state. And unlike a lot of news operations, OPB appears to be on sound financial footing, per regular audits, with an annual operating budget of $51 million and an endowment of $95 million. Since the Great Recession hit in 2008, OPB has only added staff, while other local media outlets have contracted or folded. It today employs 230 people, 90 of whom are paid to create content. Smolkin’s predecessor, Steve Bass, who retired in 2024 after 18 years as CEO, is credited with taking an organization focused primarily on TV into the digital age. He modernized OPB’s main Portland office, developed a sizable — mostly older and educated — subscriber base and diversified funding sources. The last point is crucial as OPB’s revenue share from the government — around 9%, all of it from the federally funded not-for-profit Corporation for Public Broadcasting — is small compared to other public media outlets, many of which receive up to 30%. The existence of a robust subscriber base also provides more certainty amid uncertain government funding cycles and regular calls from the political right to defund public broadcasting. That 9% is still important — important enough that Bass flew to Washington, D.C., to introduce his successor around to his contacts at CPB. It helped that Smolkin already lived there and is no stranger to high-pressure situations, Bass tells OB. “She comes across as very warm and very personable,” says Bass. “At the same time, I think there’s a toughness there that’s going to be needed.” Growing up in Clear Lake City, Texas, between Houston and Galveston, Smolkin says she watched PBS all day and loved two things: storytelling and theater. “My interests haven’t changed since I was a girl, really,” she says. “They’ve just evolved.” In addition to her most recent stint at OPB, Smolkin’s résumé includes stints as assignment editor at USA Today and managing editor at the American Journalism Review. Among her lofty goals for OPB, she hopes to expand the network’s physical presence in the Pacific Northwest, hold more in-person events, strengthen content partnerships and “connect” OPB’s content spaces. She aims for nothing less than for OPB to serve as a national model for regional public media organizations. “This is an excellent organization and we have the potential to be even more,” she says with a smile that can fairly be called intense. “And that was incredibly exciting for me.” (OPB declined to disclose Smolkin’s salary, and she’s new enough that the figure does not appear in online financial records. In 2023, Bass earned just under $500,000 in total compensation, according to the organization’s IRS filings.) Though Smolkin was formally hired by the OPB board, Bass assisted as adviser and candidate interviewer. He and Smolkin connected while discussing the public broadcasting mission and OPB’s member model. Bass tells OB he likes that she went back to school for an MBA, something not many working journalists do. She’ll need business savvy, and hustle, to work her new donor base, because OPB has a lot of donors — more than 150,000 per year on average, the vast majority of them from Oregon and Southwest Washington. That number is large but not unheard of in public media, which often serves as a conduit for small-donor philanthropy, according to Damian Radcliffe, a University of Oregon professor who studies the media business. “One of the things that public media has done so well over the years has been building this sense of membership and ownership,” Radcliffe says. “People who donate want to ensure there’s accurate news and entertainment available to everybody rather than just those who can afford to access it. That’s a lot of why people fund journalism as individuals — because they see the value it has not just to them but to society as a whole.” For the past two decades, commercial journalism has been rocked by a series of seismic shifts. Newspaper jobs in Oregon dwindled from 4,747 in 2001 to 1,122 in 2023, according to figures reported by The Oregonian in July. There’s hardly a traditional newspaper that hasn’t had to reduce page counts or publication days for print editions. (Local magazines, including this one, are not immune: OB reduced its print run from 10 issues to eight in 2024, and will begin printing quarterly in 2025.) According to Radcliffe, the outlets that remain produce fewer stories. The stories that are produced have fewer sources. The sources that are used are less diverse. Since 2022 researchers and students at UO’s Agora Journalism Center have studied the local news ecosystem and revealed deep deficiencies around the state. They found, for instance, underserved populations like “People who donate want to ensure there’s accurate news and entertainment available to everybody rather than just those who can afford to access it.” DAMIAN RADCLIFFE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON Steve Bass, Smolkin’s predecessor, led OPB for 18 years. 33
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