Note: The following transcript is created by both humans and AI, so despite our best attempts may contain errors.
Bull: Today is Thursday, February 9, (2023), a little bit after noon. This is Brian Bull, lead interviewer and consultant for the Public Radio Oral History Project, situated at KLCC in Eugene, Oregon. Our guest today is Doug Mitchell, who is founder and director of NPR’s Next Generation Project. Its focus is helping young and aspiring journalists largely from underrepresented communities learn audio production and find work in broadcasting. He joins us from NPR studios in Washington, D.C.
Welcome, Doug. Thanks again for being a part of this.
Mitchell: Thank you, Brian. Thank you for asking.
Bull: It seems like well – it has been two decades since you caught me in the hallway of I believe at a NAJA (Native American Journalists Association) conference somewhere. It might have been California or Wisconsin?
Mitchell: Oh, god…what year was that? Was that San Diego?
Bull: It might have been San Diego. I just remember this guy kind of urging me over to a corner of the hallway. “Hey guy, you want to help make some radio?” or something like that.
Mitchell: Yeah, it feels like it was so long ago. So there was one year where the NAHJ - the National Association of Hispanic Journalists - were meeting at one place in San Diego and the Native American Journalists Association were the very next week at a different hotel. And so you remember Tom Krymkowski. He and I just basically changed locations on that weekend. I think we took a drive out to the desert, just to go out to the desert and came back and began the NAJA project. And so I think – I can't remember, weren’t you at NPR before that?
Bull: Yes, I was overnight editorial/production assistant.
Mitchell: Right, right. And I make a habit of whenever I see people of color in the building, I go and say hello to them. And the thought of drafting people to do more work isn't in the first initial handshake, I think you'll remember. (Laughs. Yes.) But I remember going to the NAJA project. I saw you there because I wanted to have a closer relationship with the Native American Journalist Association because I'm originally from Oklahoma. So it made meaningful sense to me that let me go see if I can get somebody who I'd already met. Interested in the- in the training work I wanted to develop with NAJA.
Bull: Yeah, and that segues nicely into our first question for you Doug. When you talk about your background and heritage, where were you born and raised?
Mitchell: So I'm originally from Oklahoma. I was born in Michigan, but my dad got his Ph.D at Michigan State. My parents are both originally from New Orleans. And so he left New Orleans to get his Ph.D and then was offered a job as a professor at Oklahoma State University. And so myself, my sister and my brother, mom and dad, jumped into that Oldsmobile station wagon with a trailer behind it and moved from Lansing, Michigan, to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
And I believe my mom, she told this story, said after we left Tulsa, she turned to my dad and said, “Earl, where are you taking me and my children?” Because this is in the mid to late 1960s. So I can imagine being from New Orleans and then going to Michigan and you turn around and you're in Oklahoma and it's rural, extremely rural. I can see what the question came from. So yeah, I was born in Michigan, but raised in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Bull: And you have Black and Native American heritage?
Mitchell: No, not at all. No, my family is several generations New Orleans, Mississippi Gulf Coast. My interest in NAJA goes all the way back to where my parents would take us to powwows when we were kids. And as I like to tell people, I think we were the only Black family there. But I was probably what? 7, 8, 9 years old. And it had a profound effect on me, because I enjoyed it.
And then we went to –I'm trying to remember– there's were some, there were museums –Pawnee Bill was one of (them)-- but there were mostly cowboys, you know, it was mostly the lionizing of Western culture, which was centered around white men. And so, you know, my grandfather used to watch westerns, those old westerns and so I find myself watching them but from a different lens. And that is, it's interesting how the stories were all just centered wrong to me. Based on my own experience, just some of the museum work I've gone to, and things are different now. Yeah, I get a feeling that there's been some ownership has been reclaimed by the tribes. And it's good to see, you know, it's really good to see.
Bull: What was your earliest experience with journalism?
Mitchell:So it had to be in high school. I, for some reason, was told I was a good writer (laughs) And so I signed up for the high school newspaper, during my sophomore year at what was then called C.E. Donart High School in Stillwater, Oklahoma. I was a sports reporter, because, you know, it's where it's where everybody starts, right sports reporting.
And then, my junior year, the journalism professor, Marjorie Jones, decided to make myself and one other person the co-editors of the high school paper when I was a senior. And so I'll even say that there are some of my passwords that I use, have Marjorie Jones' name in them because she saw me as a 16 year old and had enough confidence in me to put me in a leadership role, you know, as a teenager, and I have never, never forgotten that.
Because I think –and I've learned this through all the training I've done– that it's very important to be seen early on, to be trusted early on. Because you get confidence. You think you can do that. And I think at the time, it might still be true, I was the only Black person to ever be editor of the high school newspaper. So having that level of confidence, had me declare radio-television-film as a major at Oklahoma State. Because I felt like I could do it.
Bull: And how would you describe I assume we're still talking maybe the 60s, early 70s. Here. How would you describe the diversity of the news industry back then, Doug?
Mitchell: (laughs) Well, I was quite young. But all I remember really is that both my parents were news junkies. You know, we watched “Uncle Walter” every night. You know, on CBS. (Walter Cronkite I assume.) Yes, Walter Cronkite. Yes. They referred to him as “Uncle Walter.” So at the time, you could get the morning and afternoon paper. There were times when my dad would subscribe to The New York Times. You'd get it three days late, but he'd still read it anyway. So they were huge, huge consumers of news.
And then they were always listening to NPR. We didn't have car seats back in those days. So otherwise, I probably would have been a car seat, baby. Because they were always listening to the local station KOSU. It was always on and I was like, “You guys are – what's with you and the news? You're always watching them. What is that, again?” And you know, you're a kid. So you're like, “Why are they watching that same program all the time?” And then, you know, as you grow up, and you realize, again, I tell the story about Marj Jones, you realize why they were doing it, because they were very socially active, politically active. They invested themselves, their time, their money into organizations, nonprofits that were about literacy, political literacy, media literacy. They did all of that for several decades. And it all started with them just putting on the radio and reading the paper every day.
