This lecture is FREE to PLATO members and their guests.

Free enclosed parking.  

Registration is not required.

Lecture Description

The Long Difficult Birth of Public Radio. It took more than sixty years from the first broadcast at the University of Wisconsin in 1917 for public radio to emerge as the essential medium it is today. Jack Mitchell has written two books on that evolution.

As importantly, he participated in it as the first employee of NPR, the first producer of its seminal program, All Things Considered, as interim head of programming when NPR staved off bankruptcy in 1983, and as its board chairman for three years after that. He was director of Wisconsin Public Radio for 21 years, before becoming a professor in the UW journalism school. Jack will engage in conversation with Steve Paulson, executive producer of WPR’s nationally distributed program, To the Best of our Knowledge.

Jack Mitchell

Jack Mitchell was the first employee of NPR and the first producer of All Things Considered. He spent most of his career in Wisconsin, however, as Director of Wisconsin Public Radio and, later, as Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of, Listener Supported: The Culture and History of Public Radio (Praeger, 2005) and Wisconsin on the Air: 100 Years of Public Broadcasting in the State that Invented It (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2016)

Location & Parking Instructions: 

Lecture Location:

Oakwood Village University Woods Auditorium/Arts Center  
6209 Mineral Point Road    
Madison, Wisconsin 53705    
608-230-4427  
www.oakwoodvillage.net  

 
Free parking is available in designated spaces at Oakwood Village - University Woods both outdoors & underground. 

• Enter Oakwood at the traffic light at Island Drive and Mineral Point Road.
  
• Take the left fork and then the second driveway on the right to enter visitor underground parking. Push the button for assistance. Park in any visitor or nonreserved stall;
  
• Take elevator to first floor lobby where signs or a receptionist will help you.
  
• When you exit the underground parking, the garage door opens automatically.
  
• You may also park in a surface visitor spot (marked spaces along the drive and up the hill toward the large lot).
  
• To link to the Oakwood campus map, use //tinyurl.com/y6zaugvm.
  
• If you are walking to Oakwood Village,  enter Heritage, 6205 Mineral Point Road, at its main entrance (third driveway on the right, at stop sign) or enter the auditorium doors directly from the lower drive.
  
• If taking the bus, Madison Metro Bus Routes 14 and 67, stop on Mineral Point Road in front of Oakwood, if traveling easterly, or across Mineral Point Road from Oakwood, if traveling westerly

Questions?   Contact information: Aleta Murray a-murray@sbcglobal.net