grey slant background

WETA Public Television & Radio

Arlington, Virginia

Grants

2023 (3 years)
$1,200,000

The Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (WETA) is the public broadcasting station in the nation’s capital, providing educational, cultural, news and public affairs programs to the residents of the D.C. area. WETA is also a major producer of national programming for PBS stations across the country and home of the PBS NewsHour. The NewsHour is a multi-platform news operation, best known for its daily evening telecast which covers politics, economics, the legal system, international news, democracy, health, science, education and the arts. This grant provides flexible support for the NewsHour.

2023 (3 years)
$750,000

PBS Student Reporting Labs (SRL), a project of WETA, trains middle- and high-school students across the country to produce and share original media that explores national and global issues and how they affect local communities. Launched in 2009 as an effort to engage young people more deeply in PBS content, today it is an independent project that provides a range of journalism and media making offerings to tens of thousands of students in every state through partnerships with schools and after-school programs and clubs and through its new digital learning platform StoryMaker. SRL’s offerings range from free learning resources through its online platform to  intensive weeklong teen journalism boot-camp. This flexible support grant supports SRL to further scale its offerings to reach more youth and educators through a range of activities, including developing multiple regional summer intensives, standing up virtual educator workshops, and translating its curricular materials and other resources into additional languages.

2021 (2 years)
$800,000

The Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (WETA) is the public television and radio station serving the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area. WETA is also a major producer of national programming for PBS stations and the home of the PBS NewsHour. The NewsHour is a multiplatform news operation, best known for its daily evening telecast, which explains the essential national and international news of the day. This award provides flexible support for the NewsHour to continue its deep explanatory reporting, expand its coverage of international news, pursue newsroom collaborations, and grow its digital presence. The intended outcome is a reliable and comprehensive news source for Americans to turn to that is trustworthy and free of charge.

2020 (3 years)
$675,000

PBS Student Reporting Labs (SRL), a project of WETA, trains middle- and high-school students across the country to produce and share original media that explores national and global issues and how they affect local communities. Launched in 2009 as an effort to engage young people more deeply in PBS content, today it is an independent project that reaches thousands of students in every state through partnerships with schools and after-school programs and clubs. It has a special focus on working with Title I schools and low-resource communities, and its curriculum is focused both on traditional journalism and the creation and circulation of new media online. This project grant supports SRL to  scale its offerings dramatically by building out its StoryMaker platform to make it easier for students and educators to access curricula and other resources and supports, to engage with each other to hone skills and co-develop projects, and to upload new content for circulation and broadcast. With 150 official SRL sites serving 250 schools and a waiting list of 150, the StoryMaker platform will enable SRL to expand its journalism and media literacy offerings to meet this demand and reach 10,000 more young people each year by 2023.

2019 ( 1 month)
$30,000

PBS Student Reporting Labs (SRL), the education arm of WETA, trains middle- and high-school students across the country to produce and share original media that explores national and global issues and how they affect local communities. Launched in 2009 as an effort to more deeply engage young people in PBS content, today it reaches thousands of students in every state through partnerships with schools and after-school programs and clubs. It has a special focus on working with Title I schools and low-resource communities, and its curriculum is focused both on traditional journalism and the creation and circulation of new media online. This grant supports a youth media debate watch party as part of a PBS-hosted democratic party debate in Los Angeles on December 19th. In the weeks leading up to the debate, SRL is engaging teenagers around the country with content reflecting the issues that matter to teens and resources for teachers to prepare students to watch the debate, strengthen civic engagement and critical thought. Student journalists brought to Los Angeles are producing behind-the-scenes glimpses of the NewsHour production, reporting from the media file center, and producing content throughout the event distributed through local and national partner social and digital platforms.

2018 ( 1 month)
$2,000

PBS Student Reporting Labs (SRL), a project of WETA, trains middle- and high-school students across the country to produce and share original media that explores national and global issues and how they affect local communities. This grant supports SRL to participate in a national convening of participatory civic media organizations supported through MacArthur’s Journalism and Media program. The meeting is designed to help coalesce the emerging field of participatory civic media, of which SRL is part, by facilitating new connections and collaborations and building a shared sense of identity among a new breed of media and culture organizations using participatory media to amplify historically marginalized voices and strengthen American democracy.

