An agreement has been reached that would save NJ PBS. If it’s approved by the state legislature, it could prove to be a lifeline for NJ Spotlight News as well.
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Spotlight, a 16-year-old website covering politics and public policy, merged with NJ PBS in 2019. The television network’s daily half-hour newscast is also branded as “NJ Spotlight News,” and there’s quite a bit of content-sharing between the newscast and the website.
The agreement was reported by Nicolas Fernandes of NJ.com, who writes that Montclair State was one of four organizations that submitted bids to sponsor NJ PBS. Now that the university has been selected by the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority, the legislature will have 15 days to review it.
According to a statement from Gov. Mikie Sherrill:
Public broadcasting is a vital public service that ensures New Jersey families have access to trusted news, educational programming, and information about their communities. At a time when local journalism faces growing challenges, today’s action keeps this essential service alive in New Jersey.
Under the deal, NJ PBS and its four broadcast stations would be housed at Montclair State University’s Center for Cooperative Media. According to a press release issued by the university:
The agreement is for five years with two five-year extensions. Montclair is responsible for programming the stations and has committed to providing at least six hours of New Jersey-centric programming a week, including a weekday nightly news cast and other public affairs programming, live broadcasts of the Governor’s State of the State address, the Governor’s Budget Message, and live coverage of New Jersey elections.
In other words, the newscast would be saved, which, I hope, would mean survival for NJ Spotlight News as well. I asked Montclair State associate professor Carrie Brown about that on Bluesky. She responded:
It is currently still owned by WNET as of now, but we will see what happens going forward. Montclair State and the Center for Cooperative Media have a strong relationship with them and founding editor John Mooney and communicate with him often.
— Carrie Brown (@brizzyc.bsky.social) 2026-06-05T21:35:13.967Z
I also contacted Mooney, who is the executive director of Spotlight. He demurred on commenting other than to say that he’s hopeful.
As Brown notes, NJ PBS has been part of New York’s public broadcasting behemoth, WNET, since 2011. That relationship began to unwind last summer, when the Republican Congress, acting at the behest of the Trump regime, defunded public media, costing NJ PBS about $1.5 million per year. State officials, facing their own Trump-induced budget pressures, reduced funding to NJ PBS by $750,000.
The upshot was that WNET announced it would end its relationship with NJ PBS in June 2026, although it vowed to continue with the “Spotlight” newscast on Thirteen, its New York-based television station, which reaches much of New Jersey. There was talk of continuing NJ PBS’s presence on digital as well.
The complicating factor is that, at least for the moment, NJ Spotlight News is still part of WNET. I can’t imagine why WNET would want to continue operating the website if it can be moved to Montclair State, but it sounds like those details have yet to be worked out.
Ellen Clegg and I feature NJ Spotlight News in our book, “What Works in Community News,” and Mooney has been a guest on our podcast. We also wrote about Montclair State, which is home to initiatives such as the Center for Cooperative Media and the New Jersey News Commons, which brings together more than 300 independent local news outlets. Longtime digital news observer Jeff Jarvis has an interesting overview of Montclair State’s efforts to bolster local news.
The university is also involved in the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, a state-funded project that provides grants to independent news and information providers. That, too, nearly got zeroed out last summer, but was saved with a $2.5 million allocation, down from $3 million the previous year.
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