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A little more than a year ago, the federal government delivered a devastating blow to a critical part of our media landscape: It defunded public media.
The move, under the direction of President Donald Trump, stripped important funding from public radio and television stations that provide crucial news and information from our biggest cities all the way to our most rural outposts.
As public media continues to adapt to the loss of significant resources, a partnership of the Poynter Institute and Public Media Company today is launching the Future of Public Media Initiative. It is being described as “a national effort to reimagine a public media system built to serve communities for the next 50 years and beyond.”
In an official statement, the Future of Public Media Initiative says, “Poynter and Public Media Company will guide a process based on community needs that leads to a full set of recommendations — focused on renewing public media’s purpose, definition and design principles — during the first quarter of 2027. The initiative will build on groundbreaking research that offers the most comprehensive analysis available of how communities across America want media to serve them.”
The Poynter Report talked to the two leaders who are spearheading this effort: Sitara Nieves, Poynter’s vice president of teaching and organizational strategy, and Public Media Company CEO Tim Isgitt.
Here’s an edited portion of our conversation:
Poynter: What do you think has happened to public media in the year since it was defunded? And how do you think people have been impacted?
Sitara Nieves: The end of federal funding was a seismic shock for the 1,500 stations that are across the country — though not all in the same way. For many stations, the funding that came through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was actually a relatively small part of their budget — still important, but small, because they have a lot of community support, donors and other other sources of funding. But for some of the smallest and most rural stations, that funding was a more significant part of their budget and was an existential threat to their survival. … Regardless of how much funding each station was receiving, depending on their size and a number of other things, it has been very difficult.
Tim Isgitt: In one sense, public media is facing a perfect storm. We’re part of a rapidly changing media and technology landscape that is providing unlimited content — but perhaps not the content we need. We can get any national journalism we need, but we can get very little local journalism from this landscape. There are unlimited places for my kid to get entertainment, but very few safe places for him to learn. We’re part of a media and technology landscape that is largely failing our society — with detrimental societal impacts, whether it’s misinformation, lack of trust or the effects it’s having on polarization, teen mental health or the loneliness epidemic. That reality is one part of the storm, and then last year public media lost a significant source of revenue very suddenly. And it wasn’t just funding for stations. It was funding that supported the entire system, held it together, and allowed it to operate as a network. So 2025 was a perfect storm.
What was the reaction to that?
Isgitt: The good news is that you’ve seen a lot of folks rally to the cause and rediscover why they value a public interest media system in this country, and support it. This is true of national philanthropy all the way down to the number of new members local stations have seen come out to support them over the last year. I think all of this has illuminated the need for more of what public media does in this country — more opportunity, more demand now for media that serves the public’s interests, that informs us, inspires us and educates us, and builds trust. In a landscape where trust is eroding and challenged in so many ways, we need media that builds trust and connects us.
Why launch this initiative?
Isgitt: We all want to live in a world that is more informed, more engaged, more connected, and we know the media plays an important role in that. We need more public interest media, more sources of trusted information, inspiration and education. We need things that bring us together, that connect us around shared values, interests, and curiosity. And the media landscape is just not providing that right now. So there is an opportunity — in fact, a need, a responsibility — to create something new and fit for purpose. Public Media Company for 25 years has been working with local stations to sustain their business, to help make sure that local stations continue to serve the needs of their communities. That simple thing is being challenged today like never before, for the reasons I just outlined. We might be able to bring stations to some sort of sustainability, some pathway to sustainability in a post-CPB world. But as a whole, our public service media is just not scaled or organized to serve our societal and community needs. We’re at a moment where we need to scale that work.
Nieves: We’re living in an era of enormous change, where technology has connected us in new ways — but has also left us isolated from each other and from reliable news and information. This matters deeply to Poynter because our work has always been about strengthening the connection between media and the public it serves, in service to democracy — whether that’s helping newsrooms stay financially sustainable, helping people build the skills to spot misinformation, or helping communities get the local coverage they need. And at the heart of this initiative is listening to communities across the country about what’s most needed.”
In the best-case scenario, how does the work of this initiative turn out?
Isgitt: I hope this is elevating the need and the demand for media that serves our interests, the public’s interests. I want us all to feel like we have some agency to address what’s happening to us right now. We can do better. We need to elevate the role of media in our lives, in our democracy, such that people understand what is at stake here. And demand something more. At the end of the day, I hope that we understand that to solve our society’s problems and have a functioning country, we need to be investing in information and media that we can trust.
How can people get involved with what you’re doing?