Bull: Do you remember what was the big story? Or maybe a big story or two that you heard on the — (Yes.) okay, let's hear it.
Mitchell: Yes. So, let's see. So I was 13, during Watergate, and the hearings were on. And I have a vivid memory of not paying attention (laughs) but my parents turning to me and say, “You need to sit here and watch this, because this is history.” You know, when you're a teenager? “Oh, yes, sir. I'm gonna sit down and watch that.” You know, what teenager does that? So I remember that it was on all the time, they watched every minute of the Watergate hearings, and I had no idea how important it was at the time. But when Richard Nixon resigned, I remember them – I wouldn't say rejoicing – but I remember them saying, “See, this is what you get.” So I remember I have vivid memories of watching the Watergate hearings in the 70s.
Bull: So let's fast forward just a little bit in your history here. And I presume you went through higher education and bounced around a bit in the industry. What was the seed or the spark that eventually led to the creation of the NPR next generation project?
Mitchell: Once I got into college at Oklahoma State, I declared radio and television and film as a major, production performance. I was able to and this is in hindsight, this was the great thing about staying home and going to college and squeezing every last drop out of what was offered. I was given an opportunity to announce classical music at the local station. I initially wanted to be a DJ at the college radio station. And I got the sense that they didn't want me there because I had ideas about music to play and it wasn't their – I mean, I listened to a lot of the same kind of music they were playing, but I just got the sense it was a – it's a club. They don't want me there.
But the newsroom for KOSU was 10 feet down the hallway. And so the general manager Craig Beebe saw me and said, “So how would you like to come and work at our r newsroom? And you'll get class credit?” I thought, “Okay, I've no idea what that means. But yeah, I'm gonna go, I'll do that.” And so I was announcing classical music, and then going in and writing stories for the newsroom because it was a full service public radio station. And it was news, news, news news.
Let's see, so that would have been my beginning of my sophomore year, the next year, I started writing for the college paper. So you'll remember this term “convergence journalism?” (Oh, yes.) When it was popular? So I was doing convergence journalism in the early 80s, where I was working at the radio station that was an anchor and reporter. And then if we had interviewed the governor, U.S. Senator, I’d transcribe that interview and take it downstairs and put it in the newspaper. I mean, I lived at the radio station, and I had a place I rented, but I literally lived at the radio station.
And there was also a financial incentive, because I was able to work part-time at the radio station paid, and then at the newspaper was 50 cents a column inch. And so it was definitely in your interest to keep cranking. It's in your financial interest to crank. And that's what I did. I was always for, like, three semesters in a row I was a top three finisher, when it came to column inches. And we you know, we measured everything by inches and those days, so it's like I early on figured out well, if you get paid, you will work more. Hah! So maybe, maybe that's how that works.
Another seminal point: the summer of 1983. I got an internship to come to D.C. to be on Capitol Hill. I had applied for our senators, opportunity, Senator David Boren. And then our congressional representative, Congressman Wes Watkins. And I got both of them. And so what I did was decided which was the one that I think would serve me the best. And, and when I thought one office should do for the summer, I don't want to split it up.
So I took Wes Watkins’ summer internship. And I was able to convince the Boren’s office to offer their internship to one of my closest friends. So she got that internship. So when you're talking about laying seeds for the way things are today, the first part is applying for things, having no idea whether you'll get them or not. And then if you are offered an opportunity, bring somebody with you. You know, those are fundamental tenets of what I do today.
So I did the internship, came back and graduated, and drifted (laughs) got a job in commercial radio, I absolutely hated it. And then came back to Stillwater, ended up moving in with my then girlfriend now wife, and just, you know, wallowed for a year or so. But I decided I wanted to work at NPR. And I'm 25 years old. So I just threw my stuff in a car and moved. No job. And then lived with my aunt and uncle until they got tired of me. So and they did, they never had any children. So I was like I was in the way, got my own place worked at a record store, just so I had some money. On my feet, eight, nine hours a day. And then on the days off from the record store, I would go head and nag NPR.
So in those days, there was no security. So you could just walk right in. And if you figured out, like anything in journalism, if you kind of pretend you know what you're doing, people open the door for you. So I learned the art of doing that. I'd go up in their building. This is over when the NPR was over on M Street here in D.C. And they had this electronic lock for the door, you had to step a certain place, the door would click open, and you'd come in. And so I acted like I knew what I was doing. And they let me in. And so after a while they got used to seeing me. “Hey, how's it going? What is your name again?” So I would go back, I had applied for a job. So I got - NPR was like a third of the size it is now. So I would go back and find John Ydstie who was then executive producer for Morning Edition. And then I'd say “Any more change?” “No,” then I’d turn around and leave, I did this on a regular basis because I figured old fashioned shoe leather. Let me just do that. I'll just be persistent. I'll show up when I, you know, at my own expense, I finally got an interview, and I finally got hired. I didn't have to work as a temp and all of that. So, I started June 1 1987 as a overnight, editorial assistant for Morning Edition.
Bull: That's a good rite of passage.
Mitchell: (laughs) And, you know, I'm 26 years old, and who needs to sleep? You know, because this is one thing I figured out later. And that is the goal to get the job was not really the goal. The goal was to stay. You know, because you get caught up in “Oh my god, they offered me the job! And I can remember the phone call I got and they're offering me the job.” And I was so excited. “And I get in the building!” And I started to work and I thought, “Oh, that was like step one. Step two, is staying.”
So how do I do that? And so as I started my career, I started Morning Edition a little over a year, and because again, the old fashioned, “I'll work my shift.” And then I because I worked a little bit in commercial radio, and I learned how to work fast. I got hired to work overtime. Again, the financial incentive I had alluded to, there was a financial incentive for overtime.
So I would be a fast tape cutter for All Things Considered on Friday afternoons. Or I would come in on the weekend because they were always short staffed, etc. So I'm young, reasonably healthy. Let me come in on Saturday morning and see if they need anything. And so I did that. And so that led to Cindy Carpien and Weekend (Edition) Saturday hiring me as a production assistant, because I was always showing up, I wouldn't go away (laughs) So that's how I got the initial job, I wouldn't go away. And that's how I transitioned from Morning Edition to weekends, because I was always showing up. So there's something to be said for that.
