Transforming Public-Service Media: An Interview with the New Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
[Source: Broadcasting & Cable, by John Eggerton; September 17, 2009]
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting's newly elected chairman,
Ernest Wilson III, says he doesn't want to dance on the graves of old
media. But he thinks a multiplatform, locally-focused noncommercial
media have an opportunity to fill a journalistic vacuum created by the
decline of traditional news outlets.
He should know about the
state of journalism. Wilson is the dean of the Annenberg School for
Communication at the University of Southern California. He also knows
more than a little about the CPB board as its longest-serving member
(since his 2000 appointment by President Bill Clinton).
He is
the first African American to hold that post, and while he says that
shouldn't be the lead on his story, it does inform his views. Those
include the belief that noncommercial media—which he would like to
rebrand as “public service media”—are brought to you by the letter D,
which stands for dialog, digitalization and diversity.
Wilson spoke with B&C
Washington Bureau Chief John Eggerton not long after his Sept. 16
election to head the private, nonprofit corporation that oversees the
government's investment in public-service media.
Can you give us the ‘CPB for Dummies’ version of what the organization does?
You
know the legislation as well as I do and the things it is supposed to
do about helping public service media serve underserved markets and
support education and culture.
But I think that the question
that you ask has to be re-asked and re-answered in a digital
environment. We certainly have good guidance from the 1967 legislation
[that established CPB].
But
I think we are at another 1967 moment, when the stars are aligned and
more and more people are asking that question and trying to come up
with answers that are true to the original formulation, but also take
cognizance of 40-plus years of technological evolution and social
change that have happened since then.
I think this is a really
exciting time to be asking that question. I think NPR, local stations,
PBS are trying to figure out the answer.
What do noncommercial media need to do to stay relevant?
Chris
Boskin, the previous chair, and I have been [engaged in] a process over
the past 18 months where we partnered with the Aspen Institute to
convene some of the leaders of the system to talk about exactly this
issue, and we identified some opportunities and challenges.
The
challenges were the fairly obvious ones, like the silo-ization of
public service media like private media at a time when technological
convergence is really driving a lot of the new thinking and content
creation.
Second, even before the economic crisis, a lot of the
stations were suffering from a business model that was no longer viable
as it once was, especially on the television side.
Third, there
is the pipeline channel where you have a number of leading station
managers and leaders in the system retiring soon who need to be
replaced.
The way we have answered that at the board of CPB
is to say we want to provide unique services in working with local
stations and other stakeholders to provide what we uniquely can provide
for the American people, which we call the three Ds: dialog,
digitalization and diversity.
We're looking more
specifically at how you think CPB should be spending government money
on public broadcasting in this economic crisis? Where is the best place
for it to put its dollars?
There is a short-term answer
and a medium-to-long-term answer. The short-term answer is we are
trying to help local stations, for example, out in Springfield, Ill.,
to weather this terrible economic crisis that is whacking everybody. A
new fund has been created to help stations—very short term, very modest
amounts of money—to respond to these immediate crises.
Secondly,
in terms of content, if you look at what is being done around the
mortgage crisis, CPB helped to sponsor some activities that would help
people trying to understand the mortgage crisis go to a site where they
could get information. Very practical assistance.
So, in the
short term, we are trying to provide some additional resources. But
over the medium-term, I think we have to take advantage of what I call
the 1967 moment. In 1967 President Johnson signed the Public
Broadcasting Act. But that happened because the Carnegie Foundation and
Republican and Democratic senators and a whole variety of stakeholders
came together, growing out of educational television, and said we want
to do something broader and bolder with greater vision to better serve
the American people.
I think the stars are similarly aligned
today. When I talk to people at public stations, they say they really
do want to reinforce and advance the mission of public service media.
In
order to do that, we have reauthorization coming up, and to have an
effective reauthorization, we have to answer the question, What is the
unique value of noncommercial media? And if we can articulate that
vision, which I think is doable but requires a lot of consultation and
dialog, then we can educate and inform the Congress about what we are
doing.
That, in turn, I hope would lead to not just higher
appropriations but new ways of funding and thinking about funding
public service media.
Is that funding sufficiently insulated from politics?
There
are proposals that would create a separate trust fund, or provide user
fees on certain platforms, like the BBC system. Under reauthorization,
a lot of these things are going to be on the table. So, is there an
adequate heat shield? Absolutely. Could we do more that would take away
the annual trek to the Hill with hearings? I think there is room for
improvement there, and I think that is probably the feeling at the
White House, on the Hill and at the stations as well.
How does public broadcasting justify its existence in the digital age?
