"Today, the shit has hit the fan. The broadcast audience is shrinking. Membership is flat or falling. Sponsorship has peaked. Federal support is gone. And it's not just public media. The entire media ecosystem now orbits YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, and TikTok - platforms with infinite content and little to no sense of responsibility for what they amplify. AI is about to accelerate those dynamics a hundredfold."
"public media leans into a new role: Treat journalism as an on-demand civic tool, and use new technologies to help people answer real questions about the places they live. Use stations as hubs in a wider network that stitches together national newsrooms, local outlets, and independent creators - instead of leaving that work to black-box algorithms. Build shared membership systems so that when audiences support one part of that network, their dollars can move - cleanly and transparently - to others."
Broadcast audiences are shrinking, memberships are flat or declining, sponsorship has peaked, and federal support has disappeared. Major platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, and TikTok dominate the media ecosystem while amplifying content with little accountability. AI threatens to accelerate those trends and further erase local civic information. Local public media stations retain trust and place-based reporting capacity that remains valuable. A durable digital civic news platform should treat journalism as an on-demand civic tool, use stations as networked hubs linking national and local producers, and implement shared membership systems that transparently move support throughout the network.
Read at Nieman Lab
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