Wyncote Foundation works to further a thriving public media ecosystem that is vital to animating and sustaining democracy’s public sphere. By public media we mean mission-driven media produced in the public interest, including legacy CPB-funded public broadcasting, digital-first enterprises, and independent makers producing news, educational, and cultural content that engages the public and stimulates community dialogue.

 

Public media provides essential information and analysis, invites civic engagement, and furthers cultural and creative expression. Public media and a vigorous free press serve to create a “public commons” in the spirit of other important civic assets such as parks, libraries, colleges, and cultural institutions.

 

In an era of rapidly changing technology, shifts in individual behavior, and strong market forces, it is not enough to support public media in its current form and practice. Wyncote takes a systems approach—often with others—to encourage innovation and adaptation in legacy institutions, and for experimentation and scaling of actors offering new approaches to content creation, distribution, and engagement. We focus on trends and interconnections. At least half of what we do, beyond making grants, is learning and sharing ideas with thought leadership across nonprofit and for-profit sectors.

 

WYNCOTE’S WORK FEATURES SIX APPROACHES IN PUBLIC MEDIA AND JOURNALISM:

 

1. Supporting the necessary evolution of legacy public broadcasting

 

2. Investing in new approaches to the sustainability of accountability journalism

 

3. Supporting accountability journalism in the Greater Philadelphia Area and Pennsylvania

 

4. Supporting independent production in public media

 

5. Field-building in public media

 

6. Using media to strengthen civic and cultural institutions

 

Click here for the full mission and strategy statement, with examples for each of the six approaches.