When I joined Hawaiʻi Public Radio a year and a half ago, the welcome from the team and the community was warm and full of aloha. This was not surprising. What was unexpected were the dozens of strangers from across the country reaching out to say “Welcome to Public Media!”

The message came from station heads and staff across the nation, from folks at CPB, NPR, PBS, and from groups dedicated to public media. I took a job in local media, but had also entered the public mediaverse.

The differences between global, national, and local media are clear, and the same goes for legacy media vs start-ups, or commercial media vs. non-profits. This paradigm was public media vs everything else. Why did the distinction exist, and who did it serve?

There are obvious factors, like the model itself, which, from the late 1960s up until this past summer, was rooted in federal funding via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And there’s the related matter of local stations paying NPR and/or PBS for shared programming and services.

The question of What Makes Public Media Different? turned into the more existential What Is Public Media Now? after the July recession that slashed federal funding and decimated CPB.

When I asked people inside the system what makes public media unique, a common response was that the people are quirky. I sorted this into the category of stories we tell ourselves that aren’t entirely true. During my time at CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times, there were plenty of quirky folks.

But I have found some ways that public media is distinct from the rest of the landscape. Here are two:

• People within public media share info and ideas in ways that would surprise those on the outside. You can call someone up to trade notes about funding tactics, tech, and systems advice, discuss best practices for programming, boards of directors, and more. The team at HPR is in frequent contact with other stations, from impromptu conversations to big initiatives like the Poynter-led and CPB-backed Digital Transformation Program, which ended earlier than expected after CPB’s existence ended earlier than expected.
• The support system for public media can silo the people within it from the rest of the media and technology landscape. There are resource groups, consultants, conferences, and webinars just for public media. Some are for journalists, or for large stations, rural stations, regional groups, fundraisers, marketers, programmers, broadcast engineers, and more. There’s Current, the publication devoted to public media, existing in a different lane than Nieman Lab, Reliable Sources, and the rest of the media coverage landscape.

These groups exist to help, not to isolate. There are smart people within them and it can be a plus (and a cost) to have these resources available. But the downside of local stations spending so much time in the vast public media support network is that a large, disparate group of hundreds of stations are absent from many larger conversations where there is much to learn and to share.

Now that the unifying force of CPB is gone, the differences within public media are more evident.

Some public media have relationships with universities, or operate jointly as local NPR and PBS stations. Some have huge endowments and big money backers, while others are facing layoffs. Some create and distribute programs across the nation, while others do very little original reporting or programming. Some markets have more than one station, while others have a single station with service and infrastructure challenges. Chicago Public Media or LAist, for example, are entirely different entities from name-any-rural-station in the nation.

There are shared challenges for every media org in operation today, “public” or not, like how to do engaging work in many forms on many platforms, how to prevent staff burnout in the face of change and tumult, the rise of AI, the death of SEO, and the eternal quest for a unicorn in the form of a sustainable business model.

If there are great differences within public media, and shared challenges and opportunities outside of it, then why should public media be lumped into a single category and considered unique from all the rest?

From my time at NYTimes.com in the mid-1990s to CNN Digital in the 2020s, a central business challenge was to address the decline in traditional revenue sources by creating a more direct-to-consumer approach. You’ve seen the decades-long parade of subscription models as evidence — Selects, Gos, Plusses, Maxes — some of them over-funded and under-thought, some ahead of their time.

But here’s an amazing thing that feels hidden even though it’s there for all to see: As those big subscriber models have launched, died, or thrived, many local public media orgs across the nation — including Hawaiʻi Public Radio — have steadfastly been building shining examples of direct-to-consumer businesses.

Hawaiʻi Public Radio’s revenue primarily comes from local members, followed by sponsorships from local businesses, and then, to a smaller degree, grants. Barring any extra-strong headwinds, this model will enable us to do the job of serving the people of Hawaiʻi for years to come.

HPR lost 6% in federal funding, which amounted to $525,000 we received via CPB last year. The community stepped up to fill that gap, and then went above and beyond. We remain wowed and grateful to the people we serve for such a swift show of support, and the momentum we are still seeing as we move forward as a 100% community-backed org.

What’s also amazing is that this model doesn’t have a paywall. If the spirit of the original web was that truthful information should be freely available, and that voices and ideas should be heard without going through institutional gatekeepers, then there are places where that exists with a viable business model. There are unicorns hiding in plain sight.

Hawaiʻi Public Radio is evolving as it should. We have increased local programming, launched hit newsletters and podcasts, experimented with vertical video, held events that amplify local artists and authors, brought hit national shows to the islands like Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, and have exciting plans for 2026 on-air, online, and in-person. Our local journalism helps people navigate issues like affordability, government, climate, energy, and biodiversity, and elevates indigenous and local voices, music, and stories. We are proud that our site, app, newsletters, social, streaming, on-demand listening, and even our broadcast audiences are growing. Our membership levels are at an all-time high and still rising.

Like calling The New York Times a newspaper, public radio and public television are sounding like weird ways to describe independent multimedia organizations that create and spread trusted news, inspiring stories and music across broadcast networks and multiple digital platforms, free of charge, and backed by the communities we serve.

Predictions and hopes for 2026

• The impacts of the funding cuts are still unfolding and will be unevenly distributed. We will see in the coming year who won’t make it, who can get by, and who can grow and thrive.
• Funders, philanthropists and anyone with the ability to prevent more organizations from joining the news desert graveyard should not overlook local public media orgs that have longtime trust and support from the communities they serve, and track records of responsibly-run businesses.
• Like journalism schools that have ditched print and broadcast media as organizing constructs, new frameworks for how to think about public media will emerge.
• The sharing and collaboration that helps spread truth, trust and connection on the local level should continue within public media and spread beyond it. This will be a very good silo to break down.
• Those of us in and around public media should open up to all sorts of conversations, development and training opportunities outside of the public mediaverse. We have a lot to learn, a lot to share, and we aren’t so different after all.

Meredith Artley is the president and CEO of Hawaiʻi Public Radio.