public media

PRX at FCC Workshop on Public and Noncommercial Media

Jake posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 | Blog | No Comments

I’ve been invited to participate in the FCC’s April 30 2010 workshop on “public and other noncommercial media in the digital era” (PDF agenda and panels/speakers here)

This is part of the FCC’s “Future of Media” project – a broad inquiry into the new media moment that is starting to take center stage after the big FCC Broadband Plan came out.

Here’s is my 5-minute talk for the panel on “New Platforms, Approaches and Structures” – still subject to some change in the moment – and I expect some Q & A to follow.

Thank you Ellen Goodman, Steve Waldman, and Chairman Genachowski, for inviting me to weigh in on these issues. I am a big believer in the need for public media in the digital era, and appreciate the Commission elevating this discussion at a time of great ferment in media and journalism.

So who needs public broadcasting in the age of YouTube?

“You” = public and “Tube” = broadcasting, right? Every day thousands of videos are posted to YouTube, reaching millions of people across every conceivable interest. Anyone can create, broadcast, and distribute. It’s open, democratic, participatory, exploding with free expression.

Should we declare victory and hand back the spectrum?
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Tags: fcc, policy, public media

“Public Media: From Broadcast to Broadband” discussion at Berkman Center

Jake posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | Blog, PRX in the News | No Comments

On Tuesday Ellen Goodman and I presented at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University as part of the Center’s weekly luncheon series.

The topic was “Public Media: from broadcast to broadband” and we managed to cover a lot of territory and start a good discussion in the 90 minutes or so we had at our disposal. Considering that there are not infrequent multi-day convenings and conferences on these issues it was quite an exercise to boil it down to some essentials.

Ellen is working with the Ford Foundation (of which PRX is a grantee) to help shape a research and policy agenda on public media, and PRX itself is in the thick of things as a player in the field effecting change through our services and projects.

The video is embedded here (downloadable and non-YouTube versions here), and below that I’ve posted the slides from the presentation.