[HN Gopher] Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations
___________________________________________________________________
Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 492 points
Date : 2025-08-01 16:56 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cpb.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (cpb.org)
| digitalsushi wrote:
| When I was a teenager in the 90s an old guy took me aside and
| told me there'd be a day we get rid of public radio, and a day
| we'd have our final serving of affordable tuna sushi, and that
| after that, I'd be living in what he deemed the future.
|
| One down.
| shmeeed wrote:
| Hate to say it, but... username checks out, I guess
| alostpuppy wrote:
| I was curious about that as well.
| tptacek wrote:
| Public television and public radio isn't going anywhere, at
| least not anywhere any of the rest of linear media isn't
| already going.
| vel0city wrote:
| Public television and public radio stations are literally
| being shut down, now, as per the topic article. Any station
| meaningfully relying on CPB is done.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm sure they will, but public funding for my local NPR and
| PBS stations amounts to something like 5% of their budget;
| they aren't going anywhere. NPR and PBS as institutions are
| more threatened by the Internet than they are by this
| funding cut.
|
| I don't support the cut, but I get the vibe that many
| people commenting on this thread don't know what CPB is.
| vel0city wrote:
| > public funding for my local NPR and PBS stations
|
| Ah, so it's not going anywhere because it's not directly
| affecting _your_ station. Got it. For many other people
| _it is going away_.
|
| This _will_ affect your station though. Lots of stations
| spent a good bit of their budgets on content from PBS and
| NPR. While direct federal sources aren 't a massive chunk
| of their income, revenues from member stations _is_. This
| will impact the content your local public TV and radio
| station will get.
| glial wrote:
| Is there any way to find out which stations will be
| affected, and by how much (e.g. proportion of budget)?
| drozycki wrote:
| https://www.axios.com/2025/08/01/cpb-npr-pbs-corporation-
| pub...
|
| Some stations will lose 2%, others 98%.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm sure we're going to lose a lot of hyperlocal news and
| current event programming in Shreveport or whatever, but
| those programs have tiny audiences (even relative to
| their media market). Most of what we think of as PBS and
| NPR programming is delivered principally over the
| Internet now, not via local broadcast stations.
| drozycki wrote:
| The problem is hyperlocal news is what keeps local
| government accountable. The internet has starved these
| local newsrooms to the point where NPR was often the only
| one left.
| tptacek wrote:
| Local news is a much bigger and grimmer phenomenon than
| PBS.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| OK, but iirc you live in a big city (as do I). This is
| gonna be a serious problem for people in rural areas, and
| as well as decline in broadcasting operations it will
| probably mean less quality news coverage of rural issues,
| and so fewer rural stories on big-city NPR/PBS stations.
| tptacek wrote:
| Right, but _drastically_ fewer people are consuming
| linear NPR /PBS content. My guess is that at this point
| most NPR consumption occurs via podcasts (maybe 60/40?
| there's still a big drive-time component, but podcasts
| eat into drive-time too!), and presumably an even sharper
| shift to the PBS streaming site.
|
| Like, for elderly viewers, availability of linear media
| still matters (something I've learned tediously through
| serving on a local commission managing our cable
| franchise). But... that's basically it?
|
| So, back to: this is not an existential threat to PBS or
| NPR. I think people think I'm being glib when I say the
| Internet is a bigger threat to PBS (as an institution
| called "PBS") than this funding cut. I'm not being glib.
| mulmen wrote:
| > Right, but drastically fewer people are consuming
| linear NPR/PBS content. My guess is that at this point
| most NPR consumption occurs via podcasts (maybe 60/40?
| there's still a big drive-time component, but podcasts
| eat into drive-time too!), and presumably an even sharper
| shift to the PBS streaming site.
|
| Is the source of that 60/40 more substantial than any
| part of your anatomy?
|
| > Like, for elderly viewers, availability of linear media
| still matters (something I've learned tediously through
| serving on a local commission managing our cable
| franchise). But... that's basically it?
|
| Ok so you hear from elderly viewers that they care about
| this content and because you don't hear from anyone else
| you assume they don't exist? Are you really satisfied
| with that conclusion? Is it possible other listeners just
| have less time to be involved? Have you reached out to
| get their thoughts? Why are you so willing to dismiss the
| elderly?
|
| > So, back to: this is not an existential threat to PBS
| or NPR. I think people think I'm being glib when I say
| the Internet is a bigger threat to PBS (as an institution
| called "PBS") than this funding cut. I'm not being glib.
|
| I do think you are being glib. I don't care about the
| comparison you're making and I think it's incredibly
| shallow. By your own estimate this will negatively impact
| 40% of NPR listeners. The existence of a larger threat is
| no consolation.
|
| Why do PBS and NPR need to _compete_ with anything? This
| is a public good, not a competitive business. That's the
| entire point.
|
| Does this funding cut somehow help NPR and PBS generate
| non-linear programming or online content? Of course it
| doesn't. This is a bad thing for NPR and PBS even if they
| continue operating in spite of it.
| tptacek wrote:
| I know you're looking for someone to take the other side
| of the "these funding cuts are good actually" argument,
| but miss me with it, OK? Not where I'm coming from.
| bpt3 wrote:
| The people who voted for the politicians implementing this
| generally live in those areas, so I think everyone is
| getting what they wanted on the whole?
|
| To be clear, I am not in favor of these cuts, but nothing
| is preventing state, local or private contributions from
| keeping these stations on the air.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Of course, if you live in a large metro the local stations
| will survive due to large numbers of wealthy and middle class
| benefactors. This is not necessarily so if you live in a
| typical red state middle size city or less.
