The Association of Independents in Radio released a review of their Localore project, an initiative meant to provide support for local public media producers working on entrepreneurial projects. The report, called What’s Outside, looks at the impact of the project — including digital, broadcast, and in-person impressions — and provides insights for producers, station leaders and the public media system as a whole.

AIR executive director Sue Schardt highlights the diversity and innovation inherent to the Localore project in her introduction. She also argues for systemwide changes in the public media network:

The legacy model is one built around national programming, principally Morning Edition and All Things Considered, which serves the core audience of listeners. The legacy value proposition for stations is built around serving as amplifiers of these anchor programs. As stations and the networks continue to strengthen and build on this important core capacity, a new and distinct opportunity emerges for stations to position themselves strongly as community hubs.

Schardt also gave advice for blending traditional reporting with digital outreach for maximum impact:

Before taking on digital production, however, stations would do well to become more technologically self-sufficient. This doesn’t necessarily mean having the capacity to build and code a complex new property. it does mean having the know-how to, for example, quickly respond when Twitter changes its API. We found that working with lightweight, readily available platforms beats building proprietary distribution formats, but that expertise is still needed.