In November 2023, the organization announced plans to merge with Rhode Island PBS. The merger was approved in April 2024. Ocean State Media was announced as the new name of Rhode Island’s public media in June 2025.
In July 2025, Congress passed the administration’s rescission package, eliminating federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its member stations nationwide. President and CEO of Ocean State Media, Pam Johnston, shared this statement.
OUR MISSION
We provide quality journalism and compelling storytelling that informs, educates, and inspires community.
Our Vision
We seek to become the most-trusted multimedia source for local journalism in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts.
Our commitment
Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism reports that as of 2023, the U.S. has lost one-third of the local news outlets that existed in 2005. The consequences of these losses are dire – not just for democracy, but for the people themselves. Local journalism helps people connect with their neighbors, to identify and solve problems. It helps us celebrate our accomplishments and foster a collective, communal identity. Without local news, our sense community simply crumbles away.
At the Public’s Radio, we are committed to providing our community with well-researched, objective journalism that informs and educates without dictating opinions to our listeners and readers.
our History
Originally launched as an outpost for WBUR in Boston in 1998, Rhode Island Public Radio (now dba as The Public’s Radio) became an independent, community-owned nonprofit in November of 2007. We are the only locally owned and operated public radio station in Rhode Island, dedicated to serving the state, as well as 400,000 people in underserved communities in Southeastern Massachusetts. We eventually moved to the FM band from AM radio and continue to expand our signal and our reach to better serve the state and the region.
While our on-air schedule includes national programs from NPR, PRX and the BBC, our focus is in-depth, local journalism. Our journalists have won numerous national and regional awards, and have partnered with ProPublica and Frontline on investigative projects. In 2015, the board recruited public radio veteran Torey Malatia to serve as the organization’s CEO. In addition to being a nationally recognized leader, Malatia is cofounder of the Peabody Award-winning This American Life.
In 2017, TPR launched a $6 million capital campaign to support the expansion of our journalistic initiatives. While the COVID-19 pandemic altered the course (and priorities) of the campaign, we successfully launched an investigative desk and three local bureaus: Newport, to cover Aquidneck Island (2020), Westerly, to cover South County (2021), and New Bedford, Massachusetts, to cover the South Coast of Massachusetts (2019).
Our newsroom also covers health, science, environmental issues and local arts and culture. As a community licensed nonprofit public media organization, we rely on the communities we serve for 90% of our funding. This includes corporate and foundation support, and individual donations from more than 6000 listeners each year.
