look and land beyond the typical story? We’ re really interested in elevating voices and amplifying voices that feel uniquely Rhode Island and are maybe not the typical voices that you always hear.
At GBH, your focus was really on digital and expanding out beyond traditional platforms. Can you talk about what that looks like here? There’ s no denying that audiences are consuming probably more news than ever. They’ re just doing it in very different ways. And folks are consuming it all day long on their devices that are in their pockets as well as in their cars and in their ears and at the gym and at home. This is happening all the time. The days of sitting around and Tom Brokaw being at your dinner table, or Newsweek and Time showing up, that’ s over. I feel an intense urgency that our particular brand of storytelling— nonprofit, trusted, local, member-supported— exist. And it’ s only going to exist if we show up for you in a way that matters to you and that is relevant.
How are audiences consuming Ocean State Media? This year, in our first year as Ocean State Media, our digital reach has expanded by 78 percent. That means the people who are consuming our content on social, on newsletter, on website have expanded by 78 percent within a year. Right now, we are still bigger on the broadcast side. The work to be done is on the digital side, and both are really important.
How much does AI feature into your discussions and plans? Not enough. We haven’ t really started to think about that in a careful, thoughtful, inclusive way, but we have to. To be honest, we have spent this last year-and-a-half trying to create a multiplatform newsroom from a merged organization. The 600-pound gorilla in the room is AI. How, if, when we use that is a conversation we haven’ t started to have, but we need to. And there’ s a great responsibility. We here are humbled by the amount of trust we have from our community both here in Rhode Island with RIPBS and The Public’ s Radio, and also NPR and PBS. We take that seriously, we work to earn it and to keep it, and we have to think very carefully about how we use any technology so that we don’ t damage that credibility,
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY I MAY 2026 57