About the National Forum Network

The Forum Network is a national collaboration of public television and radio stations offering online lecture webcasts curated in partnership with cultural and educational institutions in their local communities. These lectures are contributed to a central archive and made available to other public stations to offer on their local Forum Network Websites. Now you will be able to listen to scholars, authors, artists, scientists, policy makers and community leaders from different regions of the country, and the world, speaking about the compelling issues of our time.

WGBH (Boston, MA)

We've come a long way since WGBH first hit the airwaves with a live 1951 radio performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Today, WGBH informs, inspires, and entertains millions of people not only here in Boston, but across the country and around the world. We reach our audiences at home, at work, at play, in the car, in the classroom, in movie theaters, wherever media is accessible. WGBH is public service media for New England, on TV, radio, the Web, and out in the community. WGBH Boston is one of America’s preeminent public broadcasters, producing such celebrated national PBS series as Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Nova, American Experience and more than a dozen other award-winning primetime, lifestyle and children’s series. Boston’s last remaining independent TV station, WGBH produces local TV productions (among them, Greater Boston, Basic Black and Maria Hinojosa One-on-One) that focus on the region’s diverse community, while WGBH 89.7 FM is Boston’s NPR Arts & Culture station, offering a rich menu of classical, jazz, blues, news programming and more. WGBH is the leading producer of online content for pbs.org—one of the most-visited dot-org sites on the Internet—a major producer for public radio and a pioneer in developing educational multimedia and new technologies that make media accessible for people with disabilities. For its efforts, WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors, including Oscars, Emmys, Peabodys and duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards. Visit WGBH on the Web at www.wgbh.org

AETC (Atlanta, GA)

Great cities are known by their museums, theaters, symphonies and parks. But the greatest impact on a city's cultural life radiates invisibly through the air. For Atlanta, that cultural force is Public Broadcasting Atlanta. WABE 90.1 FM and PBA 30 bring NPR News, music, the arts and PBS programming to millions of listeners and viewers each year. Today, people turn to public broadcasting for their news, music, arts and entertainment. Yet, few people realize that public broadcasting began as ìeducational television,î strictly a learning resource. As a non-profit service of the Atlanta Educational Telecommunications Collective (AETC) licensed to Atlanta Public Schools, Public Broadcasting Atlanta (PBA) has never lost sight of its original mission. Education remains at the core of our operation at every level, from preschoolers to our elders.

WETA (Washington, DC)

Founded in 1961, WETA is the leading public broadcasting station in the nation’s capital, serving Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia with educational, cultural, news and public affairs programs and services. WETA's mission is to produce and broadcast programs of intellectual integrity and cultural merit that recognize viewers' and listeners' intelligence, curiosity and interest in the world around them. WETA is one of 354 television stations that make up the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). WETA TV 26 reaches 1.3 million Washington area viewers in an average week who tune in for broadcasts of children’s programs, news and public affairs, history and culture, and science and nature programs. WETA also offers four digital channels: WETA HD, WETA Create, WETA Kids and The WETA Channel. On the radio dial, Classical WETA 90.9 FM is the exclusive home of classical music in Greater Washington. Classical WETA is also available in the Cumberland Valley on WGMS 89.1 FM and in Frederick, Maryland on WETA 88.9 FM. WETA co-produced Ken Burns’s The Civil War, Baseball and The War, drawing international praise; The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is highly regarded for its news coverage; Washington Week with Gwen Ifill and National Journal continues a 40-year tradition of insightful news analysis; and The Kennedy Center Presents performance series bring the richness of Washington’s arts and culture to the nation. WETA has won more than 500 awards for its productions, co-productions, presentations and projects, including Primetime Emmys, George Foster Peabody Awards, and duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards.

WCPN (Cleveland, OH)

The roots of 90.3 WCPN extend back to 1938 when the Cleveland Board of Education launched WBOE, the first licensed educational, non-commercial radio station in the United States. In 2001, WCPN merged with WVIZ/PBS to form ideastreamsm a multiple-media organization with a mission ìto strengthen our communities by providing distinctive, thought-provoking programs and services that enlighten, inspire, education and entertain.î With that kind of mandate, 90.3 WCPN (a.k.a ìNortheast Ohioís NPR news stationî; The Sound of Ideasô and The All Day Brain Foodô ) sees itself as a community catalyst, as well as a source of valuable news, information and music programming, acquired from NPR, BBC, CBC, PRI and others. The station maintains a 24 hour-a-day schedule of local and national public radio programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Marketplace, Weekend America, Talk of the Nation, The Diane Rehm Show and its own award-winning 90.3@ 9, Around Noon, JazzTracks, and Jazz from the Northcoast. The station has been the recipient of hundreds of awards including frequent citations as the best news operation in Ohio (radio, large market) by the Society of Professional Journalists. It was also recently described by The Plain Dealer as ìClevelandís prestige radio station.

