Days after WCBU’s October fund-raising drive missed its goal, The Community Word reached out to Peoria’s public radio and public television operations for responses to a recent report about the financial state of public media and the difficulties there.

Public media is increasingly relevant at a time of fewer newspapers and smaller staffs, but funding is inadequate, according to the newest report from the Center for Study of Responsive Law, which asserts that funding has become so insufficient in supporting local news reporting that it needs an overhaul.

The report — subtitled “The Case for a Democratically Funded and Locally Rooted News Media in an Era of Newsroom Closures” — was written by researcher Michael Swerdlow. It says that National Public Radio (NPR), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB, which helps fund PBS), and local public stations are falling short in their missions as established by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

In fact, National Public Radio’s first program director, Bill Siemering, in 1970 said, “National Public Radio will not regard its audience as a ‘market’ or in terms of disposable income …”

Profit motive

Since, however, an increasing challenge to compensate for inadequate and uncertain funding has led to a reliance on wealthy donors and corporations, whose legal duty is to generate profits for shareholders, not to help provide people with high-quality journalism and cultural features. That’s a built-in conflict, if usually benign or beneath the surface.

Public media has “become a ‘market,’ with all that such commercialization entails for its programming priorities and biases,” Swerdlow writes.

In an introduction to the 84-page study, longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader writes that since the late 1960s, “things only got more commercial, profit-driven, and violative of the Communications Act of 1934 standard of providing for the ‘public interest, convenience and necessity’ information needs of viewers and listeners.

“Our report is designed to spark support to return public media to its original public-interest mission and decrease corporate domination on its national and local station Boards of Directors. We’re trying to provoke some discussion. [Public media] need to be shaken up. They live in fear: fear of losing money, fear of the lobbies.”

There have been several similar studies in recent years, from the Nieman Foundation in 2019 and 2023, to last year’s collaborative study from a group of public-media stations, to this year’s effort from the CDP (Contributor Development Partnership).

WCBU Executive Director/General Manager R.C. McBride replies, “I’m all for ideas, and more importantly, actual advances.

“As for this specific paper, I have some nits to pick,” adds McBride, who’s also GM at WGLT in Normal, “but it’s probably not worth it since I have no doubt it’s an earnest offering from well-intentioned, smart people.”

What to do

The new report recommends several reforms:

• Adequate and stable funding; “Congress could make funding for journalism part of mandatory spending,” Swerdlow writes, suggesting that funding be “authorized on an indefinite basis” like Social Security and Medicare
• Representative governance boards
• Information transparency
• Public deliberations about communities’ news and informational needs.

An outside voice with roots in public TV stressed the latter — what’s on the air.

“I get it: Audiences are dwindling, membership is down, and every station leader faces enormous challenges in simply maintaining what they’re doing today,” comments Tom Davidson, a former reporter and manager at PBS and other news organizations.

“I am not suggesting that we should all drop everything we’re doing to chase after foundation dollars,” he said. “I am suggesting that maybe it’s time to admit that what we’ve already done isn’t really helping fix the local-news crisis.

“Being the fourth microphone on a podium at a mayor’s press conference isn’t filling gaps,” he says. “Regurgitating a nonprofit’s news release into a 40-second reader isn’t covering underserved communities. And pleading for cash to slightly grow our traditional coverage isn’t digital innovation. Reimagine instead of muddling through.”

Public good

Swerdlow connects the loss of newspapers and journalists in all media in the last 20 years to the effect on civic life, and he details the extent of the lack of government support.

“Democracy in the United States requires an informed citizenry,” Swerdlow says. “Factual, verified information and news analysis are its lifeblood. National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting face financial and governance challenges that leave them unable to fill the void.”

The United States funds its public media at a much lower rate than peer countries, the report shows.

“The United States spends $3 per person, New Zealand spends $21, Canada spends $33, Australia $53, Japan spends $67, the U.K. spends $97, and Germany spends 41 times more at $124.46,” the report states.

The report compares where public media fit within the federal budget.

“The U.S. spends about $50 million more a year on our 136 military marching bands than the entire public broadcasting system,” Swerdlow writes.

Currently a political pinata “deprived of adequate public funding as a result of Republican antagonism and Democratic acquiescence,” boosting government funding could be problematic. As much of a concern with conflicts of interest with corporate underwriters is a potential conflict between public media’s independence and a greater dependence on government funding.

WTVP-TV 47 President and CEO Jenn Gordon says, “I would welcome an increase in government funding as certainly it would strengthen the stability of the station. However, it doesn’t follow that the other sources of revenue like corporate support, member donations and fundraising activities should take a back seat. I think it would be dangerous if they ever did regardless of any increase of government funding.

“The CPB was founded on the private/public funding model. Both sources are incredibly important and neither one should be devalued at the expense of overemphasizing the other. I do think an increase in government funding could meaningfully improve the news-desert crisis happening in nearly every small to mid-sized station in the country.”

Essentials

Gordon also takes issue with the possibility that some financial backers could pose conflicts with content or operations.

“I disregard the notion that corporate support and private funding innately puts the organization at risk for compromising their ability to remain unbiased,” she said. “Solid leaders stick to the mission and are willing to forego any private funding sources that come with a series of demands. Yes, there are going to be times when private donations shrink. And there will be seasons when they boom. Bottom line, both are important and essential.”

McBride, who’s also a member of NPR’s Board of Directors, also values a wide funding scope.

“I think public media is best served by a model that combines funding from a variety of sources: local businesses, individual donors of all sizes, government appropriations and grants, corporate support, and foundation grants and gifts. In other words, what exists now,” he says. “That said, it is clear we need to grow revenue to do what’s being increasingly asked of public media. The percentage of local journalists working for public media has never been higher and that trend will continue. All the luck in the world to journalists still working in commercial media, but there just aren’t enough of them.”