|
| Somewhat ironically a lot of the extreme cuts (this included)
| only serve to reinforce the status of major blue state metros
| as more desirable, since they have more resources available
| to fill the gaps left by federal austerity.
| timr wrote:
| > Somewhat ironically a lot of the extreme cuts (this
| included) only serve to reinforce the status of major blue
| state metros as more desirable, since they have more
| resources available to fill the gaps left by federal
| austerity.
|
| If the people in the red states _aren 't willing to pay for
| it_, it would seem that they don't think it's desirable.
| Capitalism is funny that way.
|
| I get that you're trying to say that the pie is smaller
| overall, but the principle still applies.
| perfectviking wrote:
| It's not that they aren't willing to pay for it. When you
| actually ask them, they often do support paying for these
| things.
| timr wrote:
| > When you actually ask them, they often do support
| paying for these things.
|
| Great! It isn't a problem, then. Again, capitalism is
| funny that way.
| mulmen wrote:
| We have a capitalist economy, not a capitalist society.
| The government exists to fill gaps where the market
| fails. CPB is one example of this. USPS is another.
| People who look at these organizations like businesses
| are fools.
| timr wrote:
| > We have a capitalist economy, not a capitalist society.
|
| Last time I checked, "society" is a concept defined
| entirely by the behaviors and preferences of the people
| within it. You may _want_ society not to be capitalist,
| but that 's your opinion.
| tptacek wrote:
| People in red states mostly watch PBS online. Linear media
| is obsolete and has been for a long time.
| wffurr wrote:
| What's happening to tuna sushi?
| fsflover wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38913649
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Overfishing? 15% Tariffs?
| annoyinglawyer wrote:
| Idk where you're living, but where I am, fresh tuna has gone
| from $16.00 a # to $25.00 a # in only the last couple years.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Tuna, at least bluefin, is definitely not too far behind.
| AznHisoka wrote:
| Does this mean the end of PBS?
| huslage wrote:
| No, but it means the end of financial support for many programs
| on PBS and NPR.
| atonse wrote:
| No idea. Anyone have a good source of how much of PBS's funding
| comes from CPB?
|
| Update: Just confirmed, no. Federal funds only makes up 15% of
| PBS's funding. [1]
|
| 1: https://foundation.pbs.org/ways-to-give/gifts-to-the-pbs-
| end...
| dingnuts wrote:
| For the last twenty years PBS proponents have been telling me
| that PBS and NPR are mostly member supported, and that the
| Federal funds couldn't corrupt the messaging because there just
| wasn't enough of it to matter.
|
| So if that's true, I guess not. If it was actually a
| mouthpiece, I guess so
| mc32 wrote:
| Yah they also took money from the "Archer Daniels Midland"
| corporation (not that I'd have anything against organic
| produce, for example) and the Ford and many other biased
| endowments --so I think it'd be hard to believe their
| messaging was unaffected. That or they bit the hand that fed
| it and the hand didn't mind getting bitten for some reason.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It does for smaller stations that depended on federal funding
| to operate.
| legitster wrote:
| Probably not. CPB gave funding to rural smaller stations which
| buy programming from PBS (or NPR).
|
| It will drastically scale back the funding and coverage of
| public broadcasters, but they should (hopefully) survive.
|
| That said, they effectively cease being public at this point.
| And ironically enough, they have no reason anymore to pander to
| wider audiences so if anything they will become more "left
| leaning" over time.
| tyre wrote:
| "Reality has a well known liberal bias", as they say.
| throw7 wrote:
| Nowadays they say, "Reality is a social construct."
| tptacek wrote:
| No. What's really going to end PBS as we grew up with it is
| streaming. CPB is an vehicle for distributing public funding to
| PBS stations; only a small fraction of PBS station funding
| comes from CPB through the government.
| jordanpg wrote:
| No, but I think it's likely that NPR and PBS will change
| because of this. A lot of people work there because of its
| explicit mission to serve the public. As with every other
| federal institution that's being pointlessly kneecapped, lots
| of good people will look elsewhere.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" was so prescient. So sad
| to see its worst predictions come true.
| McAlpine5892 wrote:
| I am quite literally in the middle of reading this now [0].
| This would be great required reading for high school students.
| Anyone that runs across this comment should put it at the top
| of their reading list.
|
| Most frustratingly, many people know how to be properly
| skeptical. To use Sagan's example, it comes out in full-force
| any time someone buys a used car. Never trust the dealer.
| Everybody knows that.
|
| I really appreciate that Sagan refrains from looking down on
| anyone. It's all too easy to do and I am guilty of it at times.
| It also leads to a much more useful conversation. Sagan
| provides hope that we _can_ educate better. Compared to say,
| Dawkins, who I think has ultimately hurt the cause. Nobody will
| listen when they feel insulted.
|
| > So sad to see its worst predictions come true.
|
| The most recent bit of the book I read involved James Randi. I
| was curious about the guy so I did some other reading. Randi
| gave out an annual "award" called the "Pigasus Award" to
| fraudsters and similar. Mehmet Oz received the award [1] three
| times. Now Oz runs Medicaid!
|
| Sadly, we've lost Sagan and Randi. Sometimes it feels like the
| world has lost any sort of check against gullibility. To
| paraphrase from the book, many scientists are particularly not
| equipped to call these scammers out. Scientists wrestle with
| nature - nature has laws. Trying to call out the Oz's of the
| world is hard because they don't play by the rules of reason.
