Glad to see our findings in How Media Ownership Matters confirmed and extended - will read this closely ! global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Looks fascinating and definitely worth checking out !

Thanks @lisafung.bsky.social ! I’m glad you liked it!

“This is a nut that no one else in the country has cracked — how to translate what nonprofit newsrooms are doing for commercial TV.” www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/can-...

I enjoyed talking to UCLA's Luskin Center for History and Policy podcast "Then and Now" about the origins and possible future of public media. Thanks to Ben Zdencanovic.

So true - all of it!

As I told the reporter, KQED's announced [layoffs] make "it clear that no one in public media is safe. The threat to public media funding affects even the largest & strongest outlets.” Excellent article w/additional comments from @victorpickard.bsky.social & Nik Usher, www.kqed.org/news/1204866...

So much for multi-year funding, staggered terms for CPB board members, an organizational home as an independent nonprofit. These carefully designed protections could not stop a power-grabbing President and a sycophantic Congress. Not a great day for US democracy. www.cnn.com/2025/07/17/m...

Unfortunately, part of my prediction is already coming true: "In a future company controlled by Skydance, it's easy to imagine that Stewart's and Colbert's shows could be short-lived." www.newsweek.com/jon-stewart-...

The Senate is on the verge of stripping more than a billion dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which could decimate local news stations. Defenders of public media have mobilized to stop the bill, which strips more than $1.1 billion from the CPB, which includes cuts to NPR and PBS.

Government-backed institutions sometimes stand up more strongly to authoritarianism than their commercial counterparts.

As GOP congressional leaders are vowing to move full steam ahead to approve Trump's request to eliminate federal funding for public media for the next two years, a group of 29 Senate Democrats are warning the broadcast outlets should be "protected, not decimated."

Our new book measured partisan slant in 21 US news outlets. NPR had a 1.0 index score (perfectly balanced), compared to Fox (1.6, imbalanced for the right) and WashPost (1.4, for the left). PBS was in the center of our sample (1.2). We find US public media are less “biased” than other media.

BREAKING: A US district judge just ruled that Trump's effort to dismantle Voice of America, and Radio Free Asia and Middle East is likely illegal. Judge ordered the White House “to take all necessary steps" to restore these outlets to their former (pre-Trump EO) status. #SoMuchLosing

Woah

Deciding What’s News set the research agenda for the sociology of news (& for the production of culture writ large) for a generation. A landmark work, a truly great scholar. Herb always made time for junior scholars. His surprise emails commenting on some recent article he had read were legendary.

Donald Trump *personally* caused the crisis in confidence in US bonds, the approx 10% slide in the S&P 500 in the last month, and the unfolding collapse of international tourism to the United States. Leaving aside everything he did before, he should be the biggest pariah ever to hold the office.

The presidents of 200 US colleges declare: "As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education." Good! www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-c...

Thank you @arusbridger.bsky.social & @lionelbarber.bsky.social for discussing How Media Ownership Matters (Oxford, just out) - especially its finding of high quality public affairs coverage by US, Swedish & French public & civil society/nonprofit outlets www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/med...

Great reminder @timkarr.bsky.social but I found very convincing @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social ‘s argument that Trump ultimately only responds to institutional power - eg when Harvard stood up to him or if and when major companies or business leaders push back

...Sullivan calls on readers to "demand better" from news outlets. & they should, of course. But they should also look at the other endemic pressures (ie profit motives) that led to this failure, & advocate for more systemic change. Supporting a robust public/noncommercial media system is a start.

At least 50pc of the decisions being taken in the administration at the moment relate to ancient N.Y. real estate beefs…..the movie The Apprentice is basically a documentary www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/n...

Anything from Free Press is worth reading: this is a make or break moment to save public media in this country. We deserve the same high quality accessible public media that other (stronger) democracies take for granted as a key to creating an informed and (relatively) non-polarized citizenry

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." —Louis Brandeis

Belatedly arriving to Bluesky! I'm really looking forward to this discussion with Anya Schiffrin and Steve Waldman on how owners and ownership models can support the quality journalism that democracy needs

ICYMI: My recent essay for @thenation.com on the history and future of US public media, a democratic infrastructure under attack by Trump and his followers.