Bull: Very much so. And then you continued with that for a while, at some point, you began to explore the idea, I think of helping diversify newsrooms, but
Mitchell: Right –
Bull: Fill in the blank there.
Mitchell: Yeah. So let's see. So ‘87 - late ‘88, Morning Edition. Weekend Saturday, from ‘88 until I would say ‘93. And then of course in ‘94, was the first ever UNITY Journalists of Color Conference, which was in Atlanta. My - I call her my work wife - Traci Tong, called me from her job at The World at WGBH in Boston and said, “We got this little bit of money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And they want us to do a radio training project at the UNITY journalists.” And she said, quote, “You're going to help me.” (laughs) So I learned the term “voluntold.”
Bull: That was not a request was it?
Mitchell: Very polite about it. But it was not a request. And I said, “Sure. So what are we doing?” She goes, “We're doing a training project.” I said, “I don't have any idea how that's supposed to work.” She goes, “Well, we'll figure it out.” And so for months on end, we would talk almost every day, trying to figure out this thing called Project Management. And then trying to work with, you know, the National Association of Black ,Hispanic, Native American and Asian journalist associations because they were all coming together for the first time ever to do their to have their own conference.
This is also back in the day of tape. So we were I had my engineer, you'll remember him, Preston Brown. He was our tech. And we ended up having to ship I think eight of those reel-to-reel Atari machines to Atlanta. And we spent that Sunday afternoon, moving them across the Georgia World Congress.
Bull: Oh, my God. Those things are huge!
Mitchell: Yes, they are. They're like 50, 60 pounds, if not more. So we spent the entire afternoon setting up our newsroom with those with that tape. We also called on Georgia Public Broadcasting. And Suzanna Capeluto was their news director at the time. And they were located south of downtown in some nondescript building. And that's where we recorded everything, you know, because we were doing traditional reporting at that time.
And then we had three students per group. So that's 12. We had four or five mentors, which was wrong, but we didn't know any better. Wrong in that you can't really serve someone as a mentor during the course of a very intense week if you have to juggle three or four people at the same time. It's really just doesn't work that way. And so we did it. We were exhausted, completely exhausted. But exhilarated, too. Because that very next year in 1995, I started the NABJ radio project.
In 1995, Tracy then “voluntold” me again, that I was going to help her with the AAJA radio project, which at that time was in Hawaii that year. So of course, I resisted (Difficult! Tough assignment!) So we did that project. And then in ‘98, I went to NAHJ and NAJA and started doing radio training there.
And then in 2000, I thought, “You know, NPR should really take ownership of this space. All I hear from other media,” –this is again in 2000 – “Nobody wants radio, nobody wants radio! Nobody works on radio,” with “I work in public radio, lots of millions of people listen to radio, what are you talking about?” And so in 2000, I decided that we should have our own name. So I know a little bit about tech, the tech culture startup culture. So let me go to Yahoo domains, and see if I can buy/rent “Next Generation radio.org. “And it was there. It was there. (It was available?) It was available.
And so then I went next generation radio.org, .net, .us. And there was another one. Maybe it's dot tv? Or something like that. So I got all of them. And I have- I have sat on them ever since. So now we've changed it to next-genradio.org, .net, .us, etcetera.com. I think I have, so I sit currently on 16 or 17 domain names. We use one, next gen radio.org. And I just sit on them so nobody else gets them.
Bull: I never knew (laughs) So when the first official NextGen Project rolled out, how was it structured and where was it?
Mitchell: Okay, so in 2000, after I've done all this cybersquatting, I went to the NABJ conference, which was in Phoenix in August. 140 degrees every day. And that was the first officially named Next Generation Radio Project.
In that project were Audie Cornish. She just finished her junior year at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Bull: Oh, wow.
Mitchell: There was Celeste Headlee, who was a Morning Edition host at KNAU in Flagstaff, Arizona (Bull: Another familiar name.) And then there was Javon Paris, who is now here at NPR as a news producer. And then we had Augustine Row, Casita Jones, and Adrian Augustus, they ended up in other fields. But that first year, having who are now household names almost in them, I saw them when they were 20-somethings. I mean, this is, again in hindsight, but it's like “This works. This really works. We're finding people who are interested in what we're doing. And we should help them.”
So over the years, using the NextGen Radio brand, if you will, I then decided, “Let's go to all the affinity conferences, including the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Let's go to the college media annual conference. And not so ‘Let's go to stations.’” You know, it's like, we'll say megalomania, I'm like, “Let's go everywhere. Let's do everything with everybody! Yeah, that will be fun!”
Bull: All the stations!
Mitchell: All the stations! Well, I actually picked three very strategically; I picked WUNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina, because I knew Brent Wolfe. KUT in Austin. And the idea was to go there and cover South by Southwest. Again, this is like when it was a lot smaller than it was than it is now. And then we chose KALW in San Francisco, because Holly Kernan –who is now at KQED– was there. And they also invited us to come. And so we figured out how much that's going to cost. And we did our traditional reporting project. But we also did one-to-one mentoring. So as I, you know, three people for one person doesn't work.
So I decided and this is something I learned again, from my dad that the best student teacher ratio was one to one. You can't get any better than that. So stick with that. So that's why we do one-to-one mentoring, and I've done it for 23 years. And that is the best experience as you know, sitting in getting to know somebody and watching them learn and grow over the course of five days. One-to-one is there's no it's it's it's wonderful. It's It's wonderful to see you know this.
Bull: Yes, I was gonna say for disclosure’s sake, I should mention that I have been a mentor for NPR’s Next Generation Radio Project for 20-some years too say–
Mitchell: Yes. Yeah. So my tapping you on the shoulder had a lot of ulterior motives (laughs.)
Bull: But I fully agree that one-on-one is a splendid way to connect with a mentee and understand how they work and get a sense of their wavelength if you will, and also just kind of see them through a very intensive process. Back then I believe we were producing spot news pieces for newscasts (Correct.) then we migrated to self narratives with a source. And that's been kind of a unique evolution as well.
