Glossary — Media

These are the jargon, acronyms, and constructs a non-expert hits in the Media whitepaper. Use this as a reading companion; the filing remains the source of truth.

• CPB
  Corporation for Public Broadcasting — multi-year, formula-funded, administratively insulated — still dissolved after a bare-majority rescission (Jan 2026 in this filing).
• Funding insulation
  Design meant to survive political cycles; the CPB case is evidence that design is necessary but not sufficient.
• News desert
  County/community count of places without local news — the filing finds one research lineage with undocumented biases.
• FCC
  Federal Communications Commission — spectrum, ownership, and broadcast rules that shape local TV/radio economics.
• Public media appropriation
  Annual or advance federal funding for public journalism — distinct from platform regulation.
• Local journalism collapse
  Shutdowns and newsroom shrinkage that motivate the architectures on the scorecard.
• Platform / ad market shift
  Digital ad intermediaries capturing revenue that once funded local newsrooms.
• Philanthropy / vouchers / credits
  Non-appropriation architectures for supporting reporting (and their political durability limits).
• Bare-majority rescission
  Congress clawing back already-appropriated multi-year funds — the CPB kill mechanism.
• IAB / digital ad measurement
  Industry ad metrics that sit behind revenue claims in media economics.
• UHF / broadcast transition
  Spectrum and TV distribution history that still shapes who can reach a local audience.
• Citogenesis (statistic)
  A number that circulates until citation creates the appearance of independent confirmation.

Scope note: docs/glossary-scope.md. Challenge a definition: [email protected].