The walls around public media keep coming down

"When I joined Hawaiʻi Public Radio a year and a half ago, the welcome from the team and the community was warm and full of aloha. This was not surprising. What was unexpected were the dozens of strangers from across the country reaching out to say "Welcome to Public Media!" The message came from station heads and staff across the nation, from folks at CPB, NPR, PBS, and from groups dedicated to public media."

"The differences between global, national, and local media are clear, and the same goes for legacy media vs start-ups, or commercial media vs. non-profits. This paradigm was public media vs everything else. Why did the distinction exist, and who did it serve? There are obvious factors, like the model itself, which, from the late 1960s up until this past summer, was rooted in federal funding via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And there's the related matter of local stations paying NPR and/or PBS for shared programming and services. The question of What Makes Public Media Different? turned into the more existential What Is Public Media Now? after the July recession that slashed federal funding and decimated CPB."

"When I asked people inside the system what makes public media unique, a common response was that the people are quirky. I sorted this into the category of stories we tell ourselves that aren't entirely true. During my time at CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times, there were plenty of quirky folks. But I have found some ways that public media is distinct from the rest of the landscape. Here are two:"

Hawaiʻi Public Radio received a warm community welcome and outreach from public media professionals across the country. Dozens of station heads, CPB, NPR, PBS, and public media groups sent welcome messages, demonstrating entry into a national public media network. Distinctions exist among global, national, local, legacy, start-up, commercial, and non-profit media, but public media often frames itself as separate from other sectors. The model historically relied on federal funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with local stations paying for NPR and PBS programming and services. A July recession sharply reduced federal support and decimated CPB. Public media practitioners exchange information openly, trading funding tactics, technical and governance advice.

Read at Nieman Lab