The 401 Q & A
BY LAUREN CLEM
PHOTOGRAPH: COURTESY OF PAM JOHNSTON.
Pam Johnston
The president and CEO of Ocean State Media— formed from the merger of Rhode Island PBS and The Public’ s Radio— discusses building trust in the media and the future of local news.
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N APRIL 2024, RHODE ISLAND ATTORNEY GENERAL PETER NERONHA approved the merger of two long-trusted media institutions: The Public’ s Radio( the state’ s local NPR affiliate) and Rhode Island PBS. The merger was just the beginning of a turbulent two years for publicly supported journalism in Rhode Island. Last year, Congress— at the encouragement of President Donald Trump— rescinded and eliminated federal funding for public media, a historic decision that devastated stations across the country. Locally, the newly named Ocean State Media downsized its staff to make up the funding shortfall.
Seeing the station through it all was Pam Johnston, a public media veteran named as the organization’ s new president and CEO in July 2024. After a long career in television and social media, Johnston was hired as the first senior director of audience development at the award-winning“ Frontline” investigative series in 2012 before working her way up to general manager of news at GBH. Her background in digital media was seen as a boon for Ocean State Media as the organization tries to reinvent itself at a critical junction in local media.
Now closing in on two years in the role, Johnston sat down with Rhode Island Monthly to discuss her long-term goals for public media and the future of local news in the state.
Editor’ s Note: Members of Ocean State Media receive a subscription to Rhode Island Monthly and future collaborations are being discussed.
Tell us about your journey into public media. Are you a native New Englander? I’ m from Boston— right outside Boston, MetroWest. I grew up in Natick. If you’ re familiar with Doug Flutie, it’ s the home of Doug Flutie. I wasn’ t so much a nerdy kid, but I had a very great nerdy journalism streak. I think it was Wednesdays, I’ d wait at the mailbox for the mailman to come. Because on Wednesdays, Time and Newsweek were delivered, and it was the best day of the week. I would read all about it and report back to my parents what was happening in the world that day. I’ ve been drawn to what’ s happening in our world, everything from hard news and information to what’ s happening where we live and culture stories and entertainment, for as long as I can remember. Ultimately, I ended up being drawn to TV news because growing up, we shared the dinner table every single night with Tom Brokaw, who was on in the background. And we had conversations around the dinner table with my parents all the time about what was happening in the world and at school, and those conversations got interwoven. At some point
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