|
| ---
|
| [0] https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709
|
| [1] https://www.latimes.com/health/la-xpm-2011-apr-01-la-heb-
| dr-...
| technothrasher wrote:
| > Sadly, we've lost Sagan and Randi.
|
| I had the privilege of meeting both Sagan and Randi at
| different points. Along with Paul Kurtz, also sadly gone now,
| these were some of the most in influential people in the
| beginnings of the modern skeptical movement. If you aren't
| familiar with Prometheus books and CSICOP (now CSI), look
| them up. You'll find years worth of groundbreaking skeptical
| reading material.
| McAlpine5892 wrote:
| > I had the privilege of meeting both Sagan and Randi
|
| If the story is even remotely interesting and something
| you'd be willing to share I would really appreciate the
| read.
|
| Will definitely look into those books. Thanks for the recs.
| radiofreeeuropa wrote:
| I came to this book too late for the core message to resonate
| as far as mindset and methods (yeah, yeah, I found this path
| and walked at least this far on it already, you're preaching
| to the choir, should have read this when I was like 10 or 12
| I guess...) but _did_ make the mistake of dismissing an
| absolute _chorus_ of warnings about anti-intellectualism from
| Sagan and a dozen other authors I read as a kid and in my 20s
| (which warnings, yes, were a significant component of this
| book)
|
| They were all from roughly the same time period, and I
| thought their focus on that particular issue was overblown. A
| relic of the time they'd lived through and their efforts,
| which efforts had gotten us here, where anti-intellectualism
| is a curiosity, periodically an annoyance, but not a threat.
| Sure, we could swing back toward that being a real concern,
| but it'd take a while. We'd see it.
|
| What's weird is I could also list a bunch of ways that we
| _were swinging back toward it_. I think on some level I just
| didn 't believe that these kinds of big shifts backwards
| could happen, actually and not just in shootin'-the-shit
| discussions with friends, in my lifetime. Bumps on the road
| of progress, sure, but going backwards entirely? I even shied
| away from labeling authoritarian-enabling changes, policies,
| or actions "fascist", even as I literally protested some of
| them in the street--well, that's alarmist, surely. It's silly
| and childish that I was embarrassed of the term.
|
| It's so damn foolish when I look back on it. I had so many of
| the particulars right, but just couldn't believe in something
| so _big_ actually happening, I guess. I 'd have told you that
| sure, it could, if you'd asked, even outlined a plausible
| path from here to there based on recent and current goings-
| on... but I didn't _believe_ it might happen. Not really.
| BillSaysThis wrote:
| Unbelievable!
| atonse wrote:
| According to this page [1] PBS only receives about 15% of its
| funds from federal funding. The rest is from donations.
|
| 1: https://foundation.pbs.org/ways-to-give/gifts-to-the-pbs-
| end...
|
| So this certainly won't be the death of PBS, as I had feared.
|
| Update 2: For the record (easier to respond in this original post
| than to each response), I am not defending the decision at all. I
| grew up listening to NPR, and have been on recurring monthly
| donations to PBS for years.
|
| I was genuinely curious about what percentage comes from federal
| funds. So I am just trying to level-set and get ahead of any
| hysteria about the actual impact.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| PBS themselves[1] state that CPB funding is what kept local
| stations solvent, so without funding, they will likely close.
|
| They also state that the bulk of CPB funding pays for national
| NPR and PBS programs, so those will see cuts, too.
|
| [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/house-gives-final-
| appr...
| not2b wrote:
| Rural stations relied heavily on CPB funding; urban stations
| get most of their funding from donations or corporate
| underwriting. So big city public TV and radio will survive,
| but those in less populated areas might go under unless some
| other source of funding is found.
| atonse wrote:
| I agree overall that this is not a good thing for also
| furthering a knowledge gap between rural and urban areas.
| But in the age of internet streaming, wouldn't rural areas
| still have access to stream public radio? Genuinely asking.
|
| I tried looking for sources on station audience sizes,
| alternatives they might have, etc. But it was difficult to
| find.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Local reporting is basically dead outside of metro areas.
|
| Sure, you can stream, but the content will be focused on
| another locale or won't address local issues.
| radiofreeeuropa wrote:
| When I'm not busy worrying about everything else, I worry
| that there's assuredly an _explosion_ of local
| corruption, especially outside of cities large enough to
| still have something resembling actual local news media,
| that we can 't even begin to get a handle on because
| it's... well, it's invisible now, that's why it's (surely
| --I mean, we can't possibly think corruption is dropping
| or even remaining steady, with the death of the small
| town paper and small-market TV news rooms, right?)
| happening in the first place.
|
| I think it's, quietly and slowly, the thing that's going
| to doom our country to decline if something else doesn't
| get us first (which, there are certainly some things
| giving this one a run for its money). The Internet killed
| a pillar of democracy, replaced it with nothing that
| serves the same role, and we didn't even try to keep it
| from happening, so here we are, we doomed ourselves by
| embracing the Internet quickly and not trying to mitigate
| any harm it causes.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| For some your comment might sound even comic but it is
| damn true. It safens me that the dangerous spiral is not
| seen by many others.
|
| After all, the milenia old adage "bread and games"
| silences to many.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's pretty dead even in metro areas.
|
| My local NPR broadcasts rarely actually cover anything
| that's happening in like city or county politics. Heck,
| even talking about state politics is pretty rare.
