We Interrupt This Broadcast...
There was a significant story yesterday, and it got next to no attention because – well, Trump is in office so “significant stories” get understandably pushed to the side when you’re dealing with debacles like attacking another country and claiming you’re in charge, the Epstein files, 20 million Americans on the verge of losing their healthcare, arresting legal Americans to deport them without due process and so much more. But still, this is a significant story and deserves important notice. Hopefully, the media will make some time to do so.
Until then, we shall jump in here.
Yesterday, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced that after 58 years it was shutting down, due to Trump’s relentless attacks and the MAGOP Congress vote to defund it.
That’s how massive all the other current Trump debacles are. A story this meaningful, most especially in light of Trump's attacks against the media in his attempts to control it, barely squeaked in the news. I only read about the announcement in Daily Variety and subsequently saw an article in the New York Times. Nothing thus far on TV.
If there is anything even remotely “positive” in the news about the CPB, it’s that this
isn’t because of lack of all funding and being out of money -- the Corporation still has money and continues to do private fundraising, though of course the lack of government funding was a massively powerful blow. However, the action to pull all federal funding put the CPB into a position which its board found untenable.
In a statement from the organization, president/CEO Patricia Harrison explained the board's reasoning:
“When the Administration and Congress rescinded federal funding, our Board faced a profound responsibility: CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks.” As such, she explained, its board of directors voted to close the organization after 58 years, rather than continue and put the CPB at ongoing risk of “future political manipulation or misuse.”
In some ways, that’s an uncommon and surprising decision, though somewhat understandable (kind of) in a way that makes a very loud, important and high-profile public statement.
The Corporation of Public Broadcasting was created by Congress in 1967 to support the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. As Ms. Harrison noted, “For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans—regardless of geography, income, or background—had access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling.” In recent years, however, the CPB has come under particularly harsh attack from the right, outraged whenever that balanced and trusted news coverage and programming -- which covered all spectrums (not only praising but criticizing any side when deserved) -- wasn’t always aligned solely with it's conservative views, and therefore painted public broadcasting as supposedly "biased."
How this will affect current programming and PBS stations across the country (some of which are critical in rural areas) is uncertain. Private individual and corporate funding will likely allow much to go on as before, but "much" is an extremely flexible term.
There was though, one other positive note in Patricia Harrison’s statement from the CPB.
“I am convinced,” she said, “that public media will survive, and that a new Congress will address public media’s role in our country because it is critical to our children’s education, our history, culture and democracy to do so.”
If the CPB can, in fact, be reformulated easily in three years by a new administration, that’s encouraging – since the way public approval polls and Special Election results have been going -- there will be a new administration. Whether it can be reformulated “easily,” I have no idea. But if the Corporation of Public Broadcasting thinks that this is a very real likelihood, then they know a whole lot more about it than I do.
As such, as sad, pathetic and dismal as this story is, I do like that the CPB appear to be making a loud public statement with this decision, and are not going quiet into that good night. The shutting down of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting won’t be a campaign issue – but it would seem to be another brick that will add to Trump’s low approval.
Hopefully the media will pick up on the story and report it. Ultimately, though, it’s absence will be noticed. And, I feel very certain, missed.
At least, for the next three years, 'til we meet again.
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