Nieves: It’s worth thinking about what you wish you had where you live — more connection with your neighbors, better sources of information, whatever it might be and how a reimagined public media system might help meet those needs. We are going to be sending out email updates to anybody who’s interested in learning more about our work or getting involved. And we’ll publish our progress regularly at futureofpublicmedia.org. We encourage you to sign up to get those updates and stay connected and engage with us.
Tim, why should people care about this?
Isgitt: Because we care about the future, and we’re trying to create a better future for our kids that is more civil and connected — that provides them the information they need to function as neighbors and as citizens. Given where our media and technology landscape is going right now, it’s hard to see that future for them. So we have to create it.
Here are some more details about the public media initiative.
According to the official release:
The Future of Public Media Initiative will engage a wide coalition – of civic leaders, public media station leaders and staff, nonprofit media and concerned citizens – in the creation of a shared framework to answer key questions about public media’s future. They will use this work “to drive a recommendation for where a public media system could go and what it could look like – how it might serve the real needs of communities in this country at scale,” Nieves said. They start with some working ideas about what is needed, including:
- Public media must be free and driven by local need and community service.
- A future system must be developed to meet a national need for local connection and information.
- A dynamic system of existing community-rooted, nonprofit media organizations should be included in an expanded definition of public media.
The group’s website, futureofpublicmedia.org, will offer regular updates, and those interested can sign up on the site to stay informed about the project.
My thanks to Sitara Nieves and Tim Isgitt and now onto the rest of today’s newsletter …
Photo Courtesy of CBS News.
The new season of “60 Minutes” gets underway this coming Sunday. All eyes will be tuned in to see what the new show looks like.
This will start the 59th season of the iconic news magazine show, but there has never been a more critical or anticipated season in its history.
As you know, there have been massive changes since the end of last season under CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who has been accused by former “60 Minutes” correspondents of attempting to inject political bias or falsehoods into their reporting.
Since the end of last season, several veteran correspondents have left. Anderson Cooper left on his own accord, while Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecila Vega were fired, as was executive producer Tanya Simon.
Nick Bilton, who has virtually no TV network news experience, has been named executive producer. Ross Douthat, a conservative New York Times opinion writer with no experience as a TV journalist, was brought in as a correspondent, as were contributors Sebastian Junger, former CNN and Vice News correspondent Gianna Toboni and Trevor Phillips, a British journalist who joined CBS News earlier this year.
They will join veteran correspondents and holdovers Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl and Jon Wertheim, in addition to Norah O’Donnell, who was just named co-host of “CBS Mornings.”
The Los Angeles Times’ Stephen Battaglio reports that one segment planned for the season premiere is a Wertheim story on the Super Bowl-favorite Los Angeles Rams, including interviews with head coach Sean McVay and quarterback Matthew Stafford, along with a look at owner Stan Kroenke’s investment in technology, including artificial intelligence.
The other two segments for Sunday’s show will be announced later this week. Battaglio reports that one of those segments could feature an interview with a “significant newsmaker.”
In November 2022, Elizabeth Holmes — founder of the failed blood-testing company Theranos — was sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors. But, in the month before she began serving her sentence, she sat down before cameras in an effort to clear her name.
The result is a secret-till-now documentary made by absurdist comedian Nathan Fielder and the documentary director Lance Oppenheim called “You Can See Everything.” (Check out this strange trailer.) The film will be released on Oct. 16, but it had a secret screening Sunday night at Telluride Film Festival in Colorado.
Fielder told the audience, “I really am struggling to this day to understand exactly what I experienced.”
The New York Times’ Nicole Sperling wrote, “The movie features long, intense conversations between Fielder and Holmes with extreme close-ups. It also reveals that while Holmes serves her time at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, she and her partner, Billy Evans, are making plans ‘to launch a new and improved Theranos,’ the company that collapsed after its deceptive claims about blood-testing technology were exposed by The Wall Street Journal in 2015. What can’t be featured in on-camera interviews is depicted in innovative recreations. Two weeks before (Holmes) leaves for prison, Fielder moves into the home and is there for moments many would consider off limits. There’s also a surprise plot point that shouldn’t be spoiled.”
Vanity Fair’s Rebecca Ford wrote that the documentary was met with “shock and awe.”
But, Ford wrote, “the 174-minute documentary was indeed worth the wait. It’s full of unexpected twists and turns and shocking reveals, with Fielder and Oppenheim having incredible access to Holmes and her husband Billy Evans in the weeks leading up to her prison sentence for her conviction of defrauding investors.”
Ford added, “After Holmes begins her sentence, the documentary continues, but takes an extremely unexpected twist that involves the appearance of a notable Hollywood actress. The audience was asked by Fielder and Oppenheim to not reveal the person who appears in the doc because of the overwhelming shock of that twist.”