| esseph wrote:
| Public radio and local broadcasting has been gobbled up
| by right-wing sources, including Sinclair
|
| Watch this clip:
|
| https://youtu.be/xwA4k0E51Oo?feature=shared
| jcoby wrote:
| > But in the age of internet streaming, wouldn't rural
| areas still have access to stream public radio?
|
| Sometimes streaming isn't an option. When Helene hit WNC
| we lost power, cell, internet, and water all at the same
| time. The local NPR stations were the only ones
| broadcasting updates on a regular cadence so we could
| learn what in the world was going on. And we're not far
| from downtown Asheville.
|
| Some extremely rural areas only have spotty internet or
| no internet or cell at all and public radio is the only
| thing they have.
| tptacek wrote:
| Yes, all the rural PBS markets will retain streaming
| access, which, again, is how most people under the age of
| 60 get access to PBS today.
| philistine wrote:
| Yeah but the shows that the urban stations are running and
| producing are all bought by the rural stations. So the
| whole ecosystem needs the rural stations to help fund the
| productions.
| antonymoose wrote:
| Are there many rural-only districts?
|
| Having moved around my PBS districts always seemed to be a
| metro+rural zone.
| xnx wrote:
| > PBS only receives about 15% of its funds from federal funding
|
| I'm a big fan of PBS, but I wonder if this common stat is
| misleading. Don't a huge portion of PBS funds come from member
| stations, which get a portion of their funds from federal
| funding?
| monero-xmr wrote:
| Yes it is so obviously misleading and incorrect that only the
| mainstream media could have perpetuated this unquestioned for
| decades.
|
| The federal money goes to member stations which then hands it
| right over to NPR to pay for programming, I believe it's $500
| per hour. It's 1 layer of indirection but no one seemed to
| mention this in all of the reporting
| bell-cot wrote:
| > ...hands it right over to NPR to pay for programming, I
| believe it's $500 per hour...
|
| So - does that mean a member station could just cut back on
| their NPR-sourced programming, then fill the air time by
| playing more Frank Sinatra, and broadcasting local HS
| football games, and such?
| autoexec wrote:
| I suspect that many will be forced to close entirely now.
| Others may not longer be able to afford pay for NPR shows
| at all (they'd have to pay for both membership and
| individual shows), while others will have to fill their
| airtime with things besides news and other NPR programs
| 93po wrote:
| I am also really annoyed when people repeat that it's only
| 15% government funded or whatever. It's a misrepresentation
| to the point of lying. Which is further reinforced by: if
| it's only 15%, why are you having to shut down? It's so
| dumb.
| atonse wrote:
| Please check my link again. It's from PBS.
|
| Are you suggesting that PBS is misinforming people about
| how much of PBS's funds are government funded?
| philistine wrote:
| The CPB is closing, not PBS. PBS says it's 15% funding
| from federal sources. CPB, well they're closing so who
| knows.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| $500 per hour for a media production seems like a weird
| number. It's either fantastically cheap for production
| costs and an atypical model for licensing costs. From what
| I understand radio licensing is usually done either per
| listener per time or per content (which might be only 25 or
| 50ish minutes a piece to allow for ads). It's quite high if
| it's the latter and would probably be a significant
| fraction of the operational costs for many smaller
| stations, far above their music costs.
| atonse wrote:
| My link is from PBS's donation page. Are you saying they're
| misleading people about their own funds?
| atonse wrote:
| My link is literally from the PBS foundation. I'm very
| careful about my sources in this age of constant
| misinformation.
| swores wrote:
| I don't know about the situation at all (non-American
| here), but hypothetically if a local (say State level or
| something) organisation, that was 100% funded by the
| federal government, chose to donate 10% of their revenue to
| PBS, then PBS would accurately classify that as a donation
| rather than federal funding, but it would still potentially
| be affected by federal funding cuts.
|
| I've no idea of that is at all the case with any of PBS'
| donations, but it seems like a hypothetical that might be
| true and that could be hidden despite you being diligent in
| finding out what PBS truthfully reported.
| xnx wrote:
| Yes. I think 15% of funds from direct federal funding is
| totally correct, but I think there's also a portion from
| indirect federal funding.
| rectang wrote:
| https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5408014-rural-stations-vu...
|
| > _Rural stations hit hardest_
|
| > _Up to 18 percent of about 1,000 member stations would close_
| g-b-r wrote:
| The CEO stated repeatedly that many small stations are likely
| to be forced to shutdown
| unethical_ban wrote:
| It will be the death of public radio and television in small
| markets. Not all stations are affected equally.
|
| This is not a fiscal decision. This is a ideology that
| demonizes the open exchange of ideas and truth.
| atonse wrote:
| No I totally understand. I'm not trying to defend the
| decision or anything.
|
| But I am just trying to set expectations of what people
| should expect to see. I'm trying to get ahead of the
| predictable hysteria about the death of public radio/tv.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Man, sometimes losing 15% is enough to make things
| unsustainable. It is not like they are an Ivy League university
| with an endowment bigger than a developing country's GDP.
| atonse wrote:
| Totally agree. But there's a much bigger chance to survive
| with a 15% change, rather than a 30% or 40% change, for
| example.
| testplzignore wrote:
| Per https://cpb.org/funding, $357m goes to public tv and $119m
| to public radio.
