MPR News: Minnesota Arts, Culture, and History Coverage

Over the past year, MPR News undertook a systematic effort to intentionally expand our arts and culture coverage beyond the Twin Cities ' and on platforms beyond radio. To help weave it together, MPR News added an arts and cultural editor/producer who works as an editor, coordinator and project manager across our current MPR News arts reporting teams. This position coordinates efforts across the Art Hounds team, regional reporting team, programming teams, digital and visuals teams and reporting teams across the newsroom as well as with outside organizations and news partners.

In addition, we have added more segments highlighting Minnesota history and using the MPR Archives through the noon program Minnesota Now.

Over FY24-25, we will focus on:

Arts Coverage: MPR News will continue to produce regular segments covering news and important stories within Minnesota's arts and cultural community across its regional programming including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Minnesota Now and MPR News with Angela Davis, with an emphasis on the following:
The stories of the arts community are a crucial piece of Minnesota life - with a significant role and ripple effects in everything from education to the economy.
The work of artists from un- and underserved communities, and particularly those whose work is rooted in rural and small-town Minnesota - and who are often unaffiliated with some of the state's largest institutions.
A strong digital and social media presence to help amplify the work of Minnesota's arts community to new audiences.
The innovations and new ways of working as artists and arts organizations continue to recover from the disruption of Covid-19.

Art Hounds: In weekly segments on the air and online, Art Hounds will continue to create a generous space for artists and art lovers throughout Minnesota to recommend and celebrate work by others they admire.

Art Hounds is based on a pay-it-forward model. Artists recommend the work of other artists, lifting up the work within their community ' or beyond it, in other parts of the state. The project highlights artistic endeavors that do not often receive the attention of major arts organizations or companies, and includes artists who do not otherwise benefit from significant attention.

With its heavy emphasis on geographic and representational diversity ' at least one of the three featured artists/events each week is based outside the Twin Cities, and our team puts a significant emphasis on representing artists whose mediums, backgrounds and experience cover a broad spectrum ' the project makes art relevant and accessible to an ever-broadening range of listeners and readers.