Eric Athas

5 Ways ProPublica Uses Communities for Investigative Reporting

Eric Athas — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:28:36 +0000

In the latest NPR Digital Services webinar, we heard from Blair Hickman, the Community Editor at ProPublica.

Blair walked us through the life of ProPublica's investigation into U.S. patient safety and the important role communities played in the process.

Here are the five steps ProPublica takes for community-powered investigative reporting.

What You Should Know About the NPR Local Stories Project

Eric Athas — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:56:35 +0000

What is the Local Stories Project? In a nutshell, it’s a collaborative project between NPR Digital Services and stations. We take local public media stories, make them shareable and deliver them to the people who care most about them. The result: huge spikes in traffic to member station sites, hundreds of shares and localized community-focused comment threads.

We started this project in 2011 as a Facebook experiment with one station. Since then we’ve added 17 stations. Now we’re inviting all interested public media stations to apply for the next round. Learn more about the application process here.

So, how does the Local Stories Project work?

Infographic: 9 Types of Local Stories that Cause Engagement

Eric Athas — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:50:42 +0000

Here at NPR Digital Services we've conducted a study to determine the 9 types of local content that cause the most engagement and sharing. Go here for background on the study including results.

Designer Russ Gossett created an infographic that you can print and tape to your cubicle or desk. Find that here.

9 Types of Local Stories that Cause Engagement

Eric Athas and Teresa Gorman and tere — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:50:42 +0000

When you come across a story about your town, city or state, what makes you want to share it?

7 Ways to Round Out Your Hurricane Sandy Coverage

Eric Athas — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:46:04 +0000

If you're one of the many member stations covering Hurricane Sandy, or "Frankenstorm," here are some types of stories that will keep your digital storm coverage relevant and your local community informed.

Why Stations Should Reimagine Their Digital Plans for the Social Era

Eric Athas — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:00:15 +0000

Humans have always wanted to share certain types of information with other humans. The social delivery of news — whether it's through e-mail, online communities or in person — is not anything new.

What is new is the continued explosion of Facebook (it's closing in on a billion active users). Facebook has provided us with the power to share like never before, which is why stations need to think about social like they never have before.

Lots of Buzz Around NPR's Local Partnerships

Eric Athas and NPR Digital Services — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:40:04 +0000

A piece by Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab highlights how NPR Digital Services and NPR.org are experimenting through partnerships with member stations. The story references two recent projects -- our experiment with KPLU to geotarget content on NPR's Facebook page and a new test that displays local headlines of 13 member stations on the NPR.org home page.

Knight News Challenge Entry Aims to Expand NPR Facebook Geotargeting Experiment

Eric Athas — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:40:49 +0000

Following the success of an experiment in which we geotargeted local KPLU content on the NPR Facebook page, we have submitted a Knight Foundation News Challenge proposal for a tool that will enable us to expand the test.

How We're Experimenting With Member Station Content on NPR's Facebook Page

Eric Athas and Keith Hopper — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:30:45 +0000

NPR’s Facebook page and its 2.3 million-like audience is made up of users from thousands of cities across the world. We wondered: what if we focused on just one city?

Argo launches open source site

Eric Athas — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:28:06 +0000

The underbody of Project Argo is now open to everyone.