When public funding dries up, what becomes of public media?

At this moment of crisis and reckoning, we should stop looking at 60-year-old definitions of who we are. Instead, we should rebuild ourselves, redefine our industry and re-envision how we serve our communities.”

Tom Davidson, professor of practice in media entrepreneurship at the Bellisario School of Communications, Penn State University

Dozens of worthy pieces have been published since the vote in July to claw back federal funding for public broadcasting and the resulting announcement that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is winding down.

Some less-worthy pieces (including some leaked strategy discussions I’ve seen from national organizations) focus solely on getting federal funding back or on the short-term goal of spurring more individual and foundation donations in the face of the crisis. (Yes, but those are mostly one-time dollars.)

I want to use this piece to ask a broader, strategic question: Can we rethink what “public media” is?

For 58 years, we’ve defaulted to easy shorthand: You’re public media if you receive a Community Services Grant from CPB. Easy. Neat. And, by definition, setting a subtle expectation that public media really means public broadcasting because nobody else gets CSGs. Right?

As ugly as the rescission is, we at least have the opportunity to redefine what public media means. And I suggest we go back to the ultimate think piece about public media: The 1967 Carnegie Commission report, “Public Television: A Program for Action,” which led directly to the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act.*

On page one, the Commission offers this: Public television** comprises “all that is of human interest and importance which is not at the moment appropriate or available for support by advertising.”

Note what’s not there.

No mention of government funding. No artificial distinction that eliminates community access broadcasting or, for that matter, content distributed via means other than the airwaves. Just a neat, crisp focus on importance and non-commercial financing.

Swap in the word “media” in the place of television … and the Carnegie Commission definition neatly describes a broad, growing and vibrant world of nonprofit media creators.

Important and non-commercial? Take a look at VTDigger — which has gotten crooked politicians indicted, covers local arts, sports and entertainment as well as anyone and has the largest newsroom in the state.

Digger raised $2.3 million in funding in 2023  — in the second-smallest U.S. state (population only 650,000). That's $3.50 per capita revenue. Try multiplying the population of your DMA by $3.50. The result is almost certainly more than your current non-federal funding.

Someone tell me why Digger isn’t a public-media organization — and an exemplary one at that.

Apply that thinking to any number of nonprofit media organizations — Bridge Detroit, ArtsLight on Cape Cod, Block Club Chicago or literally hundreds of other emerging nonprofit media organizations.

Just like the best of us in the world of public broadcasting, you’ll see organizations engaging their communities and highlighting people and stories the mainstream media won’t or can’t. And, yes, you’ll see some struggling to gain attention and funding. They are us, just without the FCC license and organizational obsessions with a tower stuck in a cornfield or atop a tall building.

We can learn from those new public media entities how to better engage our communities using digital tools. We can collaborate with them to achieve common goals. We can merge with them.

Yes, there are many such worthy experiments: the California News Collective, fostered by KQED, includes digital nonprofits like CalMatters. WJCT in Jacksonville has built a terrific digital newsroom virtually indistinguishable from the best members of the Institute for Nonprofit News. KVIE in Sacramento is making a big bet on a community-focused journalism project, Abridged.

We need more. And fast.

The great cyberpunk author and futurist William Gibson said something once that lives rent-free in my head: “The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

Those new public media organizations — those emerging nonprofit media organizations point to a future for those of us in the industry formerly known as public broadcasting. At this moment of crisis and reckoning, we should stop looking at 60-year-old definitions of who we are.

Instead, we should rebuild ourselves, redefine our industry and re-envision how we serve our communities. And we should find new friends and partners who don’t worry about changing lightbulbs at the top of a tower or de-icing a satellite dish.

We should start with the Carnegie definition: “Of human interest and importance which is not at the moment appropriate or available for support by advertising.”

So, what does that mean in your community? And who else should you think of as “public media?”

*I read this stuff, so you don’t have to. Kudos to the wonderful research librarians at Penn State who unearthed a badly fraying copy from the bowels of the archives.

**Yes, public television. The Carnegie report focused almost exclusively on the then-emerging medium of broadcast television. Radio, you’ll recall, was viewed in the 60s as a dying medium, crushed by the collapse of the national radio networks and their general interest entertainment. It wasn’t until the 70s and the broader adoption of high-fidelity FM that radio reemerged as a powerful media force.

Tom Davidson is a professor of practice in media entrepreneurship at the Bellisario School of Communications, Penn State University. He previously was a reporter, content leader, general manager and product builder at Tribune, PBS, UNC-TV and Gannett. He can be contacted at tgd@tgdavidson.com.