The series will have a special focus on India and sub-Saharan Africa, but we’ll be looking for stories everywhere. And while the focus here is specific, the kinds of stories we’re looking for are the same as always: driven by strong characters, strong voices, strong sound and strong writing.
We’ll be paying our usual rates for these pieces but we do have a healthy budget for travel. That doesn’t mean you should think first of big trips away from your home base—there might well be great stories right in your local areas—but if you’ve got a great idea for a story that would require travel, and can sell us on it, we might well be able to make it happen.
We’re also planning to build a significant multimedia component into every story, including a fully-produced stand-alone video. Sometimes the same reporter could produce both of these, other times it would involve pairing the radio reporter with a video journalist. And of course if the same reporter produces both, you’ll be paid for both.
We’re in the process of hiring a dedicated editor for this project, but until we do, please send any story ideas to me.
And we’re on a pretty aggressive timetable to launch, so if you have a great story along these lines that you’ve been itching to do, send along a pitch as soon as you can.
As always, thanks for thinking of us and we look forward to working with some of you on this project.
Best, from Boston,
Peter Thomson
Acting Editor, Across Women’s Lives
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PROJECT SUMMARY
PRI’s The World and pri.org are launching a high-profile, 15-month reporting project on the status of women around the world. The “Across Women’s Lives” project (working title) will deploy radio & multimedia producers working independently and together to produce top-quality feature stories on:
* Efforts to improve the well-being of communities by raising the status of women and girls, especially in India and sub-Saharan Africa;
* Links between the status of women and girls in developing countries and broader social indicators of health, education and economic opportunity for society;
* Women, men and organizations making a difference in the lives of their families and communities by working to improve the status of women.
The reports will be broadcast on The World and featured on pri.org starting in December, 2014 and will be clustered around five stages of women’s lives: birth and infancy, early childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, middle age, and old age.
Peter Thomson
Environment Editor, PRI's The World
Author, Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal
Environment Editor, PRI's The World
Author, Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal
@bluepearmain