TALKING ABOUT WORLD CHANNEL

I recently received an email from GBH, Boston’s PBS local station, featuring a large image of the beloved cartoon character Arthur's smiling face, and asking for a donation to continue offering this and other high-quality educational content for children. I’m a longtime supporter of public media and love to receive such emails.

This time, it felt different.

On May 9th, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced the re-structure of WORLD Channel, ending all of its documentary strands. Given the limited broadcast options for the kind of independent films that the WORLD Channel has broadcast over the past 12 years, I’ve struggled to understand this decision. The three WORLD documentary series on the chopping block — America ReFramed, DocWorld and Local, USA — offer a home for nonfiction films made by directors from diverse backgrounds, many embedded in communities for years with little financial or institutional support. The films, which reach as many as 200 PBS stations through WORLD, are distinguished by their authenticity and closeness to people and places not often covered by the mainstream media. They’re not focused on true crime or celebrity culture, commercial genres that are overrepresented in our media landscape. They cast light on inequities, environmental injustices, and other vital current events, providing audiences with unique opportunities for reflection and education. The strands have also served as an incubator for new, rising voices in nonfiction filmmaking, allowing first-time and indie directors to thrive and share critical stories with communities across the nation.

Over the years, I’ve worked with and represented films that made their debut on the WORLD Channel. BATTLEGROUND, directed by Hemal Trivedi and Jonah Markowitz, is an intimate exploration of the state of our democracy as seen through the eyes of two opposing grassroots political leaders. INUNDATION DISTRICT, directed by local journalist and documentarian David Abel, explores the complexities of sea level rise and the consequences for coastal cities. Most recently, WORLD was slated to broadcast RECOVERY CITY, directed by Lisa Olivieri, a raw exploration of what it means to be in recovery, through the eyes of four women whose lives share a common thread: addiction. Now there are many questions surrounding the broadcast.

In an already shrinking public media landscape for documentary films, the loss of these series is a huge blow not only to audiences, but also to those of us committed to promoting and sustaining the important work of documentarians.

I urge GBH and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to reconsider their decision to lay off the staff and end WORLD’s documentary series, especially in light of recent comments by Susan Goldberg, GBH’s president and CEO, that the format change and layoffs are not a product of “the current federal funding fight.”

These are films you will not see on Netflix or network television. They are produced in a spirit of civic engagement, which is at the heart of the mission of public media. These are stories told by people who care deeply about illuminating, exposing, and celebrating issues at the heart of communities across the country — stories that move us, remind us of our shared humanity, and inspire us to build a better world.

Without platforms like WORLD, these stories risk not finding an audience, creating a void that will persist in the documentary filmmaking community for years to come.