JOUR1111 Lecture 7 - Public Media

Public media, often coined as 'our media' or the peoples media is essentially media that is not driven by profit but rather strives for public value. Where commercial media's main focus is on creating revenue, public media is predominately funded by the government and is focused on quality. Whilst commercial media survives or fails on the success of the business and therefore censors its content to gain the most viewers, public media has the luxury of reporting  the news without the pressure of answering to anyone. According to Nigel Milan, the Former Director of SBS, "The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens".

The WGBH Educational Foundation Conference defines Public Media in the following statement. "In general, media whose mission is to serve or engage a public. Public media include traditional publiclyfunded broadcasters and networks … as well as public uses of  new platforms and distribution mechanisms, such as the Internet, podcasting, blogging. Increasingly the term "public media" is less associated with taxpayer supported media; it may be for profit so long as its ultimate purpose is to serve the public and not to turn a profit."

An important feature that public media should have is public value. Public value, according the BBC is embedding a ‘public service ethos’, value for licence fee money, ‘weighing public value against market impact’and public consultation. Public Media places importance over interest and therefore holds four main functions, that is; nation building, national heritage, national identity and national conversations. A a result of these factors public media is often the least bias when reporting news and is often presented in a broadsheet style. 

The Broadcasting Research Unit in 1985 defined public service broadcasting or otherwise public media as

involving the following features. 

• Geographical universality. Broadcast programmes should be available to the whole population.
• Universality of appeal. Broadcast programmes should cater for all tastes and interests.
• There should be special provision for minorities, especially disadvantaged minorities.
• Broadcasters should recognise their special relationship to the sense of national identity and community. Broadcasting should be distanced from all vested interests, and in particular from those of the government of the day.
• Universality of payment. One main instrument of broadcasting should be directly funded by the corpus of users. 
• Broadcasting should be structured so as to encourage competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers.
• The public guidelines for broadcasting should liberate rather than restrict broadcasters. 

However although public media is still the predominate source of news for majority of Australians, over recent years there has been the slight commercialisation of public media. For example the ABC has opened up franchise stores which generates a small amount of profit however of which is all put back into the business. 

Elwyn Brooks White, the American writer, sent a letter to the Carnegie Commission, outlining his dream of public television. "Non-commercial TV should address itself to the ideal of excellence, not the idea of acceptability -- which is what keeps commercial TV from climbing the staircase. I think TV should be providing the visual counterpart of the literary message, should arouse our dreams, satisfy our hunger for beauty, take us on journeys, enable us to participate in events, present great drama and music, explore the sea and the sky and the woods and the hills. It should restate and clarify the social dilemma and the political pickle. Once in a while it does, and you get a quick glimpse of its potential."

Essentially public media, as adequately put by ABC Managing Director Mark Scott, "is not accountable for profit but it is for quality". It is for this reason alone that I believe public media is integral in maintaining quality and considered news reporting . Whilst Public media is often more serious and sometimes seen as elitist and even out of touch, it is considered the last bastion of long form investigative journalism.