The United States Congress’s decision to withdraw government funding from the country’s two main public media outlets, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), will be a “devastating” blow to local radio and television stations, particularly those serving small and rural communities.
The measure is included in a package aimed to cut foreign aid and public communications totalling 9 billion dollars promoted by the administration of President Donald Trump and approved by the Republican-majority House of Representatives early on Friday morning.
Specifically, it withdraws over 1 billion dollars in federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is responsible for funding NPR and PBS.
The CPB subsidises over 1,500 affiliated NPR and PBS radio and television stations across the country.
According to CPB CEO Patricia Harrison in a statement, those that will be impacted the most due to the lack of funding, and could even be forced to close in some cases, are the stations located in sparsely populated areas, rural areas, and Indigenous communities.
“Parents will have fewer high quality learning resources available for their children. Millions of Americans will have less trustworthy information about their communities, states, country, and world with which to make decisions about the quality of their lives,” she said.
The New York Times cited an analysis by the Public Media Company which suggests that over 100 small stations will be forced to close when the cuts take effect.
The lack of funding will also force local stations to purchase less programming from the national NPR and PBS networks, further reducing their operating budget.
While federal funding represents “only 1% of NPR’s revenue,” affiliate station fees constitute “30%,” according to the public radio station.
In a statement, PBS President Paula Kerger said that the Congressional decision “goes against the will of the American people” and added it would have a “devastating” effect on small radio and television stations.
“Many of our stations which provide access to free unique local programming and emergency alerts will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” she added.
NPR CEO Katherine Maher recalled that “nearly 3-in-4 Americans say they rely on their public radio stations for alerts and news for their public safety.”
In the past, other conservative governments tried to freeze NPR and PBS funding. Recently, conservative voices such as the Cato Institute have argued that the state should not fund public media, asserting that communication services must adapt to the logic of the capitalist market.
“We wouldn’t want the federal government to publish a national newspaper,” David Boaz of Cato said before Congress in 2005. “Neither should we have a government television network and a government radio network.”
However, Trump and Republican legislators are making an ideological argument. They claim that both PBS and NPR have a “radical” left-wing editorial stance and have even called their content “propaganda.”
The president has also accused the Voice of America, international broadcaster that has served as an example of US “soft power” since the end of World War II, of “left-wing bias,” ordering the withdrawal of federal funds and the dismantling of the organization as part of his attacks against cultural institutions and universities. EFE
