5th Annual Day of Action & Education
A Restorative Evolution: Courageously Shaping a Values-Driven Future for Public Media
Public Media for All’s 5th Annual Day of Action & Education is a call to action for those committed to building a future where public media stands for fairness, responsible service, and impactful coalition building. As we face new challenges, let’s collectively learn how to stay rooted in the values that set public media apart, ensuring that our work continues to serve and inspire the communities we represent.
Join us as we gather in community to empower public media to navigate transformative change with courage, integrity, and purpose. Let us become practitioners who lead with courage to create a values-driven, resilient future for public media.
If you need accommodations for the webinar, please let us know. Email contact@publicmediaforall.com, and we will do our best to ensure you have an inclusive experience.
4th Annual PMFA Award
In partnership with Current, Public Media for All will present its 4th annual Award at our Day of Action & Education on January 9th, 2025. This year we’re expanding eligibility, and are please to accept nominations for anyone who works in public media and champions diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at their station or organization. Celebrating the commitment to this work is vital for sustainability and encourages staff who are often under-recognized for their accomplishments. Nominate a colleague or yourself.
Nominees meeting the following criteria will be considered:
Criteria
Nominees meeting the following criteria will be considered:
Works in public media in the United States in any role.
Makes outstanding contributions to enhancing the practice of inclusion, equity and diversity at their station or organization.
Demonstrates history of excellence in public media and DEIB.
Please complete the following form with your nomination or self-nomination by December 16th. If you have any questions contact us at contact@publicmediaforall.org
We’re back!
As we shared at the end of April, we’ve been slowly waking up from our time of rest. Over the past few months, our coalition of volunteer leaders has been reconvening, taking strategic meetings, and restarting our regular monthly meetings with leaders from organizations that have officially joined Public Media for All. We’re now fully awake, back up to speed, and making plans for our next chapter. Stay tuned! There’s more to come as we rise to meet this new moment.
For now, we’ve got two big updates for you. We look forward to being in community with you soon.
PMDMC - How Rest Can Help You and Your Organization
PMFA will be in San Diego in next week for the Public Media Development and Marketing Conference! We’ll be leading a cohort session on Monday, August 12, 3:45 to 5:00pm PST. Join us for a conversation on the role rest can play in community service. We’ll also workshop your plans for rest, resisting grind culture, and embracing your humanity. It will be an exceptional way to kick off your conference with authentic intentions to sustain you through the week. You don’t want to miss this.
NOTE: PMDMC starts on a Monday this year. Be sure to arrive early, so you can make the most of the Pre-Conference Cohort Day.
Save the Date: 5th Annual Day of Action & Education
As we’ve contemplated the next chapter for Public Media for All, we’ve had some honest conversations about how the landscape has changed since our launch in 2020. The recent successful momentum to advance belonging in this country cannot be understated, as well as the corresponding reaction of anti-DEI laws. With this in mind, and given the potential weight of the election this year, we’ve decided to move our annual summit from November when we’ve held it the past 4 years. Our next Day of Action & Education, the fifth in our series promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in public media, will be:
Thursday, January 9, 2025
PMFA Nap Update
What we learned from our time of rest…
As we shared at the end of last year, the main organizing committee of Public Media for All decided to intentionally re-energizing during the first quarter of 2024. Inspired by The Nap Ministry, this was intended to be a time for our community of BIPOC volunteers to reflect and reinvigorate. When we made our announcement, we promised to check in with our amazing community of supporters in April to share an update on our dreams and learnings from this time of rest with you all.
Here’s what some wisdom our coalition leaders gained while resting:
During my time of rest I’ve been meditating a lot on how our bodies are not machines and our lives are not corporations. Yet, we live in a society that's so enamored with capitalism that it tries to optimize everything from self-care to raising children to daily routines based on corporate best practices for maximizing quarterly profits for shareholders. This is a little like trying to use a poison as the antidote. We cannot address the way society is grinding us down by grinding harder.
I have been using the break to invest further in both the care of my elders and in my own health. Recently, it’s been challenging, because I feel driven to work more and faster. After 15 years in broadcast media, I am used to working long hours and turning around assignments quickly. However, that habit has been deleterious to my health and my relationships. As a whole human, my work matters, but I cannot succeed at it by neglecting my humanity.
Despite the continued backlash against work to create a more inclusive and equitable workforce in this country, as I continue to research retention of journalists of color in public media, the need for real progress in this area is more urgent than ever. It’s easy to give in to the backlash, but that would be ignoring real harm that is still happening to Black, Indigenous, Immigrant and other people of color in workplace settings.
Major takeaway for me has been the amount of time that it took for me to shake off the ‘ghost’ of a task list. While we officially began our “nap” in late December, I found myself constantly checking calendars and inboxes/folders looking for emails and invites as a muscle memory activity well into the next month and only then it required a self reminder that I should be resting. The serious impact was that it tapped into feelings of when my Mom passed and I felt compelled to check-in with her through the first year of her being gone.
I rediscovered my ‘listening ear’ and ‘critical reading’ senses during this time. Opposed to reading an article, blog, or book in the context of an upcoming conference, webinar, or meeting ‘the nap’ allowed me to return to an objective sponge where I was able to discover, question, and take notes on -even re-read- ‘chosen’ text and digest it freely. It resulted in a more fluid brainstorm in other areas of my life and work (production). It also produced a new level of motivation.
This time of rest has taught me to prioritize health in all capacities, physical, mental, emotional. Life comes with trials and tribulations and sometimes we get lost in the midst of it all. Re-centering health has helped build better boundaries at home and work, which in turn has motivated me to focus on the projects / initiatives that I value most.
What’s next?
From these learnings, we’ve decided to center gentleness, honor the natural rhythms of our bodies, and take as much time to think as we want and deserve as humans. For all that and more, we’re “hitting the snooze” button, and waking up slowly.
This next month, we’re going to start taking some strategic meetings with key stakeholders, and our coalition will be in conversation and community with each other. However, though we remain as committed as ever to this essential work, we are not resuming full operations quite yet.
As we asked of them during our time of rest, we will continue to encourage the over 40 organizations that have joined PMFA to continue their DEI work in small, peer-support groups. We're excited to reconnect with them soon, and learn what progress and conversations have evolved.
We expect to be in touch in the next couple months with more learnings, resources and ideas to share. Until then, we hope you all are honoring yourselves and your time, live your values, and continue on your DEI journey, while understanding that rest is part of the process.
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PMFA is Taking a Nap
As we shared at the end of the Day of Action & Education webinar, the main organizing committee of Public Media for All will be intentionally re-energizing during the first quarter of 2024. Inspired by The Nap Ministry, this is a time for our community of BIPOC volunteers to reflect and reinvigorate. In April, we will share an update on our dreams and learnings from this time of rest with you all.
While our coalition is taking time to renew and regenerate, we will be asking the more than 40 organizations that have joined PMFA to continue their DEI work in small, peer-support groups. We're excited to learn what progress and conversations will have evolved when we all reconnect.
We also ask that you, our larger community of people supporting DEI in public media, take one idea from our Day of Action & Education webinar to carry through with you as you begin 2024 with grace, mindfulness and accountability to this essential work. Together we can ensure a sustainable future for our service to communities across America.