|
| That's a nice chunk of change, though low enough that a few
| friendly billionaires could put some pocket change into a trust
| today and make up for this funding in perpetuity. And there
| undoubtedly will be a massive surge in donations from small
| donors in response to this.
|
| As long as the bigger fish are willing to subsidize the smaller
| rural stations, I don't think there is anything to be afraid
| of.
|
| The removal of this Sword of Damocles is in my opinion a great
| thing for PBS and NPR.
| autoexec wrote:
| A few friendly billionaires could have funded them entirely
| for the last 60 years. I see no reason to think that they
| suddenly will now. Many stations will be closed, and people
| will lose out on valued programing.
| tacon wrote:
| Joan Kroc gave NPR its biggest gift ever, $200 million.
| Alas, that was unusual.
| jaredwiener wrote:
| PBS and NPR do not operate like the commercial networks --
|
| ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/Etc are big corporations that produce (or
| commission/license, it gets...weird) shows to be distributed on
| their affiliates, that, depending on the city you are in, can
| be owned by the network OR another company that operates it
| like a franchise. Their affiliate agreement governs how much of
| the network programming they play -- though there are other
| agreements for non-network programming -- Jeopardy/Wheel of
| Fortune, for example, are syndicated and NOT network.
|
| PBS on the other hand is more of a consortium of public TV
| stations around the country. Shows that you might think of as
| "PBS Shows" are actually produced by these individual stations
| and then distributed to other stations that want them. Even PBS
| Newshour and Washington Week are produced by WETA in DC.
|
| Radio gets even more complicated. Many of the shows I've seen
| referenced on this thread aren't even necessarily NPR.
| Marketplace, for example, is American Public Media, which is
| sort of an outcropping from Minnesota Public Radio.
|
| So funding going to _ACTUAL_ PBS is a tiny part of this. What
| happens to the money going to various stations? What happens to
| the grants to produce and run these stations, especially in
| rural areas?
| atonse wrote:
| As others have said, the big guys (WGBH in Boston, WETA in
| DC, etc) will have minimal impact since they have a large
| pool of donors.
|
| But the little guys will suffer more. Ultimately, I think we
| can all agree that we hope the impact won't be catastrophic
| as far as the number of listeners impacted.
| starkparker wrote:
| Yep. Public media operations in rural and small-city
| markets are often as small as one full-time employee and
| cover large spans of territory. A cut to each of those
| stations might be as small as $150k but could represent
| much of their ability to do much more than minimal playback
| of out-of-market packages (which also degrade since many
| are published in part or full through CPB grants).
| kulahan wrote:
| My guess is that things will largely continue as they have
| been, but we'll get a lot fewer of those cute little
| stories about a random one-off issue in a town of 300
| people or whatever.
|
| Probably not the biggest loss if I'm right, but still a
| major bummer, and yet another connection between the rural
| and the urban is severed.
| caycep wrote:
| ah so like the cathedral vs the bazaar...
| mulmen wrote:
| I think your usage of the word "only" is a mistake. This is an
| important piece of information but if you are going to imply
| value like that then you should also explain the consequences
| of that cut.
| hedora wrote:
| Honestly, given the news that the Trump administration now has
| editorial control over all of CBS, it's probably good that
| they're no longer holding NPR's purse strings anymore.
|
| Maybe the revolution will be televised after all.
| thevillagechief wrote:
| Woah! This stuff is unwinding faster than my priors. I'm going to
| have to re-evaluate everything I thought true about the US. I
| just always assumed "strong institutions" meant something here.
| That it was all a house built on sand is disconcerting.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Institutions are only as strong as their defenders and
| supporters - and like countless Empires before it, the USA has
| bled its institutions dry of credibility and/or resources over
| the past several decades in a futile attempt to satiate a
| handful of wealthy extremists.
|
| This was entirely expected and predicted once neoliberalism
| took hold in the Democratic and Republican parties and began
| rotting out the central pillars of American Democracy and
| Empire.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Yep, billionaires-as-termites on the public infrastructure is
| an apt analogy
| stego-tech wrote:
| To be a little less glib or inflammatory:
|
| A lot of people are learning that institutions aren't these
| bulwarks against hostile actors, but in actuality are
| collections of people aligned on a given mission. For
| decades, Americans have neglected these people, cut funding
| to the helpful institutions, and granted far too much
| funding to negative ones. This culminated in the vilifying
| of these pillars and their members by a cadre of
| politicians backed by wealthy donors seeking change
| preferable to their personal agendas at the expense of the
| people, and it takes decades of continuous chipping away to
| get to the situation of today.
|
| _None of this_ is sudden, new, or shocking to those of us
| who have been staying informed, consuming legitimate news
| sources, and doing proper research with high-quality
| reference material. To the average person who merely
| consumes Cable News or mass media, this may all feel very
| sudden or surprising and therefore reversible.
|
| It's not.
| Onawa wrote:
| The dissolution and dismantling of US gov institutions that we
| are witnessing is unprecedented in modern times. Hell, a few of
| the agencies being attacked were created with bipartisan
| support.
|
| I would say it isn't that our institutions were built on sand,
| more that its hard to stop a madman who broke into your house
| with a chainsaw (a la Musk) from knocking down a few load-
| bearing walls.
|
| It is easier to destroy almost anything than it is to create it
| in the first place.
| khuey wrote:
| > Hell, a few of the agencies being attacked were created
| with bipartisan support.
|
| It's worse than that. PEPFAR was a signature initiative of
| the previous _Republican_ president.
| ljsprague wrote:
| Why must everything be viewed as Democrat vs. Republican?
