New Mexico In Depth Announces Radio Partnerships

Nice things happened in New Mexico's world of getting the truth out to the people while I was out campaigning. I did not take time to cover the founding of New Mexico In Depth an exciting new adventure in "In Depth" Journalism founded by Tripp Jennings and Heath Hausemann.

Below is a press release today from New Mexcio In Depth:

New Mexico In Depth is announcing two new partners – KUNM and Fronteras, a multimedia collaboration of several public-radio stations from across the Southwest.

NMID plans to work with Albuquerque's KUNM-FM, the state's largest public-radio station, to shine light on some of the state's most pressing problems and explore possible solutions. With Fronteras: The Changing America Desk, NMID will cover border issues, including immigration and changing demographics, with a focus on New Mexico.

Alisa Joyce Barba, Fronteras' senior editor, said the partnership will allow her organization to expand its coverage in New Mexico.

"We are excited about working with two seasoned journalists in New Mexico who share our passion for telling the stories from this state that have remained untold, uncovering the issues that fly below the radar and deepening our understanding of what is happening in our communities and what it means for the future," Barba said.

Richard Towne, KUNM's general manager, said the partnership with NMID is especially exciting because the station is working to increase its "service to the state's most vulnerable citizens."

"Our two organizations share the belief that we can serve New Mexicans better together than we can separately," Towne said. "Trip Jennings and Heath Haussamen are journalists of the highest caliber. Working together, we will increase our mutual abilities to engage citizens with the level of journalism our state deserves."

Barba, like Towne, spoke about the importance of news organizations working together. "We are all re-defining journalism these days, and these kinds of collaborations will inevitably enrich our experience of the world around us," she said.

Trip Jennings, NMID's executive director, hailed the collaborations. "Partnerships with KUNM and Fronteras will help us cover more ground and, frankly, stretch our journalistic muscles," Jennings said. "Heath and I come from print and online, so we can't wait to partner with our friends in radio. The collaborations represent a big step toward our goal of working on several media platforms."

Stories produced through NMID's partnership with Fronteras will be available to Fronteras' seven stations, which includes KRWG-FM in Las Cruces, and to other public-radio stations including KUNM. Jennings and NMID's Deputy Director Heath Haussamen have worked primarily in print and online, so the partnerships with Fronteras and KUNM create the potential for multimedia collaboration on projects that could appear in newspapers, on the radio and online.

Fronteras, whose collaborating stations stretch from Central Texas to Southern California, and from Las Vegas to the Mexican border, covers an area of about 9 million residents and reaches an audience of about 1 million listeners. In addition to Las Cruces, its stations are based in San Diego, Calif.; Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, Ariz.; Las Vegas, Nev.; and San Antonio, Texas. KRWG appears at 90.7 FM in the Las Cruces area, at 93.5 FM in Deming, 91.3 FM in Silver City, 91.9 FM in Truth or Consequences and Lordsburg, and at 98.5 FM in Alamogordo. Fronteras also produces a weekly TV show for Southern New Mexico's KRWG-TV.

KUNM's signal reaches about half of New Mexicans, and an estimated 108,000 people tune in each week (according to Arbitron Research, Inc., total service area surveyed for people aged 12+; averaged from Fall 2011 and Spring 2012. Mon-Sun, 6AM-Midnight. Arbitron data are estimates only.). The station is licensed to the Regents of the University of New Mexico. It airs at 89.9 FM in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, 88.7 FM in Socorro, 90.9 FM in Taos, and 91.9 FM in Las Vegas and Española.

The radio partners join three newspapers that have agreed to work with New Mexico In Depth. Earlier this month, NMID announced its partnership with the Santa Fe Reporter, a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 23,000 that has been an award-winning source of news and culture for Santa Fe since 1974.

“I’m excited to be working with NMID, and I’m confident that the combined talent and experience of our respective news teams will enable us to publish some groundbreaking stories,” said Alexa Schirtzinger, editor of the Santa Fe Reporter. “Together, we look forward to co-producing hard-hitting investigative work with a focus on public interest.”

“We’re excited too,” Jennings said. “In many ways, a partnership with the Reporter is a perfect fit. NMID aspires to do long-form journalism about issues of public interest in New Mexico. We can’t wait to team up with the Reporter’s staff.”

In October, NMID announced partnerships with two of the state's three largest daily newspapers, The Santa Fe New Mexican and Las Cruces Sun-News.

New Mexico In Depth is in the final stages of organization.

About New Mexico In Depth: Our goal is to foster, promote and publish journalism in the public interest. We aim to produce our own investigative reports and forge partnerships with existing media outlets around New Mexico in a bid to nurture a culture of ambitious journalism that tackles big questions and complex issues.

New Mexico In Depth is funded by donations, and we disclose information about our donors publicly to ensure transparency and accountability. Our funders include The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (wkkf.org), which is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States and guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive; The Marshall L. and Perrine D. McCune Charitable Foundation (nmmccune.org), which is dedicated to enriching the health, education, environment and cultural and spiritual life of New Mexicans; and The Santa Fe Community Foundation (santafecf.org).

Learn more about our funding at nmindepth.com/disclosure.