2018 (3 years)
$1,800,000

The Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (WETA) is the public television and radio station serving the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area. WETA is also a major producer of national programming for PBS stations and the home of the PBS NewsHour (Newshour). The NewsHour is a multiplatform news producer, best known for its daily evening telecast, which explains the essential national and international news of the day. This award provides flexible general support for the NewsHour to continue its deep explanatory reporting, expand its coverage of international news and foreign policy, pursue newsroom collaborations, and grow its digital presence. The intended outcome is a reliable and comprehensive news source for Americans to turn to that is trustworthy and free of charge.

2018 (2 years)
$450,000

PBS Student Reporting Labs (SRL), a project of WETA, trains middle- and high-school students across the country to produce and share original media that explores national and global issues and how they affect local communities. Launched in 2009 as an effort to more deeply engage young people in PBS content, today it is an independent project that reaches thousands of students in every state through partnerships with schools and after-school programs and clubs. It has a special focus on working with Title I schools and low-resource communities, and its curriculum is focused both on traditional journalism and the creation and circulation of new media online. This grant supports efforts to increase the capacity of PBS Student Reporting Labs to reach more students, especially in rural areas, and to build up its social and mobile platforms to engage youth more deeply in the sharing and circulation of their media with others in their community and beyond. It also supports the development of new curricular modules to accommodate the various needs of schools, their teachers, and students.

2016 (2 years)
$1,200,000

WETA is the public television station serving the Greater Washington, D.C. area, and it is the production home for PBS NewsHour, the daily, flagship news program on public television stations nationwide. The NewsHour provides deep and nuanced analysis of daily national and international events and special coverage of under-reported issues in health, education, science and the arts.  It is available to American audiences via television broadcast, its website and mobile app, through social media and third party platforms, such as YouTube. This grant seeks to support and sustain a strong newsroom with the capability to deliver high quality explanatory journalism that informs Americans about the major events and issues of the day.

 

2015 (1 year)
$50,000

WETA Public Television & Radio (WETA), the leading public broadcasting station in Washington, DC, produces educational, cultural, news and public affairs programs, and services for national broadcast on PBS, including more than 30 years of performance specials at the White House. On October 14, 2015, to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), WETA produced and recorded a concert at the White House celebrating the diversity of American music. Music and literary readings were performed by artists honored or supported by the NEH. The grant supports WETA’s efforts to edit and broadcast the concert for public television audiences and create a website with downloadable curriculum and educational materials for teachers and students. MacArthur, along with the Carnegie and Ford Foundations, is providing one-time support for the NEH’s anniversary events, which are intended to raise awareness of the Endowment’s role in supporting America’s cultural life.

2013 (2 years)
$1,500,000

The PBS NewsHour is the signature news and public affairs program broadcast on public television. It covers a set of issues important to the country in a manner that is deep, sustained, and thoughtful helping audiences fully understand current events. The program’s priority beats include politics, the economy, education, science, health, and international issues. This grant provides general support for The PBS NewsHour, enabling it to pursue its highly regarded form of serious journalism and to continue to develop and implement digital strategies that will grow its audience on all platforms.

2012 (1 year)
$1,000,000

The PBS NewsHour is the signature news and public affairs program broadcast on public television as well as on radio in the U.S. and internationally. It is widely considered one of the most informative and balanced newscasts on television, and it has won every major award in journalism for its thoughtful analysis and civil discourse on the most important news stories of the day. Every night, across the country, on primetime, The NewsHour television broadcast draws a consistent audience of 1 million nightly viewers. Its digital audience has grown rapidly over the last year and now sees 3 million page views each month.

2012 (1 year)
$39,500

WETA Public Television & Radio is the PBS station serving the greater Washington, D.C. area and the presenting station of The PBS NewsHour. This grant supports a research project that will collect and analyze data on news consumers which will be used to better understanding and to help expand the audience for The PBS NewsHour.

2010 (3 years)
$1,000,000

In support of The NewsHour, a nightly primetime news program on PBS (over three years).

2003 (1 year)
$200,000

In support of the documentary film "Reporting America at War".

1998 (1 year)
$350,000

To support a documentary series on the role of class in American society.

1996 (2 years)
$250,000

For "Jazz," a public television series (over two years).

1995 (1 year)
$250,000

For "Vote for Me: Politics in America," a public television documentary series that examines electoral politics as a reflection of American culture (over two years).

1991 (1 year)
$196,316

To support "The Glory and the Power," a PBS series on fundamentalism in world religions, together with a public radio series.

1990 (1 year)
$25,000

For the school guide to accompany the broadcast and video distribution of "America Becoming."

1988 (1 year 1 month)
$50,000

To support the public television production of "Arab and Jew," based on David Shipler's book of the same title.