During the presidential campaign, Big Bird became a convenient symbol in the fight to defend public broadcasting. But behind all those feathers is a diverse network of people, organizations and communities that are creating a new generation of public media.
In the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Vince Stehle argues that it’s time for us to think beyond Big Bird and go back to the roots of public broadcasting, which was envisioned as a true “network for knowledge.” Stehle believes it’s vital to support NPR and PBS, but says we must also expand our support for real “experimentation and expansion” in nonprofit media.
This idea is rooted in a report that Free Press released earlier this year. In Greater Than the Sum, we call for the public, community and nonprofit media sector to build a more collaborative and connected vision for the future.
In his piece, Stehle makes the case for why lawmakers should double down on our investment in a broader public media system. But before that happens, we need media makers themselves to stand together.
For too long, nonprofit media outlets — NPR and PBS stations, documentary filmmakers, community radio and TV stations, nonprofit magazines and online journalism sites — have defined themselves in terms of their differences, not their shared mission.
Our nearly total reliance on commercial media for educational and entertainment programming is an anomaly among democracies around the world. The current upheaval in the journalism landscape may signal an important shift toward nonprofit news becoming a much more prominent part of American media. The rise of nonprofit journalism is a uniquely American response to the struggles in commercial media. Noncommercial media, in its many forms, embodies some of the best of America’s character: localism, service and charity.
For all these reasons, it’s time for nonprofit media to take a more prominent role in American society. We will always have commercial media — and we should — but we can’t and shouldn’t rely on the marketplace alone for the full extent of news, arts, culture and information we need.
We need more solidarity in the noncommercial media sector to fight for a bold future, but also to battle against existing threats. Too often, the various sectors under the tent of noncommercial media have been left to fight on their own, rallying their own troops, building their own allegiances and developing their own champions. Imagine what we could do if we marshaled the combined force of our shared resources: our communities, our boards, our contributors and underwriters. Imagine if we fought together today for the media of tomorrow.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy