Press Release
Journalism Crisis Is Public Media’s Opportunity
Contact: Timothy Karr, 201-533-8838
WASHINGTON – Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron will testify today before the Federal Communications Commission about new strategies for supporting public media in the digital era.
"This is the moment to re-imagine our old public broadcasting system and rebuild it as a new public media network committed to education, to community service and, most importantly, to local newsgathering,” Aaron will tell the FCC on a panel Friday afternoon. “The reality is there is no longer enough private capital — in the form of advertising, subscriptions or philanthropy — to support the depth and breadth of quality news reporting our communities need. Yet at the time when the need for public media couldn’t be bigger, we’re spending far too little."
The United States now spends about $420 million per year in public money for public media. That works out to just $1.43 per capita. By comparison, Canada spends more than $27 per capita, and England spends $87 per capita.
"Just imagine how the American public media system could dramatically increase its reach and relevance with as little as $5 per person,” Aaron says. “While annual appropriations for public media are still essential, we can’t count on the politically charged process in Congress to provide long-term fiscal viability and independence. What’s needed instead is a supplemental source of revenue: a trust fund seeded with a substantial endowment that eventually could enable the public media system to become nearly or completely self-sufficient."
In prepared testimony, Aaron details a series of proposals that could build a public media trust using spectrum fees, a spectrum auction, a tiny tax on advertising, changes to the way advertising is treated in the tax code, or a small assessment on consumer electronic devices. Over the next decade, each of these plans could put tens of billions into a public media trust and sustain significantly higher annual budgets to support local and investigative journalism, arts and culture programming, and education.
Read the prepared remarks: http://www.freepress.net/files/Craig_Aaron_FCC_Public_Media_Prepared_Testimony.pdf
Watch the FCC’s Future of Media workshop: http://www.fcc.gov/live
"This is the moment to re-imagine our old public broadcasting system and rebuild it as a new public media network committed to education, to community service and, most importantly, to local newsgathering,” Aaron will tell the FCC on a panel Friday afternoon. “The reality is there is no longer enough private capital — in the form of advertising, subscriptions or philanthropy — to support the depth and breadth of quality news reporting our communities need. Yet at the time when the need for public media couldn’t be bigger, we’re spending far too little."
The United States now spends about $420 million per year in public money for public media. That works out to just $1.43 per capita. By comparison, Canada spends more than $27 per capita, and England spends $87 per capita.
"Just imagine how the American public media system could dramatically increase its reach and relevance with as little as $5 per person,” Aaron says. “While annual appropriations for public media are still essential, we can’t count on the politically charged process in Congress to provide long-term fiscal viability and independence. What’s needed instead is a supplemental source of revenue: a trust fund seeded with a substantial endowment that eventually could enable the public media system to become nearly or completely self-sufficient."
In prepared testimony, Aaron details a series of proposals that could build a public media trust using spectrum fees, a spectrum auction, a tiny tax on advertising, changes to the way advertising is treated in the tax code, or a small assessment on consumer electronic devices. Over the next decade, each of these plans could put tens of billions into a public media trust and sustain significantly higher annual budgets to support local and investigative journalism, arts and culture programming, and education.
Read the prepared remarks: http://www.freepress.net/files/Craig_Aaron_FCC_Public_Media_Prepared_Testimony.pdf
Watch the FCC’s Future of Media workshop: http://www.fcc.gov/live
