Knight Commission Recommendation and Analysis
Rethinking Public Media:
More Local, More Inclusive, More Interactive
“Increase support for public service media aimed at
meeting community information needs.”
— Recommendation 2, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age
Knight Commission Recommendation
Recommendation 2 of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy is to “[i]ncrease support for public service media aimed at meeting community information needs.”1 This paper analyzes the Knight Commission’s goals and proposes steps to achieve them.
Knight Commission Analysis
The Knight Commission report makes note of the high level of trust earned by public broadcasting in the 43 years since its creation. But the commission also points to failings of the service to provide local news of significance in most of its communities or to reach audiences that reflect the diversity of the American population. Nor does the report see a widespread embrace of digital media at the local level of public broadcasting.
The commission says the current public broadcasting system should “move quickly toward a broader vision of public service media, one that is more local, more inclusive and more interactive.”
The report acknowledges the financial exigencies that have limited public broadcasting’s capacities. Most western democracies support public broadcasting through substantial government funding, but that is not true in the United States. United Kingdom pays $80.36 per capita for its public broadcasting service. In the United States, core federal funding amounts to $1.35 per capita and is only 15 percent of the entire public broadcasting budget.
Exhibit 1: Global Spending on Public Media
Source: Free Press, “Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age,” 2009, p. 267.
A solution recommended by the commission is to increase taxpayer support. “Congress should increase the funding available for the transformation and localization of America’s public media,” the report says.
The report also addresses the question of whether government-supported journalism is in keeping with the First Amendment guarantee of a free press. But, the report says, “public broadcasters in the United States have demonstrated their capacity to deliver high-quality, fair and credible news and information programming free of government interference.”
This paper offers proposals for meeting the Knight Commission’s goals of public media that are more local, more inclusive and more interactive. It proposes changes in leadership, structure and funding to help public media meet these goals. The paper addresses the context of the information needs of communities and the strategic openings created by broadband expansion. It recommends building on existing models for innovation, making a virtue of the decentralized structure of public broadcasting and redefining what is included under the umbrella of public service media.
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