| Trump is best viewed as a case of outsider vs. entrenched
| bureaucracy / deep state. Party is irrelevant.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I would say it isn't that our institutions were built on
| sand, more that its hard to stop a madman who broke into your
| house with a chainsaw (a la Musk) from knocking down a few
| load-bearing walls.
|
| This isn't due to one man (Musk) or a rogue government
| agency, or even the executive branch.
|
| This is Congress, which tells you how bad things have gotten.
| DFHippie wrote:
| It isn't Congress writ large, is the Republican caucus in
| Congress. And the Republican caucus in the SCOTUS.
| BeetleB wrote:
| True, but the point being it's a large percentage of the
| government, representing a significant percentage of the
| population.
| subsistence234 wrote:
| actually it's the voters.
| garciasn wrote:
| This isn't Musk's fault; he's just the asshole scapegoat.
| This is directly from the Conservative Think Tanks who
| finally got a President willing to strip everything down in
| government while increasing insane spends elsewhere (e.g.,
| $200MM ballroom for the White House while cutting revenue)
| based on the will of 44% of the voting population of the
| country.
|
| If anything, government should have been cut AND revenues
| increased; but, that's not how either party works.
| (disgusting oversimplification: Republicans reduce revenue
| and reduce spend while Democrats increase revenue and
| increase spend).
| jordanpg wrote:
| This is it. It always was a house of cards. A house of
| cards that everyone tacitly agreed to protect and preserve
| through norms. Then, the Conservative Think Tanks found
| someone who was willing to dispense with all of those
| norms. They gambled that people and Congress wouldn't
| really care (in the short term, anyway). And they were
| right.
| bullfightonmars wrote:
| What else could it be? Elected institutions are made up
| of people who agree to a laws, rules, and norms that
| everyone else agrees on. It's all a farce built up on
| agreements to keep things running smoothly.
|
| There is no system you could structure rigidly enough
| that it would not be vulnerable to bad actors. You can
| insulate yourself by distributing authority as we have,
| but if those authorities stop playing following the laws,
| rules, and norms well you end up where we are at,
| devolving into facisim.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >more that its hard to stop a madman who broke into your
| house with a chainsaw
|
| I think it's very fitting that you'd use this metaphor,
| because the people you oppose wouldn't even find that
| slightly challenging.
| subsistence234 wrote:
| i guess they should have been more trustworthy. once its
| lost, trust is hard to earn back.
| Arubis wrote:
| The institutions WERE strong. It's taken decades to unwind
| them. But yes, we've definitely crossed a big acceleration
| lately.
| radiofreeeuropa wrote:
| Capturing the Supreme Court so completely was the turning
| point, in terms of ability to enact their agenda quickly.
| It's been conservative my entire _not short any more_ life,
| but it 's strongly packed with disingenuous, ideologically-
| motivated jurists vetted and guided by the "correct"
| organizations, now.
|
| I wish anyone with even a little power were talking about
| ditching the position of "Supreme Court Justice" and just
| drawing for the role by lot from the "lower" federal courts
| each term. That could be done with a law, not an amendment-
| there has to be a Supreme Court, and federal judgeships are
| "during good behavior" (de facto "for life") but Supreme
| Court Justice _per se_ doesn 't have to be a permanent role.
| The closest I hear anyone talking about is court expansion,
| but that's a less-effective fix, and one more likely to draw
| strong push-back and to be unpopular, I think.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| The problem with the Supreme Court is the handshake-
| agreement to limit the court's size in combination with
| lifetime appointments and the Senate majority leader's
| pocket veto. Going back to 1992 (eight Presidential terms,
| three served by Republicans and five by Democrats),
| Republican presidents have successfully nominated six
| justices while Democrats only five (including a no-vote for
| Merrick Garland).
|
| The better thing to do, in my mind, is to limit the term
| length of a justice and eliminate the pocket veto, but I
| can't think of any way in which the elimination of a pocket
| veto also can't be exploited in some way (eg: with a 6-3
| court, if a Republican-aligned justice stepped down, a
| Republican president can knowingly put forward a candidate
| they know won't get approved to keep the margin 5-3 vs.
| 5-4).
| ygjb wrote:
| Before you think this is happening quickly, do note that public
| institutions have been under attack from the right for
| generations, including publicly funded education, public
| broadcasters, public health and social programs.
|
| These attacks are not unique to the United States; there is a
| coordinated effort across many countries by public policy
| groups and private interests. The United States are highly
| visible due to their ownership of global media, but the
| Republican party has been pursuing these objectives publicly
| and clearly for more than 30 years, and has made incremental
| progress to the point where they were able to re-engineer the
| Supreme Court and lower courts, as well as elect far right
| politicians who would tear up the rules to make it happen.
|
| This is the sharp upwards curve of increase in velocity that is
| the result of sustained accelleration over the last few
| decades. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better,
| and not just in the United States.
| radiofreeeuropa wrote:
| This has been a project under way since the friggin' John
| Birchers and the postwar "think-tank" boom. They've (this
| specific set of interests, not conservatism in general) been
| successfully ratcheting things toward authoritarianism since
| their Chicago school pals got the right people in the right
| places to radically change how we enforced anti-trust in the
| '70s (that is, they made it impossible for us to enforce in
| all but the most egregious cases, period) and have been
| winning one boring but effective battle after another ever
| since (plus the occasional headline-grabbing one).
