Purple States
Purple States® LLC is a video based media company that specializes in utilizing citizen journalists in professionally edited news content. Purple States attempts to combine the on-line movement towards user generated content (youtube.com, i-report.com) with the professional quality and coherence associated with traditional news and television media. Launched in 2007 with coverage of the primary elections, Purple States has produced video that ranges from orchestrated and edited video-blogs that appear on its own website, to professionally filmed online series of five-minute segments that have appeared on NYTimes.com, washingtonpost.com, local television, CNN's iReport, and Verizon. The company says it is currently working on longer-form programming for national television.
About Purple States LLC
Founder
Purple States LLC was founded by Dr. Cynthia Farrar. Dr. Farrar's experience includes work with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions (2201-2008) (By the People project) and local public television, as well as teaching political theory and practice at Yale University (1996-2009) (Institution for Social and Policy Studies). She conceived of Purple States as a "synthesis of old media with the connectivity of the internet to make democracy accessible and engaging to large numbers of Americans." (Interviews at Beet.TV--"Primaries", "Election") [Note: Purple States is entirely independent of Yale and of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions.]
Contacts
- Founder, CEO, and co-producer Dr. Cynthia Farrar- cynthia@purplestates.tv
- Co-producer and COO John Kennedy - johnny@purplestates.tv (Contact for advertisers, television stations interested in content, and other potential platform partners.)
Where Purple States content can be found
Purple States videos have aired on [http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=2002368b7d2d5588e75742b1e846d099d18085ca| The New York Times], The Washington Post, CNN's iReport, Verizon V-Cast, and local news stations. Purple States is hosted by Blip TV and can be found on facebook as well as its YouTube site.
Season 1: "Primaries"
Five citizens selected for their diversity, reported on the primaries leading up to Super Tuesday:
Elizabeth Glotsdiner, a 24-year-old florist from Iowa; Bert Sobanik, a laid-off manufacturing professional and libertarian who relocated from Connecticut to Maine; Tamara Briggman, a 34-year-old Baptist mother of three and teacher from South Carolina; Tanya Amasor-Diagle, a forty-something Cuban-American art gallery director from Florida; and Alex Ritchie, a grandfather from southern California who lives with his daughter and his Mexican-American son-in-law and works for AT&T . These citizen-journalists filed individual and group stories from the NH primary to the Iowa Caucuses to the CA Primary, on issues ranging from immagration to health care to national security. You can meet them and hear their stories at purplestates.tv. The Primary Season was featured on nytimes.com
Season 2: “Election”
"Election" launched at the beginning of September 2008 and featured the same five citzen journalists from Season 1. Season 2 Focused on the nominees, and the citizen journalists reported on: job loss and economic insecurity; the post racial election; teachers and education; green energy; foreclosures effect on neighborhoods; and nataional security from a military perspective. The series was featured on washingtonpost.com.
50 States in 50 Days
Post election, 50 bloggers, one from each of the 50 states, were recruited by Purple States to submit video blogs that have been edited into conversation about the economic crisis facing the U.S. This video blog series launched the day after the presidential election and can be viewed on the Purple States website. These pieces appeared regularly on CNN's ireport. A composite of the bloggers' Advice to President Obama aired on the Washington Post and can also be viewed on iReport.
Coverage of Purple States
- "'Citizen' Videos about Primaries Goes up on NYTimes.com Tomorrow", December 18, 2007, an interview with Dr. Farrar on Beet.TV
- "Two Online Docs Go Long" By Joshua Levy, January 8, 2008, on techPresident
- Journalism Teams Give Alternative View of U.S. Elections" by Mark Glaser, March 13, 2008 on MediaShift: Your Guide to the Digital Media Revolution
- "Exclusive: Washington Post Grabs Syndication of Citizen Journalism Politics Series", September 11, 2008, an interview with Dr. Farrar on Beet.TV
- "Purple States strive to build 'believable media' in 50/50/50 vlog project" By Amy Gates on blogher
- "'People powered, professionally produced'" January 28, 2009 on iReport Blog
External links
- [http://www.purplestates.tv| purplestates.tv]
- [http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=2002368b7d2d5588e75742b1e846d099d18085ca| NYTimes.com]
- washingtonpost.com
- YouTube
- iReport
- Beet.TV Interview, "Primaries"
- Beet.TV Interview, "Election"
- PBS MediaShift
- techPresident