History of public media

A Public Trust: Report of the second Carnegie Commission (Carnegie II), 1979

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In 1977, a decade after the first Carnegie Commission boosted the idea of federal funding for noncommercial broadcasting, the Carnegie Corporation of New York created a second panel to study noncommercial broadcasting. In 1979, the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting published its report, A Public Trust. Its recommendations for increased federal aid and a Public Telecommunications Trust to replace CPB, had little effect. See also the preface to the report and the list of commission members, below at right. Summary of Findings and Recommendations
The Public Telecommunications Trust | The Endowment | Funding | Television Programs and Services | Public Radio | Technology| Education and Learning | Public Accountability

Members of Carnegie II*
William J. McGill, Chairman
President, Columbia University

Stephen K. Bailey
President, National Academy of Education

Red Burns
Executive Director, Alternate Media Center, School of the Arts
New York University

Henry J. Cauthen
Director, South Carolina Educational Television Network

Peggy Charren
President, Action for Children’s Television

Wilbur B. Davenport, Jr.
Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Virginia B. Duncan
Board Member, Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Eli N. Evans
President
Charles H. Revson Foundation

John W. Gardner
Common Cause

Alex P. Haley, Author

Walter W. Heller Professor, University of Minnesota

Josie R. Johnson
Board Member, National Public Radio

Kenneth Mason
President, Quaker Oats Company

Bill Moyers, WNET/13

Kathleen Nolan
President, Screen Actors Guild

J. Leonard Reinsch Chairman, Cox Broadcasting Corporation

Tomas Rivera
Executive Vice-President, University of Texas at El Paso

*Bill Cosby, actor; Carla Hills, a former secretary of housing and urban development; and Beverly Sills, opera singer; voluntarily resigned from the Commission during the course of this study as their participation became limited by other professional commitments.

Public Media Policybase

Carnegie II’s preface to ‘A Public Trust’

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In 1977, 10 years after the original Carnegie Commission recommended federal aid to public television, the Carnegie Corporation of New York created a second blue-ribbon panel to ponder policies on noncommercial broadcasting. Its report was released in January 1979. See also the Carnegie II report’s recommendations and membership. Twelve years have elapsed since the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television recommended a strengthened system of television stations, to be called public television. In the intervening years public radio and television have become established as major American institutions.