Jacob Conrad Email & Phone Number

Cultivate ties with established producers and search out emerging talent within the independent audio producer community. Solicit and commission audio works. Support producers through their process of shaping narrative, sharpening focus, distilling language and sound. The objective: clarity of story (without fear of the ambiguous) and the simple tensions that make for a good listen.

Collaborate with local Morning Edition host on a deceptively simple challenge: bring KCRW's already well-informed listeners their first sense of what's happened while they were sleeping, as well as the developing events they'll want to follow as their day, their week progresses. Find angles, details, audio elements they won't hear anywhere else. Toward that end: scour the range of news and information resources; condense the news into short-form stories, sometimes employing audio, but always constructed of clear, informative writing; keep a comprehensive forward-planning calendar, communicate with colleagues on other news and talk programs, cultivate sources, gather audio, write and voice news spots.

Produced a weekly politics round-table whose success hinges on a tricky feat of tone and pitch: deliver a half-hour of fast-paced, well-informed, often funny, always combative exchange between friendly adversaries . You do that by (1) booking fresh voices -- commentators who “get” LR&C’s irreverent tone, but will also bring real insight to the week in politics, the world economy and popular culture; (2) by preparing your combatants with a bullet-point menu of breaking-news topics, background reading and suggested angles; and (3), by arranging and coordinating with broadcast facilities for multiple guests in multiple cities, to conjure a virtual back-booth, just roomy enough for panelists and listener. Additional duties included composing a weekly email preview to stations and copy for the show’s web-page and social media presence, all consistent in (that all-important) tone and pitch.

Support KCRW host on the daily task of creating a bridge for listeners between the big picture they’re getting on NPR’s All Things Considered and developments closer to home. The producer’s challenge mirrors that of KCRW’s Morning Edition (see below): search out angles, details, audio elements that reflect KCRW’s authoritative yet innovative approach to news. Toward that end, the fundamentals: scour the range of news and information resources; condense the news into brief, compelling stories, capture a range of voices as diverse as LA’s population; present it all in clear language, absent cliche and “news-speak”; keep a comprehensive forward-planning calendar, communicate with colleagues on other news and talk programs, cultivate sources, gather audio, write and voice news spots.

Weekly half-hour TV news magazine for the region. Generated and developed long-form news and feature segments in collaboration with producers and correspondents. Guided staff of associate producer/editorial researchers. Oversaw forward planning. Pushed editorial and production flow, deadline accountability. Strategized with KCET communications team on publicity. 2009-2010 was a DuPont , Peabody, Murrow and Emmy Award-winning season for KCET’s Socal Connected.

Editor at NPR's national hour-long NPR news magazine, Day to Day. Brainstormed, assigned and edited feature and news stories Oversaw roster of freelancers, local station reporters, music and book reviewers and commentators. Worked with desk editors and other NPR show editors. Coordinating editor of Day to Day’s ’06 and ’08 election coverage.Also generated segment ideas and performed editorial duties in connection with host interview and host tape-and-copy segments: tracked down newsmaker interviews and reporters on the scene; pre-interviewed; generated background; wrote and edited intro copy and key questions; coordinated production logistics---all on tight deadline. Performed similar duties in connection with regular weekly political analysis segments with NPR's Ron Elving and Juan Williams, Slate's John Dickerson and others. Story-tracking and forward planning for all the above. Liased with counterparts on other NPR programs.

Live news and current affairs radio roundtable hosted by veteran California newsman Warren Olney. Job demanded sound news judgment informed by a strong grasp of the issues, familiarity with the players, solid forward planning skills, a deep Rolodex and real-time problem solving abilities. Identified fresh, original take on the news topic of the day and delivered the informed voices to bring it to life for listeners. Researched the issues, distilled the dynamics of the debate and assembled four or five prominent policy and opinion-makers. Provided the host a blueprint for the broadcast hour: background research, guest pre-interview notes and a 'narrative line' charting the intended course of the discussion. In addition, secured and edited relevant audio clips and attended to daily station-relations duties, such as DACS.