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From the President 
In many ways, the idea of the public media is as much an article of faith as it is a hard fact. The “public” in public media means that we believe there is a sphere of activity that is not strictly private, not the work of government, but rather a realm of culture and education, ideas and discussion that we work through together. To an extent that is unique in the modern world, the civil society sphere in the United States has been forged by the nonprofit sector, a network of private philanthropy, volunteers and organizations that operates for the general public benefit, meeting needs of education, the environment, health and culture, especially those needs that cannot be addressed by market interests. If we mark broadcasting’s debut with Lee de Forest’s 1910 radio transmissions, the media has been with us for well over 90 years. But the idea of a distinctly public media is a relatively new conception. The public media we know today came about only because at various points in the past, people saw the need, articulated a vision, fought the political battles and worked to create the consensus that made public broadcasting possible. Today, public media comprises a network of people and organizations, from media arts centers to individuals who work to create content for public television, public radio and the Web, for nonprofits, community workshops and educational institutions. But above all, public media constitutes an ideal. It is the principle of the broadcasting commons, the idea that there is a place, that there should be a place where public discussion can flourish. Public media is the broadcasting sphere of education, civil discourse and culture in its most expansive conception. This is not necessarily a place where we are constrained to agree about everything. It is rather a place where debate is welcome, where we can see ourselves and our values presented, discussed, considered. For independents, this is a significant set of distinctions because it points to the continued importance of public television. At a time when media channels are proliferating at a staggering rate, when broadcasting reach is being defined in ever more precise slices of niche markets and target audiences, the public television system is still finding its way into 99 percent of U.S. homes. Public television is still driven by the mission to educate and inform, to stir thinking, to reach into every corner and community of America. That is an enormous power—and an enormous responsibility. In an era of packaging and branding, sound bites and easy answers, we have to hold on to that high-minded mission to educate and, in the words of Lyndon Johnson, whose administration oversaw the inauguration of public television, “direct that power toward the great and not the trivial purposes.” The task at hand for independents is to ensure that the “public” in public television is never diminished. Independents do more than represent diversity in public broadcasting. They find the stories that need to be told and bring them into the national conversation. Independents give the public media relevancy and legitimacy. Independents keep public media democratic. Public media is not some kind of eternal and unassailable verity that exists for all time. It is an ideal, and an everevolving ideal. It grew out of a specific set of historical circumstances, and it confronts, for better or worse, a new set of circumstances today. As the sociologist Robert Bellah says: “We live through our institutions.” We owe a debt of gratitude to those who created the institutions of public media as we know them. This means the physical institutions, the organizations, the legal groundwork, the audiences. It also means the more intangible intellectual and political institutions. The articles of faith. The fact that we are continually called upon to question and affirm what we mean when we say “public media.” The fact that we must question and affirm our belief that there is something important, something vital about a big, broad, diverse, inclusive, generous and curious public life. We live in the world those creators made. Now it’s our turn: Public media will become what we make of it. —Sally Jo Fifer |
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