A Solemn Day for U.S. Public Media
Flickr user James Cridland
On Aug. 1, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced that Trump’s budget cuts are forcing the organization to wind down operations later this year.
The CPB provides federal support for the operations and programming at hundreds of NPR and PBS affiliates across the country, often providing vital local news and information to otherwise isolated communities — especially in rural America.
For decades, Republicans have sought to defund and eliminate public broadcasting in the United States, but this cruel agenda was unsuccessful until July of this year. Congressional Republicans caved to pressure from Trump and passed a dangerous budgetary rollbacks that eliminated federal funding for the CPB. Every step of the way, people of all political persuasions banded together to defund such a valued institution.
The shuttering of the CPB is devastating for this country. It puts vital outlets in communities all across the country in jeopardy and endangers essential educational programs, news coverage, and life-saving emergency alerts.
The impact on our democracy
The end of the CPB is the direct result of the free-speech emergency created by the Trump administration and its congressional allies. In their quest to control the message, these authoritarians have wiped away decades of democracy-building work and denied many journalists, artists, educators and creators the opportunity to be heard. The cost of their decisions is almost incalculable in terms of lost opportunities, untold stories, closed minds — and yes, the lives of people who won’t know about the next earthquake, wildfire or tsunami before it’s too late.
The elimination of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting is part of this regime’s systematic efforts to end accountability, pump out propaganda and sow the kind of chaos and disinformation under which authoritarianism thrives.
Where we go from here
Despite incredible popularity — and even greater public need — the public media system has been starved through partisan attacks. Despite, or perhaps because of, these trying circumstances, countless journalists, producers, engineers and employees committed their careers to public broadcasting and produced incredible work. It may not be perfect, but the promise of public media is always worth fighting for.
It will take years of organizing to rebuild what the Trump regime has demolished in six months. Public media must be a bulwark against authoritarianism and corporate control of the Fourth Estate. Free Press Action is already leading grassroots efforts to craft public policy that supports local news and information: If we don’t keep fighting, we stand to lose a lot more than what we’ve lost today.
Help Free Press Action keep working to support and strengthen public media: Donate today.