Good 'Ol Public Media

Nigel Milan - rocking the bow tie!

The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens

– Nigel Milan

So what is the role of public media? While formerly public media was wholly associated with tax-payer funding, today public outlets can operate for profit as long as the ultimate purpose is to serve the public. According to the WGBH Educational Foundation Conference on open content and public broadcasting, the primary mission of public media is to serve or engage a public.

To serve or engage the public – sounds a tad ambiguous to me. No worries, our lecture content broke it down more. It is Media that is in support of public and democratic processes and should have public value.

Right, that totally makes more sense… but just to clarify, how does the BBC breaks down “public value”?

1. Embedding a ‘public service ethos’

2. Value for licence fee money

3. ‘Weighing public value against market impact’

4. Public consultation

Perhaps we need to be more pedantic in our definition.... The Broadcasting Research Unit 1985 further breaks down public service:

- Geographical universality.

- Universality of appeal.

- Special provision for minorities, especially disadvantaged minorities.

- Sense of national identity and community.

- Distanced from all vested interests, and in particular from those of the government of the day.

- Universality of payment.

- Encourage competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers.

- Liberate rather than restrict broadcasters.

Finally, a definition we can stand by. In fact, a very altruistic sounding goal, but can a media outlet actually maintain this integrity when we are commercialising our public media?

Australia's public media forms 

Unquestionably, public media, in the form of ABC and SBS, produces a higher standard of media information than commercial media (though often very underfunded in its production). 41% of Australians get their news from ABC, but does that mean we should continue endorsing the News CAFF and opinionist style of news some public media channels are producing?

In my opinion, I actually think that shows like the Drum and other opinion based shows provide for greater discussion opportunities in society. For me, discussion and debate are the underlying factors of a democracy and we should be encouraging well informed and opinionated individuals to promote and engage audiences.

So what are the challenges? Commercial media only needs to satisfy advertisers and consumers to make a profit. For public media, their role is to scrutinize the government (where they get their funding from) as well as keep the audiences happy. I can’t help but wonder, who ultimately decides the content?

Obviously public media has to maintain a higher level of journalistic integrity but we can still see some bias in their reporting. The 7:30 report always puts editorials spins to it and on most news shows the opposition party (i.e. Liberals) are questioned more vehemently then the government – at least that’s what I see from an outsider perspective.

Undoubtedly, Jeremy Paxman’s approach to media is one we should all adopt:

I am always asking myself, “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?”

… an approach we may need to hold dearer as public media further becomes the underfunded poor cousin of commercial media.