Will Public Media Survive Where Mainstream Media Failed?

[Commentary] Public broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, and network newscasts have played a central role in our democracy, informing citizens and guiding public conversation. But the top-down dissemination technologies that supported them are being supplanted by an open, many-to-many networked media environment. What platforms, standards, and practices will replace or transform legacy public media? Answers are already emerging out of a series of media experiments taking place across legacy and citizen media. Multiplatform, open, and digital public media will be an essential feature of truly democratic public life from here on in. It will be media both for and by the public. While such projects may look and function differently, they'll share the same goals as those that preceded them: educating, informing, and mobilizing users. But this next version of public media, public media 2.0, won't happen by accident or for free. The same bottom-line logic that runs media today will run tomorrow's media as well. If we're going to have media for vibrant democratic culture, we have to plan for it, try it out, show people that it matters, and build new constituencies to invest in it.