Public News Service

The Public News Service (PNS) provides reporting on a wide range of social, community, and environmental issues for mainstream and alternative media that amplifies progressive voices, is easy to use and has a proven track record of success. Supported by over 400 nonprofit organizations and other contributors, PNS provides high-quality news on public issues and current affairs.

Last year the Public News Service produced over 4,000 stories featuring public interest content that were redistributed several hundred thousand times on 6,114 radio stations, 928 print outlets and 133 TV stations. Our content also appears on over 450 websites, and we have PNS widgets on an additional 40 websites. Nationally, an average of 60 outlets used each story. This includes our bilingual content, which is growing rapidly as we strengthen relationships with Spanish media outlets.

In addition, about one-third of our stories are picked up by national networks and redistributed across the country.

Where the audience is...

Todays news is faster paced than ever, and 92% of American use multiple platforms. 61% of the population go online for news every day; and while local TV has the highest numbers, radio alone is responsible for providing news and information to over 54% of the population. Unlike with newspapers and TV, when people listen to the radio they do not "scan" or "skim" looking only for their interests. Radio is an underutilized medium for getting your issues across, particularly to people who are hard to reach in other ways. With radio and the Internet, more is known about the audiences listening and surfing habits than about the habits of any other medium. So the stations and websites know precisely what their audience likes and dislikes, and news stories are selected based on a deep understanding of their fans.

Our content appears on over 450 websites, and we have PNS widgets on an additional 40 websites. This includes highly targeted blogs, major news aggregators, non-profit sites and sites of other highly respected and notable organizations. Due to the growing number of surfers starving for interesting and credible news sources, these numbers are increasing daily.

How the Public News Service Works

The Public News Service is a growing network of committed journalists and long-time nonprofit staffers. With annual membership, an individual, organization or foundation can pledge support for the Public News Service with the understanding that they are helping to fund an independent news service committed to the public interest. Each membership can be earmarked for reporting on specific issue categories. Many foundations and over 400 public interest organizations - from those with fully developed communications programs to all-volunteer staff - support the Public News Services through membership, grants and gifts.