I
have come to appreciate more and more, as the dean of a journalism and
communications school, that in my city, L.A., we are seeing the slow
decline of a great American newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. And look
at San Diego at the closure of The Union and other papers.
So,
at a time when the legacy print media is literally disappearing before
our eyes, and the legacy broadcast media is cutting back on
investigative reporting and long-form reporting, now is a tremendous
opportunity—and I would say obligation—for public service media to help
fill that gap, especially at the local level.
Because in a lot
of these cities, the local newspapers have died. Without those public
broadcasting systems stepping in to fill that gap, I'm not sure who is
going to do that. What about local commercial TV news operations? If
you look at studies indicating the amount of time devoted to actual
hard news on the local commercial station, it is going down. Same way
for their international coverage, which has been slashed to the bone at
the largest commercial stations. NPR, by contrast, has been building up
its international coverage. In many ways, NPR has become the gold
standard for national and international reporting.
And when I
turn to my public broadcasting stations, they are covering local news
and doing real, serious journalism. We are going to be looking at
journalism over the coming year, including the possibility of setting
up various ways that local reporters can pool and share their news in
public broadcasting.
I think we have a pretty well-balanced
portfolio now. But more attention is going to be devoted to hard news
and financial issues.
So, the next time you ask Congress for money, will you ask for more for local news expansion?
Yeah.
Localism has been the theme song of public broadcasting for many years.
Every time folks go to the Hill they say that. But it is still true. We
still say it. It is still necessary, but more so than ever because the
local news sources are dying.
We are at a unique pivot point in
public broadcasting. There is a huge demand for what we do. We are
among the most trusted media outlets in the U.S. We are at this moment
where the sky is the limit.
When my students come in, they
say this is the most exciting time to be a journalist and a
communicator in the history of the world because we have more
technological assets and tools than we have ever had before.
So,
I think this is a very hopeful time for American journalism broadly,
and for public media specifically. What a great time to be doing this.
So long as there is government money to support it, because it is not a great time to be making a business out of it.
I
think the challenge is not to prop up business models that are failing.
My students don't care how they get their news. They get it across a
variety of transports. We are in this sort of waterfall period. There
was stability and calm pools above the falls, and there will be
stability and calm pools below the falls, but right now we are in a
hell of a transition.
You are right: NBC Universal, The New
York Times, the L.A. Times, are all looking for business models. But
that does not obviate the likelihood that this is going to eventually
be figured out by smart folks. As that happens, we will continue to
live in the most media-drenched opportunity for local voices, local
people, local institutions, to tell their stories that mankind has ever
seen.
So, the down economy, while it has put a hurting on
noncoms, has also given them an opportunity to fill what you see as a
news void?
The short answer is, yes. Now, I don't want to
dance on their graves, but the reality is that we are, in fact, in
every locality around the country—more so than Clear Channel, more so
than USA Today. So, I am very upbeat about the future of public service
media provided we—local stations, NPR, PBS, CPB—can come together and
continue the kind of dialog that we have been having. I have been here
since 2000. This past year, I have seen more openness and frankness to
talk about tough issues than I have seen.
Ken Tomlinson,
former chairman of the board, seemed to think that noncommercial media
are liberally biased and needed some conservative counterbalance
Ken
and I came on the board at the same time. I worked closely with him.
And I fundamentally disagreed as a matter of empirical reality. Twice
the CPB board commissioned studies—I think we had a Republican firm and
Democratic firm do the studies—and said we want you to rank in order of
objectivity and clarity and lack of bias the media in the U.S. The
public broadcasting system was ranked the least biased of all.
Should we be past highlighting the fact that you are the first African American to hold this job, or does it inform what you do?
We
are all the product of our upbringing. I grew up in Washington, D.C.,
when it was segregated. My parents couldn't take me to shop in downtown
Washington. We couldn't very safely drive on Route 40 to visit my
grandparents in Philadelphia. So that is going to shape who I am.
But
the thing that has really shaped me a lot lately is moving to L.A.,
which is probably the most global and diverse city on the face of the
earth. There are 19 population groups in L.A. that are larger than any
other population grouping. For example, there are more Koreans in L.A.
than any place else than Seoul.
Our ideas of diversity are
being exploded and expanded in ways that I think are really
invigorating and very, very exciting. We are becoming a gumbo nation.
My own background as an African American informs my identity, but it is
certainly not the only thing.
The board had a very long
discussion about the values of diversity, the importance of diversity
in terms of age and race and national background. And I sat there and
didn't have to say a lot because it was a very rich conversation by the
members around the table, who were deeply committed to this idea about
making public service media reflect and give access to a variety of
rich voices.
So, I'm not sure I would lead with it.