Capital Public Radio Announces Great Question! Series

Sacramento, CA - March 13, 2019: Capital Public Radio is excited to announce the launch of Great Question!, a new series that empowers our listeners to become involved in the reporting process.

Great Question! directly engages the public by letting people submit questions inspired by their own curiosity about the Sacramento region. They can also vote on which question they'd like to see answered next, and the top question is investigated by our journalists. The person who asked the question gets a chance to work with our reporters and become part of the story as well.

“By involving our audience from the beginning, we get to better understand what information is meaningful to the people who live here,” says Chris Hagan, Senior Editor of Digital Content at CapRadio. “As an organization that focuses on engaged, local journalism, Great Question! allows us to further connect with our audience by pursuing stories that are directly relevant to them.”

Great Question!, which had a soft launch in December last year, has already received hundreds of questions submitted through our online platform. So far, the CapRadio News team has worked with question-askers to dig into the history of Sacramento’s trees and find out what happens to green waste after it’s picked up from someone’s home. The team has also helped answer a variety of community questions about PG&E after its bankruptcy filing, and even did a report on what the Sacramento Airport’s SMF letters mean.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Great Question! series is that CapRadio reporters have the opportunity to engage with community members and bring them into the reporting process. Some question-askers may even find themselves as part of a Great Question! segment on Insight with Beth Ruyak. In the case of Sacramento resident Jennifer Drayton, she joined host Beth Ruyak and reporter Randol White in studio.

“It’s an interesting approach to the regular reporting process; it’s a conversation with our listeners, and it informs our reporting on topics we know they want us to cover,” says Randol White, news reporter and All Things Considered Anchor at CapRadio. “There’s something special about interacting with the question-asker, making them a part of the story and then sharing it with our listeners.”

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Is there something you’ve always wondered about your neighborhood? Some little pattern or quirk about Northern California that sparked your curiosity? Or maybe you heard something in the news or from a friend that made you scratch your head. Whether your questions are big or small, light or hard-hitting, we want to hear from you.

So, what’s your great question?

About Capital Public Radio

Capital Public Radio is the NPR member station serving the California Capital Region, Central Valley and Sierra Nevada. With historically high levels of listenership and support from its members, CapRadio is a trusted and indispensable source of information, music and entertainment, and it strengthens the civic and cultural life of the communities it serves. With seven frequencies and over 470,000 listeners, CapRadio has one mission: to build stronger communities by listening deeper.

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