Public Media Holds Its Apocalypse at Bay, for Now
Though Congress cut $500 million from NPR and PBS stations, vanishingly few have closed their doors. Angst about their long-term future remains.
Things looked bleak last summer for KCAW, a tiny public radio station serving the remote community of Sitka, Alaska (population 8,393).
Congress had just slashed $500 million in funding for public media, blowing a $187,500 hole in the station’s budget. Mariana Robertson, the station’s general manager, said she had faced a potential “doomsday” situation that included cutting staff.
Then the donations poured in.
Now, Ms. Robertson is one of many station directors across America who find themselves in unexpected territory: first, expecting the worst, but then buoyed by a flood of emergency funding that has kept their stations stable and surviving. For now.
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.