For more, check out this story from The Los Angeles Times’ Josh Rottenberg: “What happened inside Telluride’s secret screening of Nathan Fielder’s new Elizabeth Holmes documentary.”
As my Poynter colleagues covered in last Friday’s newsletter, the stunning news in media last week was the departure of Maria Bartiromo at Fox News (and Fox Business). Status’ Oliver Darcy broke the story that Bartiromo was let go because she informed the Trump White House that her network issued a written guidance to not give coverage to Donald Trump’s conspiracies about 2020 election fraud. This came after Trump’s unhinged primetime speech in July peddled such conspiracies. The speech was barely covered by Fox.
At the time, I wrote, “… it should be noted that Sean Hannity’s show, which was preempted for the Trump speech, spent very little time on the speech after it was over. Hannity quickly pivoted to the war in Iran, followed by stories about wildfires up north and floods down south.”
The next day, “Fox & Friends” didn’t mention Trump’s speech at all.
Darcy wrote, “It’s unclear whether Trump or someone at the White House inquired with Bartiromo about the lack of coverage. But ultimately Bartiromo spilled the secret, Status has learned, divulging to the White House that Trump’s speech had received scant coverage on the channel because network bosses had ordered it so. I’m even told the text message in which Fox News brass offered their guidance was shared by Bartiromo with the White House. In doing so, Bartiromo not only effectively betrayed her employer, but also disclosed confidential company information, violating the terms of her employment agreement.”
On Friday, Bartiromo’s lawyer put out a statement that said, “The irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox are absolutely and unequivocally false. Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise. Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth.”
However, if Bartiromo did share confidential information from Fox executives with the White House, then credit Fox for seeing it for what it was: an inexcusable and fireable offense.
In a savage video online, veteran CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp blasted Bartiromo, talking about how Bartiromo has gone from a once-respected journalist to becoming “something else” because of Trump.
“She became Trump’s propaganda machine,” Cupp said. “It was either for Trump or money, but she made a calculation somewhere along the line to stop being a journalist.”
As far as this incident, Cupp said, “Basically, she was calling Daddy to tell on Mommy. She was basically saying, ‘Mommy won’t let me do this, Dad. What are you going to do about it?’ ”
Then Cupp said, “Gross! Absolutely gross and embarrassing. As a journalist, I’m embarrassed for her that this is how she’s going out because this is such a dumb, ugly, stupid, totally unnecessary thing to do. It’s really sad.”
Charles Barkley has been one of the best sports analysts for years. And at 63, he remains very much on top of his broadcasting game. However, he tells podcaster Bill Simmons that the upcoming NBA season could very well be his last. He also said it could be the last for “Inside the NBA” host Ernie Johnson.
Barkley told Simmons, “Me and Ernie are a package deal. So right now, unless Ernie changes his mind, next year is my last year 100 percent.”
So, a couple of things. First, Johnson hasn’t publicly revealed that this will be his last NBA season. And, secondly, Barkley has been talking about retiring for years now.
For now, let’s put this in the I-believe-it-when-I-see-it file.
- This is ugly. Longtime “Wheel of Fortune” announcer Jim Thornton has been fired. Variety’s Michael Schneider wrote, “Thornton’s firing came just hours after TMZ posted photos of what were allegedly him on an American Airlines plane with his laptop opened on a? ‘disturbing chat room’ that appeared to be ‘images and texts that made it appear it was a chat room for pedophiles.’ The up-close photos of the laptop’s screen showed lewd conversations about minors. The alleged incident took place in May, when according to TMZ, a passenger informed a flight attendant about the chat screen on Thornton’s laptop.”
- After nearly 30 years at MS NOW (previously MSNBC), Alex Witt signed off for the final time on Sunday. Mediaite’s Jennifer Bowers Bahney has the details here.
- The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait with “J. D. Vance’s Disingenuous Defense of Tucker Carlson.”
- Build a strong foundation for managing people in our five-day Essential Skills for New Managers, March 1–5, 2027, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Designed for managers with up to three years of experience, the program covers delegation, feedback, difficult conversations, managing up and leading former peers. Apply by Dec. 7.
- Strengthen your investigative reporting with Will Work for Impact: Fundamentals of Investigative Journalism from Oct. 2-Nov. 3, 2026. Enroll now.
- Join a free Poynter webinar on Covering Immigration with Care on Oct. 21 that gives practical guidance on trauma-informed interviewing, ethical storytelling and reporting beyond crisis-driven narratives. Enroll now.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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