Current.org - For People in Public Media / Published at American University School of Communication

Nonprofit news outfits that have sprung up across the country to fill gaps left by commercial media have hit an unexpected barrier in establishing themselves as providers of local news and information: the Internal Revenue Service. As many as a dozen journalism startups, most of them run largely by volunteers and accepting no advertising, have had their requests to be recognized as tax-exempt organizations delayed for many months and, in some cases, years. Continue reading →

For two decades, Dick McPherson has managed the McPherson Associates’ Public Media Co-op, through which 30-plus stations with more than 25 percent of pubTV members have shared fundraising materials, strategies and tests. Current asked McPherson to flesh out his heroically … Continue reading →

After stints in the cable world as producers and programmers, PBS execs Beth Hoppe and Donald Thoms returned to PBS last August to assist Chief TV Programming Executive John Wilson with primetime scheduling. They’ve also been working closely with producers … Continue reading →

A committee of Maine’s legislature unanimously voted April 5 to reject Gov.  Paul LePage’s bid to eliminate funding for the state’s public broadcasting network. The bipartisan 13-member Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs agreed to keep the Maine … Continue reading →

No, there won’t be any windfall of Obama and Romney Super PAC gazillions for public stations this year. By a 2–1 vote, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco did indeed rule April 12 that … Continue reading →

The Arts on Radio and Television fund of the National Endowment for the Arts, a source of millions of programming dollars for public media, is distributing matching grants to a wider range of recipients this year — from a smaller … Continue reading →

Grantmakers at foundations increasingly look for public radio and television stations to move beyond traditional broadcasting and serve their communities in new ways — as conveners of public dialogue, as innovators testing new approaches for producing and funding digital journalism, … Continue reading →