Mitchell: Yes, exactly. And so that was intentional. So through 2008, that's the way we did it, we went to three stations went to all the affinity conferences. And we did our own thing. As you know, we were in our own room, we stayed away from the print and TV people (laughs), and did our own public radio training project. 2008, big recession. 80 people that NPR laid off including me. And so I did a couple more in 2009.
But I then got a Ford Foundation grant, to help journalists of color start up their own companies, because I figured that there were those out there who really wanted to move the needle, but didn't really know how to do that.
So it was a very large undertaking, because I had never run my own company myself. But there is an ecosystem out there and in entrepreneurship. And I just figured out where it was. So myself and my then co-director, Alli Joseph, who had started up her own company, and came through the Native American Journalists Association, we worked together to create opportunities to seed, which means give away money to people who are interested in starting up their own business. And so we did that from 2010 to 2014.
In 2013, I brought the NextGen Radio Boot Camp back, thanks to Dr. Al Stavinsky, who became dean at the University of Nevada, Reno, Reynolds School of Journalism. I’d known him for several years, and he said,” When I become Dean, I want this project to be wherever I am.” And so in 2013, we resurrected the program. And then we did one in 2013, two in 2014. For in 2015, eight, in 2016. Last two years, we did 11. And this year, we're on the books to do 13. So the demand is there. The interest is there, the funding is there. We seem to know what we're doing. So that brings us up to where we are now.
Bull: That was a splendid summary, Doug, thank you. And congratulations on really making things move with us. I know that there was a little bit of a hiccup there for the COVID pandemic. And yes, you switched to a remote model for a while. Any comments on that?
Mitchell: Yeah, so I'll go back to let's see. So we did our- did we have a project in January of 2020? I don't think so.
Bull: I think that's where I last was with you in Northern California. That was before everything came crashing down, up.
Mitchell: Okay, so our last project was in Sacramento, though. And so in 2019, we did our Cap Radio program. I think you were there for that one. (Yes.) And then the world stopped in March of 2020. Right before we were supposed to continue our work with the University of Southern California, the Annenberg School. And so I can remember being on the phone, nobody knew pretty much knew what to do. So we just decided, “Let's err on the side of caution, let's just not.”
And so we stopped. And so between March and July of 2020, there were no projects because of the COVID 19 pandemic. But KUNR, which was on the books to do a project in 2020, decided to go ahead and go forth. “Let's go ahead and try this remote thing.” Not even hybrid, it was all remote because everybody wasn't home.
And so they stuck with us, Texas stuck with us, Colorado stuck with us, Cap Radio stuck with us. And there's one more I'm forgetting, oh, we moved the USC project from March to September. And so by the time we got to July of 2020, schools, teachers, everybody knew Zoom (laughs) This newfangled video conferencing technology, what's that all about?
So by the time that had gone on, everybody was used to being on Zoom and learning that way. And so we were able to successfully do that project, all remote, never having done it before. And then by the time we got to October of 2020, we had done four or five projects, bam, bam, bam, bam. And so by the we got to Cap Radio again, which was also remote, we had a real good understanding of how to do Next Gen Radio type training. And everybody's in a box on Zoom.
In 2021, there was the commemoration of the Tulsa race riot. And so back to Oklahoma, we went to Tulsa. We had mostly in person and this word hybrid kept coming up. So we had some in-person, some not, we figured out how to do that. And we went through 2021 in a hybrid model, which is where we are today. Also, there's a cost saving, so I can add more people, because not everybody is traveling. And so we've added illustration; we have a six member team of illustrators, we have three per project. We've added two visual journalists, we have a set of three digital editors with a managing editor. So we're a team of upwards of 15 to 17 people now that has –because of the pandemic– we've learned how to do more, by doing less, if that makes any sense.
Bull: Oh, I follow. I do remember some of the challenge being that as we were working with a mentee there would be easily anywhere from two to five people joining via Zoom as they set up a microphone and took photos and we just kind of walked them through it. But it was this kind of this invisible, well not necessarily invisible, a virtual chorus, guiding a mentee through a lot of the important steps.
Mitchell: It can be a little intimidating. We call it “people in your pocket,” because it's usually on their iPhone, or their cell phone. But by doing it that way, again, this is in hindsight, there's another way to learn another way to teach. The selected cohorts are full participants in their own growth. And what I mean by that is, you're not sitting in a classroom with someone talking at you, you are out in the field, learning how to normally operate the audio gear, how do you do your video stand up on your iPhone? What kind of tripod are we talking about? You're learning other forms of media, not solely radio, not solely audio. The focus, of course, is audio, we're, I like to say we're an audio focused digital media sprint, and it is a sprint. But yeah, and you're at one point, you're doing almost everything at once.
So the goal here then becomes organization. You know we have the, it's a tool called Miro, everybody logs in and they can see it's a project management tool, and we hammer it into the way that makes sense for us. Because back in the day, when you remember, we had a big whiteboard, you know, and you'd have the names on the left and the deliverables across the top. And when you achieve that, you get the big black “X.” And at the end when you're done, you get a red one that shows that you're actually done.
We chose red because red is usually, you know, in academic terms, red is bad. So we wanted red to be good (both laugh)
Bull: Usually applied with a big flourish by either the mentor or Traci Tong. (yes) I remember the close. That was always exciting.
Mitchell: Yes, we’d call them up and they'd mark themselves done.
Bull So you've done a lot of work on your end to put NextGen participants through audio training and working with a mentor as well as integrating them into an alumni network. Now on their end Doug, what can prospective employers do to make sure one of your NextGen participants succeeds and thrives?
Mitchell: So there's this tool called Slack (chuckles.) Which, if used well is a great communication tool to use. We use it during the week of the project. And I decided that I want people to feel like they belong to something, you know. And when you're doing the sprint, you're so focused on product delivery on a deadline, which is basically what a newsroom is, but I wanted us to be more organic than that. I want us to provide continued mentorship, continued public service, continued growth opportunities for the people that we went through all of the process of replying, we had two meetings for selection. We paired them up with a mentor. They work with a mentor, you know, the weak couple of weeks before and during, but then was like what happens after? We should do something after.
