News Voices Updates

During a recent public hearing convened by the Assembly Budget Committee, Mike Rispoli, a former statehouse reporter, asked lawmakers to consider establishing a news consortium using $100 million from the anticipated auction proceeds.

New Jersey auctioned off a public treasure — several of its public-TV stations — for possibly hundreds of millions of dollars, with little public debate or any idea of what the governor plans to do with the money. But it's not too late to seize this moment and use this money to transform New Jersey into the national leader in digital public media, local journalism and civic technology.

There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rethink how people around New Jersey stay up to date with what’s going on in their communities and the state. The state’s participation in the recently concluded FCC spectrum auction, in which it sold off its old public-TV licenses, is bringing in hundreds of millions in new public revenues.

TRENTON — Free Press Action Fund on Wednesday called on the New Jersey legislature to use money from the auction of the state’s public-TV stations to create the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, a joint initiative with four of the state’s leading universities to invest in community-information needs.

Listen to an afternoon of micro-conversations, hosted by WNYC's Rebecca Carroll, featuring lawmakers, writers, artists and educators. This event was held at the Newark Public Library in partnership with Free Press.

The advocacy group Free Press is encouraging public broadcasters to invest their earnings back into local news and information.