Last month in Charlotte, N.C., Media Impact Funders co-hosted a keynote conversation with Press Forward on the future of public media in a moment of profound change. With the federal government eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the first time in more than 50 years, local public radio and television stations—especially those in rural, Tribal, and under-resourced communities—are facing immediate threats to their sustainability. Yet the conversation made clear: This moment is not only a crisis. It is also an opportunity to reimagine what public media can be.
Moderated by MIF Board Chair Kayce Ataiyero, the panelists clearly articulated the value of public media and explored several questions around how to rebuild a system that can keep serving communities for generations to come.
Luis Patiño, CEO of Austin PBS, noted, stations have always served entire communities across a lifetime, providing trusted journalism, educational children’s programming, music and arts coverage, and independent documentary film. “Public media serves the whole person,” he said. “Our value comes from our deep relationship with community, and that’s what makes new models possible.”
For Ju-Don Marshall, Chief Content Officer at WFAE in Charlotte, that means grounding journalism directly in community life. WFAE has embedded reporters in library branches, co-created voter guides with residents, and built partnerships with local organizations across neighborhoods. “We don’t do journalism for the community,” she said. “We do it with them.”
Chi-hui Yang, Director of Creativity & Free Expression at the Ford Foundation, emphasized that the core public media values—universal access, public accountability, and no profit motive—are more important than ever in today’s polarized information environment. “If public media’s purpose is to support democracy,” he said, “it must be rooted locally, relationally, and in trust.”
Meanwhile, philanthropy has a central role to play. Michael Murray, President of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, urged funders to invest strategically, not only to stabilize at-risk stations, but to support longer-term structural transformation. “Public media raises the bar where commercial media can’t, and fills gaps where no one else will,” he said. “We need to preserve that capacity for the future.”
One promising model already emerging is in Texas, where PBS and NPR stations are collaborating on shared services and regional content partnerships—reducing duplicated costs and expanding coverage. The panel agreed that efforts like this—along with experiments in joint newsrooms, media hubs, and community co-production—may be part of the next chapter of public media.
Media Impact Funders will continue hosting conversations around the future of public media. Stay tuned for more details about our next session. Revisit our past public media conversations here.
