GRITtv with Laura Flanders

Short Synopsis

GRITtv with Laura Flanders is a 28-minute daily news and culture discussion show that engages the public with critical conversations about important issues and puts powerful new media tools in the hands of non-media community organizations, artists and cultural workers.

Description/Treatment

About GRITtv
GRITtv is a fresh, daily, half-hour conversation, hosted by journalist and author Laura Flanders who has built a reputation for injecting non-traditional, new viewpoints into the public discussion. GRITtv features daily interviews, conversations, in-depth features and guest commentaries (“Chew On This”,) as well as a weekly documentary, or documentary-in-progress, (“Got Docs?”) (Among those, most of the Academy nominated best documentary films of the last two years, screened when they were early in production.) GRITtv has shown a wide range of these pieces including “Beyond Hatred,” “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” and “William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe.”

Popular, recurring guests on GRITtv include Governor Howard Dean, the Nation’s Katrina Vanden Heuvel, talk-show host Phil Donahue, author Naomi Klein, the New Yorker’s Hendrick Hertzberg, novelist Walter Mosley, Roliing Stone Reporter, Matt Taibbi, former investment banker Nomi Prins, Kathleen Hanna (lead singer, Bikini Kill,) actor Mike Farrell, cartoonist Joe Sacco, satirists the Yes Men, and many more. All archives are available at http://GRITtv.org.

Launched in May 2008 with funding from Dish Network Ch. 9415 (Free Speech TV) and a handful of small family foundations and individual donors, GRITtv broadcasts Monday through Friday from lower Manhattan and is available, free, to public television stations as well as community cable stations in 30 states. It is embedded, in full or in part, on hundreds of sites across the Internet. 

In its first two years, GRITtv has raised more than $2 million and attracted the support of major foundations including ARCA, The Atlantic Philanthropies, The Park Foundation and Lannan. Support like this speaks to the growing appeal of the program, and the confidence of the philanthropic community in its future. The program has also attracted individual subscribers, who contribute monthly to the program, as well as underwriters. In 2010 GRITtv has received matching grants – from Free Speech TV and the Lannan Foundation. Every dollar raised up to $400,000 will be matched $2:1. 



Programming and Activities:

"Streaming GRITtv live at theNation.com every day brings our readers the kind of intelligent, thoughtful and provocative conversation you just can't find in the media today. GRITtv with Laura Flanders is top-notch public interest television that covers real issues in a way that's lively, accessible and smart." -- Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor & Publisher, The Nation.

Since its launch in May 2008, GRITtv has become a dependable source among independent media. With a ten-person professional staff and a budget of $1.25 million, GRITtv has produced close to 600 shows for a fraction of network cost. As other media contract, GRITtv has seen tremendous growth, on multiple platforms in multiple formats. In 2009, GRITtv expanded into public television, picking up two public TV affiliates (Philadelphia Ch 32, Denver, Ch 12.) and a brand new satellite carrier – DirecTV (reach: 18 million homes. Carriage will begin in May 2010.) GRITtv was also picked up by CUNYtv, in all five boroughs in New York City and launched a once-a-week radio version, “GRITradio” which plays on ca. 40-60 non-profit radio stations. Having surpassed a goal of 150,000 hits monthly, GRITtv launched its own independent website: http://GRITtv, on March 1, 2010. 

GRITtv reaches a national, even international audience. It has already had real impact. To our knowledge, GRITtv has been adopted for use by teachers, legislators, and one sheriff’s association for use in its “racial sensitivity” training program. Host Laura Flanders was recognized for her work with a “Woman of Power Award, featured in NY Moves Magazine, and she has become a regular guest on MSNBC, (“Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and “The Ed Show.”) 

GRITtv is produced in conjunction with, and made available for use by community partners, with whom GRITtv holds monthly public “pitch” meetings in the GRITtv office. In 2009, GRITtv helped strategize and implement the “Basta Dobbs campaign” one of the most ambitious and powerful Latino media reform efforts in US history, which affected the media debate about the representation of Latinos and collaborated with GRIT Group members to produce “Showdown in Chicago,” some of the only available coverage and discussion of protests at the 2009 American Bankers Association meeting in Chicago. Similarly, GRITtv worked with housing and human rights groups (e.g. the Institute for Southern Studies, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the New Orleans Center for Workers Justice, the Cine Institute Jacmel, the Hibiscus Project,), to produce forward-looking programming on rebuilding and reconstruction issues in New Orleans and also Haiti after the 2010 earthquakes.