Will public media go dark and silent?

Three weeks before the 4th of July, the House of Representatives voted 214-212 to take back $1.1 billion already approved for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private-public corporation that distributes grants to some 1,500 public radio and TV stations -- funding signed by President Trump in March.

But public media aren’t going away without a fight.

It’s a fight for survival.

Four House Republicans joined all Democrats to defend the promised funding, but not Illinois’ GOP Representatives. Darin LaHood, Mary Miller and Mike Bost all voted to take back the promised funds.

Illinois Congresswoman and Peoria native Nikki Budzinski (D-13th), said the rescission was “deeply concerning.

“These are commitments, whether it’s to PBS, whether it’s to supporting our communities through a whole host of initiatives that are now going to be rescinded,” she said. “The issue of why they’re trying to rescind this is they’re trying to save some money again to pay for their tax cuts that they’re giving to super rich people in this country that do not need them.”

Indeed, besides that take-back, Trump issued an Executive Order zeroing out public media funding, and the House’s separate “Big Beautiful Budget Bill” cutting public media funding awaits Senate action along with the rescission.

R.C. McBride, Executive Director of WCBU and also a National Public Radio (NPR) board member, said, “Rescission would immediately eliminate approximately $125,000 from WCBU’s annual budget.”

The White House and allies in the House accuse public media of bias. Trump said NPR and the Public Broadcast Service (PBS) are “radical left monsters,” which public media leaders dispute.

“I simply don’t accept the premise,” McBride said. “It’s just a talking point. Surveys and studies rank NPR among the country’s most trusted sources of news. It’s non-partisan, adheres to the strictest journalistic standards, and is regularly recognized for excellence by its peers. And our local team at WCBU can say the same. That’s not to say NPR is perfect – but when it makes mistakes it owns up to them, works to correct them, and constantly tries to improve.”

Opponents of public media also say it’s no longer needed with the number of other broadcasters, but supporters see PBS and NPR as public services that merit public support, not unlike public libraries, which endure efforts to censor them but weren’t abandoned just because Barnes & Noble and Amazon sell books.

Further, the commercial strength of news media has greatly weakened when the industry became increasingly owned by profit-focused hedge funds that have cut staff and stories after losing advertising to social media.

Supporters [full disclosure: my household donates to WCBU] also argue that it’s really part of the administration’s attempts to control information. Critics of independent journalism see reported facts that differ from their messaging or agenda as threats to be softened or silenced, and the White House already has intimidated ABC, CBS, the Washington Post, the Associated Press and even the Voice of America.

Foes of public media are against “Morning Edition,” “Nova,” “Fresh Air” interviews and “Sesame Street.”

Illinois’ Sen. Tammy Duckworth said, “They literally are attacking Elmo. The crazy thing is public broadcasting is often the main source of information in rural communities.”

Down the hill from WCBU’s studio, WTVP defends what it airs.

“Current scrutiny of public funding centers on concerns of bias in news programming, which makes up about 9% of what we air.  Our station is committed to producing content that is neutral and balanced,” commented WTVP CEO Jenn Gordon and Board Chair John Wieland in a joint statement. “WTVP has served our community for over 50 years because viewers spanning a wide range of demographics, ideologies and political persuasions, find content of the highest quality that educates, informs and inspires.”

Popular opinion is telling. Just 24% of American adults support eliminating public media funding, according to Pew Research.

How much taxpayer money is at stake?

“The funding structures for NPR and PBS are complicated, and much of their revenue comes from nongovernment sources like member donations and corporate sponsorships,” according to Pew. “But the proposed [budget] bill would ban all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which has received $535 million annually in recent federal budgets.”

Glynn Wilson from the New American Journal scoffs, writing, “That’s not even a drop in the bucket of the $1.6 trillion national budget, $895 billion for defense, and $711 billion in non-defense spending.”

Worldwide, the U.S. government is a public-media cheapskate, according to Michael Swerdlow of the Center for the Study of Responsive Law.

“The United States spends $3 per person, New Zealand spends $21, Canada spends $33, Australia $53, Japan spends $67, the U.K. spends $97, and Germany spends 41 times more, at $124.46,” Swerdlow reported. “The U.S. spends about $50 million more a year on our 136 military marching bands than the entire public broadcasting system.”

Although some court rulings on other issues have been ignored by the administration, NPR and three Colorado affiliates filed a federal lawsuit against the President, charging him with violating the First Amendment and asserting a power Presidents don’t have.

“We are choosing to do this as a matter of necessity and principle,” said NPR CEO Katherine Maher. “All of our rights that we enjoy in this democracy flow from the First Amendment: freedom of speech, association, freedom of the press. When we see those rights infringed upon, we have an obligation to challenge them.

“By basing its directives on the substance of NPR's programming, the Executive Order seeks to force NPR to adapt its journalistic standards and editorial choices to the preferences of the government if it is to continue to receive federal funding,” she continued. “This rescission proposal is the most serious threat ever faced by public broadcasting. We urge Congress to act in the interest of their constituents and save public broadcasting.”

A grassroots effort makes WTVP leaders optimistic.

“With such an effort to completely dismantle government funding, we’ve been encouraged by the number of people (1.3 million in the past three months in fact!) who have reached out to Congress urging them to keep funding in place for local stations like WTVP,” Wieland and Gordon said. “We are optimistic that Congress will act based on the values and priorities of their constituents and vote to keep federal funding. To everyone who does value what we do, and has not yet reached out to Congress, we encourage them to go today to www.protectmypublicmedia.org and make their voices heard.”

McBride added, “I’m concerned about the yet unseen and difficult to predict mid- and long-term impacts losing funding will have on the public system as a whole. It stands to reason that if stations elsewhere collapse or consolidate or cut national programs, the scale of the system will be reduced, and that could make things much more expensive for everyone else.

“Defeating this bill is going to be difficult. We must be loud and persistent.”

Thinking of another Independence Day, the 1996 movie, one imagines public media’s staff and audience, using that film’s President Whitmore riffing on Dylan Thomas when he says, “We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive!”