And so as we got to 300 and then 400 and then 500 people in our Slack community, I created a committee. So we have an organizing committee. It's made up of seven or eight people. I appointed to two co-community managers. They are people who are alumni of the program, and it was up to them to come up with additional professional all career development, communication, conversation, ideas to keep the community together. And so what we've done a couple of years ago, again, during the pandemic, when there was no real opportunity, we created webinars.
So we did two conferences, mini conferences on a weekend. And now, we are doing a webinar series of professional development, which started on Wednesday, February 1st 2023, February 8th, 22nd. And I think 28th. So every Wednesday, for a month, we picked for sections of career development, we have four speakers, and then one of our alums has done really well for herself. And she underwrote it, you know, she's paying our speakers. So they're not doing this for free. Because that was another thing I wanted to do is that I don't believe people should work for free, I told you about my college days where I didn't do I never took an unpaid internship, I didn't have to, but I thought nobody should work for free, even when you're a college student, because you have bills to pay, you have tuition, you have all these other things.
So have respect for the employee, and pay them. It can be minimum wage, but you still have to pay them. So that's what we do on every project, nobody's a volunteer. I even had to tell our mentors to go to their bosses and say, “Don't take vacation time, you're actually working. You're not going to Cap Radio, or whatever it is, and taking a vacation. This is work. So they should pay you to do it.” And you know, 99% of the time, it's fine. There's some bosses who need to be educated, that we are actually working, this is not playtime with children. We're actually possibly growing your next professionals. So respect that.
Bull: And that's an interesting mindset to put to push against sometimes because that I think there are still professionals out there, quote, unquote, who say that we're giving you experience, or we're giving you exposure, or we're giving you opportunities, isn't that enough?” but it sounds hopefully that that's becoming less and less an issue.
Mitchell: There’s a lot less of it, and it's been driven by the next generation. They're like, “We'll be paying loans until we're in our 50s. So could you help us out? Pay us, even minimum wage to do this work?” Because it's free labor. They try to cast it as this kind of do-gooding kind of, “Look what we're doing for you.” So do something more for them and pay them to do the work. So all of our students, all the cohorts are paid a $500 stipend. Last year was the first year that all 11 projects, every single selected person got a stipend. And that's the rule going forward. If you're not going to pay the stipend, we're not coming there. Because you're getting something for nothing.
Bull: Now, diversity is an oft repeated keyword for companies and organizations everywhere. And it sounds like everyone's for it. But what is the difference between wanting up and actually having it. Or cultivating it?
Mitchell: Hmm. That's, I saw that question. I thought, “Uhh, how will I answer that?” because…so my personality is, you won't see me on social media, I won’t have my fist in the air. And I don't go to protests, because I’m old school journalism, I don't do those kinds of things. So how do you how do how in this in the current generation, can we have people be seen doing the work from their communities?
So the shift to non-narrated storytelling, to me is an opportunity to have our selected cohorts go talk to people from their neighborhoods, from their cities, from their regions. We have umbrella topics, last year was climate change. Before that is what we call the “first days,” we'd find people to tell the stories about their first days coming to the United States as an immigrant. This could have been after World War Two, we've had a couple of those. People who have fled Nazi Germany, or people who fled Guatemala and came over as migrants. So it's a range of people.
But the reporter is not in the story. It's the voice and the feeling, and the thoughts from I'll call regular people. And I think by taking the reporter out of the story, and making it more about the subject is diversity. Because we're getting more people, –especially this generation– who's more interested in on the ground relational conversations, not necessarily transactional conversations.
And so to me, by changing the philosophy just a little bit, means we now have –and I think you've seen this slide– we are 72.2% women and 75-76% people of color as alumni in the last 10 years, because people are seeing themselves in the stories that we're doing. Also I think the nurturing, the support, the constant contact the community building, is also very important to our next generation. And we're doing that too.
So by doing all of these things, we are reaching the level of diversity that I think people are simply talking about, and not achieving.
Bull: In a video advisory on YouTube, you say that you want NextGen applicants to not focus so much on accomplishments and achievements but more on ideas and critiques, especially things that NPR isn't doing or can do better. So it's more of a psychological take, as opposed to acknowledging a bullet point list of skills. Why is that important to you, Doug, and the Next Generation project?
Mitchell: Well, it's a bit of like what I just said, I think there are a multitude of ways in which the people that you don't have in your newsroom, company, organization, there are creative ways to get to a solution. You have to invest. And I don't mean just write a check. Time is money. And so that's what I do. I spent a lot of time checking in, talking, coaching, going with the ups and going with the downs, there will always be there. But I want people to feel like they belong. Belonging is so important. If you don't feel like you belong, you're not going to stay there. And if we don't create cultures in which people feel like they belong and contribute in a substantive way, they're not going to stay. They’re just not.
I think a lot of people get caught up – in fact that this happened the other day, somebody asked me, “I'm applying for jobs. And I think I'm not getting hired because I don't have a journalism degree.” And I said, “I've worked with people who didn't even go to college, some of the famous names on public radio, didn't finish college or didn't even go.”
So while I went to journalism school, it's really about did you start your own blog? Or do you crank up your own site? There are plenty of tools out there where you can be a do-it-yourself person, you have things you want to say, so just put them where it's somewhere and say them. And then if you use social media, you can mark it yourself. A lot of people are cheesy about it. They're on Instagram, “Here's me here, here's me there look at me doing this.”
But I think if you're substantive about it, that like every two weeks, here's the latest from such and such.com. So and so.com. “Here's my thoughts on this.” And I see those on social media, too. I do a lot of scrolling. I don't say very much. But I do a lot of scrolling. Because I want to see who's out there as to do it yourself people, who were the entrepreneurs, who were the people who said, “There's a lot of noise out there. So let me make sure that how can I be different from all the other noise? What are my thoughts on this, that and the other?”
