The latest call for pitches from Making Contact – below!
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https://www.radioproject.org/2019/08/want-stories-call-pitches-fall-2019/
Making Contact produces media that analyses critical issues and showcases grassroots solutions in order to inform and inspire audiences to action. We are accepting pitches for 7-10 minute segments or 29-minute documentaries for upcoming shows in our Fall schedule.
We’re looking for both new radio pieces, or potential audio material that has previously aired non-exclusively (radio features, video docs, sound-rich podcasts etc.)
Although we’re always looking for stories on a variety of topics (so send those over, too), we’re particularly interested in the following list.
Please see our submission guidelines for more info on our style guidelines and pay rates. Your work will air on our 151 affiliate stations and on our podcast.
Please submit pitches to pitches@radioproject.org by September 16th
TOPICS OF INTEREST:
Prisons and People in Prison
- Re-entry.
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- We’re seeking segments on post-release monitoring or surveillance – such as changes to the parole process, an exploration of monitoring and the use of algorithms, Life Without Parole, women in prison, and plea bargains.. What new solutionary approaches are there for success when our community members come back home? We’re more interested in stories of people working together than those finding individual one-off solutions.
- Tech and prison.
- The modern prison system isn’t just a physical space – these days it’s virtual: breathalysers used in DUI cases; surveillance or predictive policing; tracking online activity are some examples. How do we grapple with these new technologies and how do people fight them?
Immigration
- New stories from the border
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- We’re looking for illustrative, character-driven, myth-busting stories. What’s happening at the border? Why are people immigrating and what’s it like when they get here? And we love historical context! So bring on the history, economics and politics!
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- Climate refugees
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- How have rising seas and temperatures forced people to move? how is the world responding to such an unprecedented mass migration? How are island communities or people of color and the poor living on the coastline fighting to secure their safety and homes?
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- Rise of right wing nationalism
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- White nationalists, but also hindu nationalists, buddhist nationalists etc have always used immigrants as a scapegoat. How are we seeing this echoed across the world? Who belongs where? What about stateless people? What’s being hidden when governments expel the most vulnerable from their borders?
Reproductive Justice and Women of Color
- Abortion access.
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- We’re seeing attacks on abortion all across the US with access to abortion rapidly decreasing. What’s the role of religious fundamentalism or the role of Catholic hospitals? What’s happening on the level of schools and colleges and availability of birth control and abortion healthcare on campus? How are students organizing? How are people organizing to maintain and expand abortion access. Stories need to empahsize the intersection of race and gender and the particular impact of abortion access on the young, poor+working class women of color.
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- Criminalization of reproductive access.
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- Women are being criminally punished for miscarriage or inducing abortion. We want to hear about the push to punish women, especially women of color or women from states in which abortion is not readily available. Again, what’s being done to protect women?
- Comprehensive Reproductive Justice
- Beyond access to abortion or birth control, Reproductive Justice includes the right to raise any children we do have with dignity in a safe, healthy, and supportive environment. Pitch us stories exploring ways women are dismantling health and social inequalities throughout our life cycles, and across our multiple realities of race, immigration status, queer and trans bodies, incarceration, age and geography.
White Supremacy and the Right Wing
- The historical roots of white supremacy.
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- The recent wave of white supremacy raging across the United States, and the internationally isn’t new “How are people confronting and dismantling it while exploring its history, financial backing, and the role police and governments? We’re seeking innovative stories about the history of white supremacy here and abroad and ways organizers are confronting that past.
- Voter disenfranchisement and the ballot in 2020.
- How are people of color dissuaded or prevented from voting and exercising our/their political voice? How are white supremacists actively securing the voting booth again people of color in 2020. What are activists doing to stop voter disenfranchisement and protect the right to vote?
Climate Change and Climate Justice
- Grassroots Insurgency:
- Pitch us stories that aren’t just about the coming apocalypse. Instead, stories that complicate the idea that we’ll be easily eradicated or that there’s no hope. How are people preparing to adapt to a changing climate? What’s going to make a difference in the coming decades? How are people organizing in their towns, communities or local jurisdictions? We’re looking for your stories that reframe the inevitability of global warming as a time for radical hope and imagination.
- Corporate Accountability and Water Privatization: We’re looking to build upon our past coverage of this issue spanning realms of environment, democracy and corporations attempting to privatize municipal water systems, and communities responding. We have a segment underway in ME and we’re interested in working with freelancers in areas such as Pittsburg, Flint, Lagos and your town.
- Water Stories:
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- Corporate Accountability and Water Privatization: We’re looking for stories spanning realms of environment and democracy, in particular the corporations attempting to privatize municipal water systems, and how communities are responding. We have a segment underway in ME and we’re interested in working with freelancers in areas such as Pittsburg, Flint, Lagos and your town.
- Got an update to the story of Flint, MI? It’s one of the worst examples of water supply contamination and inadequate responses. Also, one population that has endured generations of poverty, disputes over water rights, and a lack of plumbing infrastructure live throughout the Navajo Nation (Utah, New Mexico, Arizona), where nearly half of all people must get their water from pumps outside of the home. We’re looking for stories about the barriers to clean water access on Native American reservations, and what people are doing to improve access to clean water.
Looking forward to reading your pitches,
Salima Hamirani, Anita Johnson and Monica Lopez — Making Contact producers