|
| Often these victories have contributed to further momentum--
| concentration of wealth means more money for the cause; death
| of the "fairness doctrine" opens up the possibility of wholly
| partisan media for propagandizing, which was instantly
| capitalized on with a boom in right wing AM radio; Citizens
| United decision _de facto_ ending campaign finance
| regulation, well that 's sure convenient; all kinds of
| things.
|
| This has been more than a half-century in the making.
| specialist wrote:
| Yup.
|
| The books Democracy in Chains, Lobbying America, and Dark
| Money are three (of many, many) good intros to the
| conservative reaction to the The New Deal.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Large groups voting for "tear it all down, we don't trust
| institutions" wasn't a sign for you back in 2016? what were
| your priors before this year?
| radiofreeeuropa wrote:
| My "holy shit, we're in for... interesting times, and like,
| _soon_ " moment was when Trump suggested his supporters might
| shoot Hillary if she won ("If she wins, I can't do anything
| about it. But the 'Second Amendment people'...."), and _didn
| 't_ see a huge hit to his popularity, and supporters in his
| own camp distancing themselves, immediately.
|
| Norms are dead, you can just suggest assassination of your
| opponent and still win a Presidential election now, the
| batshit crazy stuff's not just for races in rural Montana or
| whatever. Like, IDK how this reads to younger folks, but I
| assure them that things are now happening practically daily
| that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago, let alone
| farther back. Things got visibly weirder _fast_.
| buerkle wrote:
| Just this week Trump posted on his social media that Obama
| should be indicted for treason, aka, executed and not a
| blip from the supposed left-wing media
| saguntum wrote:
| I'm in my mid 30s and have definitely noticed a gap in
| perception between people in their early 20s who haven't
| experienced much of pre-2016 politics and the older folks.
| The younger folks are much less alarmed because they
| weren't familiar with the "normal political discourse" that
| occurred when they were children.
|
| It makes it hard to be optimistic that there is any
| plausible roadmap back to some form of normalcy in the
| medium term.
| nemomarx wrote:
| What you want to look at is how countries navigate back
| to normalcy after coups or assassinations. It's not
| usually a smooth process, you have to do amnesties or
| hash out disagreements somehow...
| autoexec wrote:
| That's what worries me. young kids today have no idea how
| fucked up things are right now because this is all they've
| ever known.
| thevillagechief wrote:
| My point here is that "strong institutions" were supposed to
| stem this tide. Of course, I should have thought through who
| made up these institutions. In some ways institutions kind of
| held up pretty well 2016-2020. Which is why I was a little
| less worried. But looks like that was a dry run. The
| efficiency with which this is happening now is shocking.
| Honestly, I'm kind of impressed. If we applied this much
| efficiency constructively in the US, we'd probably see post-
| war prosperity levels. I imagine even NASA would approach the
| 1960s productivity.
| nemomarx wrote:
| You gotta hand it to the project 2025 people, they really
| organized and got their own planners in the right positions
| to execute on that.
| subsistence234 wrote:
| It's not like we abused people's trust, and then they
| stopped trusting us. No, a cabal of evil tricksters
| tricked them into not trusting us anymore. We're totally
| trustworthy.
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| I feel like there's been talk about dismantling the CPB for a
| long time. I recall talk about it on Rush Limbaugh's radio show
| in the 90's.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Europeans seem to understand this better than Americans,
| because the US has never really devolved from democracy into
| authoritarianism, but several European countries have. That's
| why e.g. in Germany it's possible to ban political parties that
| have as their goal the overflow of the democratic order.
| autoexec wrote:
| It's only been a couple hundred years or so for us so I guess
| this is just our turn then.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| This has been an attack on democracy over 40 years in the
| making. Conservatives have been openly saying what they've
| wanted to do all the time, but most people thought there'd
| never be a moment where they'd actually have enough power to
| pull it off. Meanwhile, liberal politicians have and still are
| operating under the delusion that they don't have to pass laws
| when they gain power, they can merely cast feelings and hope
| that the courts will back that up.
| autoexec wrote:
| Freedom means you're allowed to own enough rope to hang
| yourself with. We've always been one or two elections away from
| our own destruction.
| f33d5173 wrote:
| NPR in particular has been an insane parody of leftism for at
| least a decade at this point. The fact that it took this long
| to lose funding is a testament to how strong it was as an
| institution.
| abtinf wrote:
| Whenever the question of federal funding for public broadcasting
| has come up in the past, a small army of commenters would always
| claim that less then 1% of the funding for public media comes
| from the government.
|
| Turns out that was perhaps an incomplete argument.
| jumpkick wrote:
| It's 15% for PBS, and CPB != PBS and CPB != NPR.
| darknavi wrote:
| Certainly an incomplete picture. NPR its self may only get a
| small percentage of its total pie from CPB, but member stations
| (that license NPR content and what not) that exist all over the
| country use various amounts. The result will likely be that
| many small, local, already underfunded local stations will
| cease to function in their current capacity.
| tzs wrote:
| For NPR 1-2% of their budget came _directly_ from the federal
| government mostly through the CPB. That 's where the 1% number
| some quote comes from.
|
| However, NPR also receives funding from member station fees,
| and those member stations typically get about 13% of their
| budgets from the federal government.
|
| Putting it all together about 10% of NPR's budget comes from
| the federal government.
|
| For PBS about 15% of their budget comes from the federal
| government. Some local PBS affiliates, especially in rural
| areas, get up to 60% of their budgets from the federal
| government.