I'll put it on LinkedIn. I'll take advantage of the free platforms that are out there. But I'm not going to spam people. But I'm going to try to do it in some sort of intelligent way. And so that that, to me is kind of like what's the substance of your argument for being hired or coming into our program? Not so much of where you went to school, your degree and your grade point?
Bull: We have a few questions here that I think we may have already covered. We talked about the NextGen Project undergoing some format changes in the last 20 years, what's the current format, and then also talking about the changes since 2000, the move to digital platforms and how that's affected training. Do you feel like you've covered that already, Doug, or do you want to kind of–
Mitchell: I think so, yeah, because we talked about non-narrated storytelling, I say we are a digital first program. And then it goes on the radio. When we first started the program, it was like it's all about getting on the local station, I said. So I've walked away a bit from that, because I think this is really about skill building and relationship building. And also being current, going strictly on the radio to me is me coming up in the 80s. I have a 27 year old and a 24 year old and I've watched them consume media. And it's always on their phones, they don't listen to the radio. Not the traditional radio, they listen to everything is on their phone. And that's where it's from.
So you've heard the phrase, meet people where they are. So they're more interested in having their stuff online and sharing it that way, then showing up between the top of the hour and 4:06 listening to the afternoon newscast and waiting for their spot. They're just not going to do it.
Bull: That is very interesting. Because any more I concern myself with the story getting on our website than I do as to whether it's going to be at the top of the hour newscast, because that's where the audience is migrated.
Mitchell: Exactly. And you will, it's a different audience too. I mean, you can still do both. It's not either, or you still do both. But you also recognize that you're reaching a different audience.
Bull: Which is where we need to go.
Mitchell: Right.
Bull: And this kind of segues nicely into the next question: How has the role of stations changed in the digital first training?
Mitchell: Well, I find that a lot of our reporters are learning digital media during our project, is I think, generally speaking. I mean, some stations are better than others when it comes to digital. But I find that, again, I'm gonna speak generally: our stations, really recognizing that you have a little bit of overlap, but you have a radio audience, and you have a digital audience, and they should not be treated as entirely separate things. Should the reporters act as if digital is extra work? That's why we do everything all at once. It's like, what's that movie “Everything all the time, all at once?”
Bull: Which I still need to see, yeah.
Mitchell: That's kind of what we're doing. But we're putting everything on our site. And then the station will package however they want and run it whenever. So our stations really doing things like that, not only in podcasting, because they know podcasting is radio to me. I was doing podcasting when I was on Weekend, Saturday, and our segments were 15 and 16 minutes. These days, that's called a podcast (laughs) Where to me it was just a segment inside an over the air radio program. And podcasting is a mode of distribution. And I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing it, because I'm not.
It's a very important style and distribution mode. And it attracts a lot of the younger people. They want to do narrative storytelling. They don't want to do spots. I don't want to do the news. And I don't blame them. I mean, I stopped doing the news a long time ago, because I was more interested in a deeper form of audio storytelling. So that's what they're interested in.
And so we should be there, we should help. We should we as an industry should totally be there. Not always having people meeting daily deadlines, give them time to explore their own ideas. You need to get done (laughs) You know, you can't go off for two weeks and not have anything to show for it. But there should be at least some acknowledgement in the hiring process, that you are going to be able to do a lot of your own ideas, we're going to give you time to do them, in addition to the daily stuff.
Bull: Now the Next Generation project has frequently been a partner with the College Broadcasters Association. Has this relationship changed over the years, especially with college instructors?
Mitchell: So yes, is the short answer. We no longer partner with the College Broadcasters Association. Because it turns out college broadcasting was more about college radio. It wasn't really about journalism. I will say that we did find some amazing people through a partnership there, but once we started really working directly with our stations, public radio stations, we don't go to conferences anymore to do training. Because it felt like it was an extra step. If we partner with and we will, like Iowa Public Radio, WUNC, the Gulf States Newsroom Collaborative, the Texas Collaborative, we are at stations inside those stations, finding people working with the stations to help them recruit, whether it's for internships, or jobs are just to give them a list of people or have them identify people and form those relationships. Again, relational work by doing transactional work if the emphasis is relational.
So we don't go to conferences because it felt like we needed to be more direct, direct to consumer if you will. Do the project at the station, the station collects those names, harvest those stories, and then if something comes along in the next six months, year, they have a list of people who have already auditioned in front of them, and going to a conference doesn't do that.
Bull: UNITY itself saw some internal upheaval just over a decade ago, I remember NABJ left, and NAHJ had some inner disputes as well. And there was the name change issue with UNITY and the focus on including LGBTQ journalists, which was another source of dispute with some. Did all this hurt or otherwise affect the NPR Next Generation Project?
Mitchell: Not at all. It'd be, as I mentioned, we started going to stations and universities. So it's more of a, we don't need to go to conferences, less about internal disruption/disputes among the organization's it was really, “let's go directly to the source, and do the project there.” Because ultimately, people want to get a job or internship and we should be there doing that. A conference is an extra step.
Bull: And sidestepping the politics is also very beneficial to I think.
Mitchell: Politics is everywhere. You can't really avoid it. But I think what's the what's the path of least resistance? And that is to be a little bit more direct with our training, our professional development, our mentorship and coaching, and do it right there.
Bull: How many people by your tally have participated in NPR’s Next Generation Project and who are some of the famous alum?
Mitchell: (laughs) So I only started keeping a spreadsheet 10 years ago (laughs), because I've been doing this for, really, since 1994. So my numbers really only started in 2013. And at this moment, we have 414 alumni. Were just under 600 in our Slack community. So that extra number are mentors, professional journalists, I have some hiring officials in there. Some people who are leadership, including who we’ll call just friends of Next Gen. (Bull: That Slack is packed!) Yeah, it's, it's very active.
And as I mentioned, we are over 70% women and people of color. And that happens because they raised their hands, not because I held up a sign and said “Diversity over here.” They go to our site, they see themselves in the work that they're doing. And they want to do it too. And I think as long as you have that, we're not waving flags, or anything like that. We're just doing the work and putting it out there.
