Vanessa de la Torre
The New England News Collaborative, a partnership between ten public media news operations in New England, has announced it is sunsetting its flagship weekly one hour program called NEXT.
Executive Editor Vanessa de la Torre sent out an email explaining the decision Thursday afternoon and host Morgan Springer announced next week’s program will be the last full broadcast at the end of Thursday’s show. NEXT has been on the air since 2016 and just aired its 250th episode last week.
In short, the stations in the collaborative have decided to focus their reporting efforts in a manner that produces content for multi-platform use. In a message sent to members of the collaborative, and provided to The Laurel, de la Torre explained the decision in detail under these four bullet points:
- We have a big opportunity to expand our influence to reach new and underserved audiences who reflect New England’s growing diversity.
- Sunsetting NEXT as a traditional one-hour radio format gives us the headspace to reimagine how we tell stories on digital, social, video and radio.
- We’re excited for this next phase of our work, which includes expanding our regional news coverage and special journalism initiatives on issues such as climate change, racial injustice and immigration.
- The NENC is also embarking on new initiatives to connect more deeply with communities in New England, and to foster environments in our own newsrooms that are inclusive and supportive of journalists of color.
WNPR is the lead station in the collaborative which was set up as part of partnership with NPR and other funders to promote regional news coverage.
