With CPB funding gone, public media must lean on creativity and community
Back in November, addressing the coming storm, I quoted Kris Kristofferson’s lyric “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Today, I’d like to quote a source even nearer to the heart of the matter: “And now for something completely different.”
If you don’t know where this comes from, look it up. It is a large part of our foundational DNA, part of the path not taken and, I believe, a key to the future we all want to create for public media.
When Monty Python introduced this now-iconic phrase, they meant it ironically. Like clockwork it appeared in every episode, as oddly reliable as it was patently absurd. Such a claim could never live up to its hype, and that was part of the joke. Nothing lives up to its hype, not even public media.
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.