OK, so I guess I’m writing two blog posts today! This one will be short. I was poking around this afternoon and stumbled across the news that NJ PBS is no longer run by WNET and is now being operated by Montclair State University, effective July 1.
I remember reading a while back that WNET was going to abandon NJ PBS, but at that time, it wasn’t clear what was going to happen to it. I guess it’s good that it has found a new home. Here’s an article from nj.com, and an FAQ from the NJ PBS web site.
Here’s an article about a protest letter regarding the sale, from Brenda Flanagan, a correspondent on NJ Spotlight News who retired recently. Here’s an opinion piece by Charles Stile, expressing similar concerns, with some more historical context about the station. And here’s one more article, expressing some concerns from the NJ Society of Professional Journalists.
I’m not sure how all of this is going to work out. I haven’t been watching NJ Spotlight News every day, like I used to, so I’m not sure if they’ve addressed any of this in the regular newscast. I’ve noticed that their video quality has gotten noticeably bad recently, which is probably because they had to shut down their studio and switch to doing it all from home.
If you look at the links in this post, you’ll see that they’re from a hodgepodge of sites, some reputable and some questionable. It’s getting hard to find a good source for local news, especially here in NJ. I hope NJ PBS lives on, in some meaningful way, and I hope NJ Spotlight News keeps running and providing some quality journalism.