Trump wants to ax all federal money for NPR, PBS
President Trump's budget, for the second consecutive year, is proposing to end all federal money going to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which would end support for National Public Radio and public television.
The administration is proposing a two-year phaseout, claiming as justification that PBS and NPR "primarily rely on private donations to fund their operations."
"Here we go again," said Enrique Cerna, who retired last Friday after 23 years with KCTS-TV. "The Republicans have been trying to zero out CPB for years. Fortunately, the public has stepped in to stop them.
"It's not surprising that Trump would go after public broadcasting especially with his ongoing fake news claims and media battles. But you can't dispute public broadcasting's integrity, its benefits to children's education and its service to rural areas where Trump has a lot of support."
The Trump administration has abandoned longtime Republican arguments that public broadcasting is a haven for left-wing pundits. The charge is hard to sustain given the number of Republican House members appearing regularly on NPR's "Morning Edition."
Instead, argue Trump's budget writers, CPB money comprises only 15 percent of the total amount spent on public broadcasting, money that can be made up by "increasing revenues from corporate sponsors, foundations and members."
But Patricia Harrison, CEO of the corporation, said Tuesday that "elimination of public funding for CPB would at first devastate, and then ultimately destroy public media's ability to provide early childhood content, life-saving emergency alerts, and public affairs programs."
"Americans rely on public media for high-quality educational and informational programs that are proven to get their children ready to learn, and that provide opportunities for lifelong learning," she added.
John de Graaf, formerly a documentary producer at KCTS-TV, argued that public broadcasting affords a depth and fairness badly needed in today's news climate. "NPR and PBS serve an audience of millions with the fairest and most balanced new information out there," he said.
Two Northwest lawmakers, Republican Rep. Dave Reichert and Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer, last year launched a bipartisan group to support the CPB, as well as the Ready to Learn program and the public television interconnection system."
"For nearly 50 years, public broadcasting has served as a reliable source for public safety announcements, objective news and critical educational programs for our children," Reichert wrote on his Facebook page.
In a joint letter, Reichert and Blumenauer told House colleagues:
"The relatively small federal investment in public broadcasting is leveraged for even greater impact. Approximately 70 percent of funds appropriated to CPB go directly to the more than 1,500 public television and radio stations across the country, supporting approximately 20,000 local jobs."
Washington will have a role in whether the Corporation for Public Broadcasting survives.
Three of the state's House members -- U.S. Reps. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Reps. Jaime Herrera Buetler and Dan Newhouse, R-Wash. -- sit on the House Appropriations Committee. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is a senior member on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"So once again," said Erna, "stations and their supporters are going to have to push back hard and flood Congress with their voices and let them know. This is dumb, and makes no sense."
"Here's your choice," he added. "Pay for a military parade or pay for public broadcasting."
By: Joel Connelly
Source: Seattle Pi