And I always believe that if you're good at showing people, this is the work we're doing. It's a training opportunity. It's a learning opportunity. It's a relationship building opportunity, and we don't let go of you. So the fact that I have the spreadsheet means I know where everybody is, and I know what they're doing. The generation is very good about, “Hey, guess what I'm doing?” Or what's the one you see on LinkedIn? “I'm pleased to report the new job,” or what's the thing on Twitter, they say? “Personal news?
Bull: Yes, yes.
Mitchell: As they say,”personal news”, why does everybody say that? Just tell us. But anyways, I scroll and I see those and I immediately update my spreadsheet. Once I see somebody has changed up because they don't always tell me also, they won't always send an email, they'll usually call when there's some conflict going on. If I don't hear from them, things are good (laughs). And when things don't go good, but I'm also flattered that they bother to like, “Can I talk to you a minute, I'm having a little stress,” and like, that's totally fine.
Bull: That's great, though, that they have that resource available, whether it's good times or bad.
Mitchell: Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's what that's what we're doing. We want them to reach out whenever and it doesn't always have to be me, you got a lot of mentors, including yourself in our group, they should feel comfortable reaching out or just posting a note. And a lot of it is like, don't be afraid to ask for help. Pretty much. That's basically the bottom line. And that is if you're unsure about something, chances are we've talked about it at some point. But if you need help, there are people you can reach out to. And you should just do that. Don't be afraid to.
Bull: I'm very happy to report that I've kept in touch with a handful of mentors through the years. And it's always great to just hear how they're doing and to be able to walk them through a conflict or a challenge and just know that they are succeeding and have sprouted legs and are just doing their own things and often come back to mentor themselves.
Mitchell: Yes, exactly. And that's part of the philosophy of who gets to mentor on our program. And that is, at one point, they were in our program doing everything all at once. And they had that person sitting next to them guiding them through. And then you know, once they get out and into the workforce, they get a year or so under their belt, I invite him back. Because I’m like “oh yeah, I'd love to do that.” Because you know, somebody did that for me. And like that's how that's supposed to work. You remember who helped you, you turn around and help somebody else.
Bull: So, Doug Mitchell, how much longer do you plan on leading the Next Generation Project?
Mitchell: Unknown (laughs) In all seriousness, I'm in the process now of succession planning. So I have a couple of people who have been groomed over the last couple of years as managing editors. This coming summer of 2023, I am essentially going to hand them some projects. And I won't show up, because I think they're ready.
So this is beginning the process, because also these other things we're doing, we have a podcast series and that season that we're putting together, we got funding from LAist 89.3, we got funding from them to do our podcast season, we've gotten money from an alum to do a webinar professional development series.
There are other ideas I have, that are beyond the sprints, you know, the projects, which I'd like to focus on. So I may not show up for the project, but I'm already a consultant, I don't have to retire in the way that is generally thought of, I can always consult. I'm just gonna do a little bit less of the showing up. So the answer your question is unknown.
Bull: On the Public Radio Oral History Project is leaning a lot towards people who are, shall we say, in their advanced years? Not putting a date (both laugh) on anyone here, are you nearing retirement age?
Mitchell: Well, the answer is yes. So there's retirement age, nearing retirement age, and then there is walking away. You know, and I think, given the work that that I have done, and others have done, including yourself to build up this program, do you have to completely drop the mic and walk out? You know, is that really necessary? I think as long as I'm able to physically and mentally able to, you can always call me. You know, they can always reach out, I'm beginning to feel less needed. And that's okay. Physically showing up to every project, because you're supposed to be developing people. So when you're developing people, you want to be able to hand it over at some point. So the gradual handing it over starts starts now. For me. So I can focus on some other things.
Bull: When is your birthday by the way?
Mitchell: In May The end of May. It's always Memorial Day weekend.
Bull: Alrighty. And you can always say you're going on 64/65?
Mitchell: (laughs) Oh, don't do that. I am 61.
Bull: Okay, there we go. Yeah. Oh, well.
Mitchell: I've got a few years.
Bull: Yes, you do. You do.
Mitchell: That's before the Social Security thing kicks in.
Bull: Yes. But you're on the AARP’s mailing list? I'm sure.
Mitchell: I was -I've been on it forever. I think they got me when I was 30.
Bull: Oh, boy. Just some essential questions here that we're asking all of the participants in this project, Doug, and we'll wrap up. First one is that when Congress passed the Public Broadcast Act in 1967, they envisioned public radio and television stations that serve local listeners and viewers via over the air broadcast channels. And now more than 55 years later, many people have switched to digital on demand systems. Given the changes in the media environment, should public radio and television broadcasters continue to provide content over the air?
Mitchell: As long as you have an audience, you should continue to provide it. That's my short answer.
Bull: And why is that important? Why should that be continued?
Mitchell: It’s audience driven. It's not – they're all on demand. So we should stop doing over the air. There's plenty of tools out there, plenty of people who do numbers. And if your numbers over the air are shrinking, and they probably are because it's a it's an age demographic of people who listened to traditional radio, you can still provide a service. But what does the audience want? What does the over-the-air audience want? Ask them, ask your audience what it wants. And then you kind of have to get over yourselves a little bit to you know, it's not what it was 30 years ago. So why still hold on to it be more diverse.
And I mean that in a lot of senses: in your program offerings, recognize that there are audiences out there that you don't have, why is that? What do we need to do to go get them? My 27 and 24 year old, as I mentioned, are never listening to the radio. They refuse because it's on their phone. And it's on demand and they can control it. They're not going to show up at 4:06 to listen to the show. Not at all. They know it exists because I'm in it. (both laugh) But they're not going to do that. So instead of just insisting on these young people who don't know anything kind of crapola, maybe they should. Well, how do we get them to come to our station and write a check at some point, even if it's for $5? What do we need to do to have them do that?
Bull: The turnover of employees on public radio is a wide concern. Some of our best talent no longer works in non-commercial media. We've seen Audie Cornish for example, now join CNN in recent months, what can we do or offer to keep people in this industry?
