The Center for Emerging Media (CEM) teamThe mission of CEM is to employ all forms of media – including radio, video, and Internet – to produce unique programs addressing issues that affect our world.

The Center for Emerging Media (CEM) is a nonprofit Baltimore-based media production company dedicated to airing balanced, in-depth discussions on important issues affecting our community, country and world.  CEM’s vision is to create programming and productions utilizing the connectivity of all types of media to stimulate our cultural, social and political lives.

CEM is dedicated to introducing and giving airtime to voices that would otherwise go unheard, particularly the voices and stories of the disenfranchised and dispossessed. In addition to the usual scholars and intellectuals, listeners will hear the individuals directly affected by the issues presented. From students to sex workers to Vietnam veterans, individuals who have not often been given the opportunity to speak will be granted a platform.

CEM’s strategy is to use public radio as its base and primary medium but to integrate that work with video and social media components, in particular to harness the interactive power of the Internet.

The Center for Emerging Media (CEM) was founded in 2000 as a 501(c)(3) private non-profit corporation.

Contributors to CEM’s past and current projects include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Open Society Institute-Baltimore, Abell Foundation, Town Creek Foundation, Osprey Foundation, Rouse Family Foundation, Fund for Change, Stony Run Friends Meeting, and a number of individual donors.

CEM’s Primary Goals:

CEM’s goals are to produce high-quality, thought-provoking programming that

  1. informs its listeners on a wide range of topics;
  2. airs the voices of individuals not typically heard in mainstream media;
  3. provides fair and balanced discussions of important issues; and
  4. helps effect public policy change where appropriate.

Organization Objectives:

CEM is committed to producing high-quality programming that addresses important issues and gives voice to all involved in these issues. The venues for this programming include The Marc Steiner Show, as well as series such as Sound Bites and Beyond the Spin, and documentary productions such as Shared Weight and Just Words, for which CEM won the Peabody Award in 2007.

Key Organizational Milestones, Achievements, and Accomplishments:

CEM’s signature production, The Marc Steiner Show, will celebrate its 20th year on the air in March of 2013. The Steiner Show is nationally recognized and has won a number of awards in the public radio community, including more than a dozen awards from Public Radio Program Directors Association. In 2005-06, the documentary series Shared Weight aired on some 40 public radio stations across the country, and segments of the series continue to air. In 2007, Marc and CEM won a Peabody Award, the most esteemed honor in broadcast media, for the series Just Words, a documentary series that examined the lives of disenfranchised people in Baltimore City, as told in their own voices.