OPB (Portland, OR)

OPB is proud to serve the wonderful communities in Oregon and Southwest Washington for eight decades. Since our beginning in 1922, we've grown significantly from our roots as a radio broadcaster on the campus of Oregon State University. Today OPB is a successful membership organization, a public broadcaster of radio and television, a content producer and distributor for television, radio and the web, as well as a statewide resource service for teachers and educators. Our mission has always been to provide life-long learning opportunities for the people in our communities. OPB is continuing to develop new ways to bring information to people through our traditional broadcasting services and newer distribution sources available through the Internet, including audio and video streaming, and digital broadcasting. OPB is committed to bringing audiences trusted, well-informed, in-depth coverage of important issues as well as entertaining programming that makes a positive difference in people's lives.

WNYC (New York, NY)

WNYC, New York Public Radio comprises WNYC 93.9 FM and WNYC AM 820. As America's most listened-to public radio stations, reaching over one million listeners each week, WNYC FM and AM extend New York City's cultural riches to the whole country and air the best national offerings from affiliate networks National Public Radio and Public Radio International. WNYC FM 93.9 broadcasts a broad range of daily news, talk, cultural and classical music programming, while WNYC AM 820 maintains a stronger focus on breaking news and international/ global news reporting. WNYC, New York Public Radio maintains a busy centralized newsroom and its award-winning reporters contribute regularly to local news broadcasts and to the nationally aired news programs Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Marketplace. From its studios in lower Manhattan's Municipal Building, WNYC produces signature daily interview programs, hosted by veteran journalists Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate, as well as the nationally broadcast On the Media with Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield, Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, The Next Big Thing with Dean Olsher and Selected Shorts. As a flagship station of the American public radio network, WNYC, New York Public Radio's mission is: "To make the mind more curious, the heart more tolerant, and the spirit more joyful through excellent radio programming."

WGBY (Springfield, MA)

At WGBY, we have a lot to give thanks for, and much of it is due to the people and organizations who have helped WGBY reach new levels of service in western New England. Working together towards a common goal of building a stronger community through learning and understanding, we’ve been able to deliver on our mission, vision and values like never before. Year after year, more than 19,000 individuals and families come together to provide WGBY with the financial resources to not only sustain, but improve our service to the region. We’re fortunate to live in a region filled with a long history of balancing a strong sense of place with rich cultural diversity that results in a mosaic of fascinating stories just waiting to be told. And at WGBY, we’re even more fortunate to be surrounded by thoughtful, community-minded citizens committed to helping WGBY have the honor of telling those stories, teaching us more about our community, and in the end, ourselves.

WPBT (Miami, FL)

WPBT/Channel 2 began in November of 1953 when the Community Television Foundation of South Florida, Inc. was formed as a nonprofit organization with the mission of raising funds for the establishment and operation of Florida's first noncommercial television station. On August 12, 1955, Channel 2 went on the air without a penny of tax money having been spent. There was no budget, no income, no paid staff and even the station's transmitter and antenna had been donated. Today, with a signal reach from the Treasure Coast to Key West, Channel 2 attracts an audience of over one million households each week, and consistently ranks as one of the 10 most-watched public television stations in the country. The station has come a long way from its humble origins in the 1950s. It continues to demonstrate its worth to the South Florida region by providing quality content to educate, enlighten, inspire and entertain. Each week, it provides a program schedule as diverse as its audience - thirty-seven hours of children's programming; Nightly Business Report, Frontline, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The McLaughlin Group and Wall Street Week with FORTUNE make up only a small portion of the more than thirty hours of news and public affairs programs; seven hours of nature and science programs; thirteen hours of how-to programming; thirteen hours of British comedies; twenty hours of award-winning commercial-free films; domestic and international dramas including the signature series ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery!; independent documentaries; and the best in classical and popular performances including Great Performances, Live from Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Opera Presents, and specials like Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti in Concert.