Mitchell: Well, I think the first thing is to stop focusing on the deficit. You know, Audie left. She's totally entitled to leave. Who’s behind her, who were the people who were still here? How are we supporting the people who were still here? Are we trumpeting the people who are still here? I think it's too easy to get into the negative side. “Look at all the people who have left. Oh my god, the sky is falling,” but who's still here? Where's the study on the people who were still here? There's all this research out there for people who left, all the stories and all the strife and grievances of people who left that's very legit. It's real. But what about those of us who stayed? Where are the stories on us? We need to be more complete in our storytelling. It's not always about people who left. Sometimes it's about those of us who are still here.
Bull: In what moment were you proudest to be working in public radio, or proudest at least, of the public radio industry?
Mitchell: By all the people who are leaving! (laughs)
Bull: Well!.
Mitchell: So I'm going to talk about both sides my mouth here.
Bull: Is that stereo?
Mitchell: Yeah, well. My voice is mono, always. So, no seriously, I think it's when I saw Cokie Roberts on This Week with David Brinkley and her CG at the bottom was public broadcasting, and I said “They will not say NPR, because we are now considered competition. They want her insights, they want her on the show, but they're not going to say NPR.” And I thought, “Okay, we have arrived.” This is back in was this the 80s? I think? Yeah. So she was a regular on This Week with David Brinkley, and when they had her on and refused to say NPR, we are now competition, and so we are somebody. And that was the moment for me.
Bull: Interesting. I never realized that was put that way. I would have assumed NPR, but that is–
Mitchell: No, they didn't.
Bull: That was a branding decision.
Mitchell: We are somebody now, because, you know, when I started, my parents were listeners, diehard listeners, but it was just this thing, you know, you go all the way down. It literally had a dial back in those days, and you ate all the way to the left, and it was 91.7 KOSU, that's where all the all the channels were crammed. All the stations are crammed over there on the end. There were a handful of other places, but mostly it was over in that area. And so now, when she shows up on ABC News with David Brinkley or this Week with David Brinkley, I’m “Ooooh, so they are listening to us. We're not just this thing.” Wow, yeah, that was a light bulb moment.
Bull: Tell us please, Doug, about one project that was a great idea, but you just couldn't do it for one reason or another.
Mitchell: Something I was involved in?
Bull: Or that you knew of, witnessed. It doesn't have to be directly in your domain.
Mitchell: So there was this show called Anthem at NPR, and I think this was our first foray into hiring people who were younger, thought differently. It was aggressive, a little more aggressive than what were you wasn't as polite as we are. It had music. It was written well, it was, hosts who I'd never heard of. And I thought, “Wow, what a great thing. I'll listen to this show!” and it crashed and burned.
I would also say I had great hope for the Tavis Smiley show, but that became complicated and ah, personalities involved, and it just didn't work for a lot of reasons.
I remember walking – so how many buildings ago was this? (both laugh) This was my third building. The previous building from this one.
Bull: We don't count tree rings in this business. We count buildings.
Mitchell: How many buildings have I been in? I can remember it was on the I think was on the sixth floor of the previous building, and I can remember them auditioning the open music. And they were just so excited with it. It was specially written. I mean, it wasn't really done in those days. I mean, you'd heard the All Things Considered and Morning Edition, the themes were written by the same guy. But this was, like, aggressive and I thought, “Okay, this is really great.” I mean, it wasn't like angry guitars or anything (both laugh), yeah, but it was like they were, they were genuinely excited to be there.
And I just remember it was Anthem, and I remember thinking, “Oh, this sounds like a great show that I would listen to.” And it just fell. Some sort of financial crisis killed it. But I also think it was kind of like ahead of its time, because when you think about Tiny Desk now, you know which I remember when Bob Boilen started, you know, started doing that. It was just this thing that he was allowed to do, and he did it out of passion. Now it's a thing. So while Anthem didn't take off Tiny Desk did we even had one here today. Of course, my problem is, I have no idea who anybody is anymore.
Bull: You have to Google the artists or ask your kids.
Mitchell: Yeah. But, you know, I'll say our cohorts, the people we choose, their entree to NPR is Tiny Desk. It's not all things. Morning Edition. You know, sometimes it's Life Kit, sometimes it's Shortwave, sometimes it's Invisibilia, a lot of times it's Code Switch. It's the podcasting shows and Tiny Desk that are their entree, not the main news programs.
Bull: Fascinating. So Doug, is there anything else at all that you'd like to share for posterity’s sake, as long as we have the recording going?
Mitchell: Yeah, so…so I'm not into the prediction industry. I hate to make them, but it's my hope that the public media industry really spends more time asking people what it wants and less time just following the script. I'll leave it there.
Bull: And this concludes my interview with Doug Mitchell, founder and director of the NPR Next Generation Project, recorded February 9th, 2023. I'm Brian Bull, lead interviewer and consultant for the Public Radio Oral History Project. Doug, thank you so much again, it was a real pleasure.
Mitchell: Thank you Brian, I really appreciate you asking.
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Since this interview, Doug Mitchell has shifted gears. In a Dec. 30, 2025 email, he shared this update:
In 2023, Next Gen produced 12 projects, a record we'll never do again. Not because of funding so much as we got a significant, experiential lesson in how much is too much. Saying "yes" to everyone isn't a wise strategy. Not for quantitative sustainable growth, doing good work, and lifting people. Everyone got tired, and the work felt like, well, work. That feeling is most certainly not why we're here.
In 2024, we pulled back to seven projects, and in 2025, we did only three. This reduction was in line with our focus on community support for our 5-day projects and less on what I'll call "deliverables." And federal funding cuts to stations and universities also impact us.
Now, as we look ahead, we are slightly rebranding the program and working to become an independent, non-profit. Audio storytelling will remain at the center, as I expect it will remain very accessible. People still want to know how to do it, effectively, as part of journalism and media education.
We have 526 alumni since 2013 and have produced 93 projects. We have a large community with professional needs beyond holding microphones. We'll look to partner with organizations that share similar philosophies about work, life, and balance. We have people who can ascend into leadership and want to find those folks as they launch their careers.
In 2026, we'll become "Next Gen Journalism."
So, here we go.
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