Opinion: Why lost CPB data is a blow to our public service

This commentary was first published on the website of Public Media for All and is republished here with permission.

Many things are being lost with the end of CPB, including public access to important information that was used to provide some measure of standard accountability in public media as part of Community Service Grant reporting. Perhaps this makes sense, as there are no more CSG funds to be distributed, and CPB is focusing on other things as they wind down with limited staff. Yet given public media’s commitment to reporting, education and transparency, the sudden loss seems a little odd, especially when erasing data from national websites of record has been such a controversial topic this year. 

Why does this matter? 

Back in 2021, Public Media for All did an analysis comparing race and ethnicity data of public media employees to the U.S. population as a whole. This work was possible because of publicly available CSG reporting data on CPB’s website. Our analysis showed that the workforces of public media stations continued to be far less diverse than the communities the stations aim to serve. While this was hardly surprising, it was an important truth to quantify. That’s also why CPB required stations to provide this data in order to qualify for CSG funding. You manage what you measure. 

The CSG reporting was far from perfect. CPB oversight was limited. There were no clear goals and no consequences for failure to improve. Still, it provided some transparency, required some management and therefore created some accountability for stations to employ people who reflected their communities and the diverse array of human experience in this country. That kind of staffing is essential for a core part of our mission: serving America in part by intentionally creating content by and for historically marginalized communities.

The standardized, publicly accessible data collected longitudinally allowed for easy deep-dive analysis going back many years. Now that CSG funding is gone and with it all demographic reporting requirements, our ability to track our progress as a network towards the dynamic, fair, complex and varied service that the public deserves is in jeopardy. 

Local accountability

There are many reasons why individual stations should continue to commit to collecting and reporting this data. 

• When done well, annual employee engagement surveys continue to be a vital source for information to increase staff satisfaction, retention and productivity. Including demographic questions in these surveys is easy and allows for deeper, more nuanced analysis. 
• Regularly reporting these survey results to a governing or community board should be standard practice and will proactively engage them as station leaders and supporters.
• Many funders request this kind of data as part of their grant application process, so it’s good to have recent numbers readily on hand. 
• Stations can include this data on their websites as an act of good-faith transparency to their communities. 

Yet individual stations acting on the honor system, or just best practices, will not give us an easily accessible view of the system as a whole. 

A lesson from newsrooms

We do not have to look far to see why national-level data is important and also hard to collect. For decades, journalism industry groups ran the Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey, but lack of support and declining voluntary participation led to its pause in 2020. Without incentives like funding, it was hard for newsrooms to prioritize this kind of reporting work. However, declining participation does not mean that this industrywide data analysis isn’t still vital. That’s why the American Press Institute is working to preserve the historical data and revive the survey with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Funding implications

Mission and funding go hand in hand. Functionally, they cannot be separated. We need funds to work towards our mission, and a strong mission is necessary to inspire giving. Alex Curley from Semipublic has been leading efforts to save CSG data. In a piece for Current and also on Substack, Curley has highlighted how CPB’s reporting has been critical in determining which stations were most at risk from defunding and where funders could make the most impact. Improving public service must be measured in relation to budgets, with investments measured by impact. As public media organizations chart a path forward, it will be critical for them to have national revenue and demographic benchmarks to inform their strategies.

Take action

Semipublic, Current, Free Press and the State of Local News Project at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism have requested this data from CPB. Like API, they are pledging to keep historical data publicly accessible and to explore options to continue collecting data from across the public media system. Follow and support their work at semipublic.co.

CPB is not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, but we can collectively urge them to keep their commitments to public accountability and systemwide data sharing until the corporation’s end. You can contact CPB via phone, email or direct mail and let them know that you support Semipublic’s records request. 

Finally, we can prepare. If CPB declines to help keep this vital data source publicly available, then other public media organizations and funders should work together to save it. Historical reporting can be salvaged from internet archives, and we can collectively commit to continuing to gather, report and share this information that is a record of our value, impact and service to everyone in America. 

Public Media for All will continue to track this issue and highlight efforts to ensure that national-level data about diversity and revenue in public media is kept accurate and accessible. Stations need these benchmarks to set goals towards our mission to serve all. Most importantly, everyone in this country deserves transparency and accountability from nonprofit media organizations that were founded to support public service, equitable access to education, unbiased reporting, the free exchange of ideas and our democracy.

Founded in 2020, Public Media for All is a community of public media professionals led by people of color. We are leading the movement to ensure we are co-creating public media for all, especially those who have been historically mischaracterized, inadequately represented and underserved. Everyone deserves access to media that reflects their communities, cultures and humanity. We believe media that models and reflects the free exchange of ideas is vital to a healthy democracy and society. Learn more at publicmediaforall.com.