Navigating the River of Change

By Chris Bishop
Burlington County Times

PHILADELPHIA, Pa., December 6, 2010 - Don Henry has straddled both print and online media worlds for more than 20 years.

In 2009 the Kansas native, who has made Burlington County his home for 23 years, joined WHYY in Philadelphia.

The Moorestown resident is the senior producer of NewsWorks.org, the first-of-its-kind public media news website, according to the company.

“I use the metaphor of a river,” said Henry, 48. “It used to be the river was flowing from print to online… The river has totally changed direction. Print is now responding to online. It’s not going to change back.”

WHYY is the Public Broadcasting Service member station in Philadelphia. WHYY, which includes TV12 and WHYY-FM (90.9), broadcasts to more than 1.4 million households in the region.

Henry said he was “enthusiastic” about working for public broadcasting after more than 20 years as a beat reporter for newspapers in the region and as someone involved on the Internet side of the business. He said he has spent half his career in print and the other in cyberspace.

Henry said he can’t take credit for WHYY’s NewsWorks initiative, launched Nov. 15.

“It’s been in the works for a long time,” he said.

Calling it “a new model in the changing media landscape,” the company said NewsWorks includes public discussion forums, an interactive mapping tool to locate community assets, stories and blogs by WHYY’s team of reporters, and a “hyper-local” focus on Northwest Philadelphia.

“For the hyperlocal, we’re concentrating on Northwest Philadelphia,” Henry said, “but we will cover on an episodic basis South Jersey. We cover Camden most often.”

Henry added that WHYY’s reporters also will cover politics in Trenton, where the station has a bureau.

A section on NewsWorks called “Sixth Square” is the home for audience involvement. It has a moderated discussion forum in which visitors can seek answers to local mysteries and try to sum up the news or trends in six words. Visitors can discuss topics in civil posts and share kind words about people making a difference.

“We aren’t going to have some of the stories that the main-stream media has,” Henry said. “We are not ‘sky is falling’-based. We are going to give people information they can use. …We are a place where you can have a conversation on the issues.”

In a news release, WHYY Chief Executive William Marrazzo said, “We’re confident our current audience will use NewsWorks, but we believe there’s a larger potential audience, especially among younger Internet users who want lively, smart and nonconfrontational discussions. NewsWorks builds on our strength in civic engagement.”

Henry, who said he does not usually do any reporting, misses that end of the business.

“Day to day, I run the Web production side,” he said. “Since I came here, I have learned something about radio production and I’ve done some script editing.”

Chris Satullo, WHYY’s executive director of news and civic dialogue, reiterated the importance of public input in the new initiative.

“We have to be more outward-focused and get suggestions from the public,” said the Montgomery County, Pa., resident.

As for the print media, Henry said it was unclear about their future.

“I will always read newspapers,” he said. “There will be a print media. I just don’t know what form it will take.”

On a personal note, Henry, a former Delran resident whose wife, Cynthia, works as an editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, said he loves Moorestown.

“We have two high school-age children,” he said. The schools are great.”

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