| munchler wrote:
| I listen to NPR every day and, honestly, I think this might be
| for the best. It's going to hurt for a while, but in the end, I
| think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands on its
| own without interference from politicians.
| Pfhortune wrote:
| > I think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands
| on its own without interference from politicians.
|
| What does the "public" in "public broadcasting" mean to you?
| munchler wrote:
| Ideally, it would be entirely non-commercial, funded by
| direct donations from the public.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| What are taxes for, then?
| otterley wrote:
| The American public's attitude towards using taxes to
| support media has shifted over the past few decades.
| There's a perception (right or wrong) that public media
| is liberally biased, and it's getting government
| attention now, and so we're seeing the consequences of
| that.
| munchler wrote:
| Things that are supported by a durable majority of the
| population. I wish that included public broadcasting, but
| it doesn't.
|
| Personally, I'm tired of hearing conservatives whine
| about public broadcasting. This will at least shut them
| up for good.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| > This will at least shut them up for good.
|
| No it won't. The modern GOP is fueled by grievance. It
| needs an "other" in order to exist. They'll have a new
| enemy to rail against by this time tomorrow.
| munchler wrote:
| Yes, of course, but it won't be public broadcasting
| anymore. That's why this might be a win for public
| broadcasting in the long run.
| bix6 wrote:
| I guess we should just support the post office with
| donations while we're at it. That'll work well!
| munchler wrote:
| I suspect the post office is still supported by a durable
| majority. If it isn't, then it will probably lose
| government funding as well.
| autoexec wrote:
| Same with public schools, public parks, public sidewalks,
| public libraries, even police and fire departments. We
| have to give billionaires trillions in tax cuts while
| watching most Americans backslide into poverty so
| obviously it'd be fiscally irresponsible for the
| government to fund public services for the peasant class
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Voluntary vs. Compelled is the difference.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Are you saying that non-commercial broadcasting does not
| count as a public good, or that taxes should be
| voluntary, or that it does count as a public good but
| taxes should not be spent on it?
| pfortuny wrote:
| That is not what "public" means in ordinary language.
| Public is intended to mean "supported by taxes".
|
| Support by donations is always dependent on the largest
| donor.
| jleyank wrote:
| See Post, Washington to see what "dependent on the
| largest donor" is revealed to be.
| munchler wrote:
| Not going to argue semantics with you.
|
| The US government was the largest donor until now. No
| single non-governmental donor will ever have that level
| of influence again.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| it's not a semantic argument. you misunderstand the term
| in question.
| munchler wrote:
| Until this change, public broadcasting got 85% of its
| funding from donations, so whatever the term used to
| mean, that's what it means now.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Honest question: apart from the name ("Public BC"), what
| makes it "public" in the US if most of its income is
| private?
| pfortuny wrote:
| I now realize (sorry) that my European mindset has
| tricked me, most likely. The term is very loaded here
| towards the meaning I gave it.
|
| You are probably right.
|
| My apologies.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Public is intended to mean "supported by taxes".
|
| For you, probably, for me it means "from/for the people".
| pfortuny wrote:
| See my comment below: in usual terms, in Europe "public"
| means technically "supported by taxes" -which is why most
| "public" media is most of the time pro-government (bar
| inertia).
| autoexec wrote:
| Yeah, as in "We the people". As in "Of the people, by the
| people, for the people" Taxes are how "we the people" pay
| for public things (libraries, parks, highways, sidewalks,
| schools, etc.)
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Then it becomes an organization dominated by those who
| donate the most -- and there have already been cases where
| a PBS affiliate self-censored and modified its editorial in
| an attempt to placate a potential donor[0].
|
| [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/a-word-
| from-ou...
| infamia wrote:
| Can we call it public broadcasting when it fails to even
| dimly reflect the diversity of ideas for the areas it serves?
| Milk toast conservatives like Juan Williams were deemed
| intolerable a long time ago, so calling it public radio at
| this point is a misnomer and a sad farce.
| tayloramurphy wrote:
| I think you mean "milquetoast". The wikipedia link led me
| to "milk toast", which is interesting in itself.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_Milquetoast
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_toast
| otterley wrote:
| Juan Williams wasn't let go because he's conservative; it's
| because he's a bigot (unless you think being a bigot is a
| conservative qualification):
|
| "Look, Bill [O'Reilly], I'm not a bigot. You know the kind
| of books I've written about the civil rights movement in
| this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell
| you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think,
| you know, they are identifying themselves first and
| foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
|
| https://www.npr.org/2010/10/21/130712737/npr-ends-
| williams-c...
|
| "NPR, like any mainstream news outlet, expects its
| journalists to be thoughtful and measured in everything
| they say. What Williams said was deeply offensive to
| Muslims and inflamed, rather than contributing positively,
| to an important debate about the role of Muslims in
| America."
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2010/10/21/130713
| 2...
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands
| on its own without interference from politicians.
|
| What does the "public" in public broadcasting mean to you?
| dpe82 wrote:
| Hasn't it been largely free of interference up until now? And
| would you prefer it suffer from corporate interference like all
| other media?
| munchler wrote:
| It's been a political football for decades. Conservatives use
| it as an example of liberal spending run amok, so public
| broadcasting has had to constantly look over its shoulder
| during that time.
|
| No, I would like to eliminate corporate influence as well,
| but that might not be possible in a capitalist society.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Take a tax supported public good, remove the public support
| and then claim to worry about corporate influence? What do
| you think was holding that corporate influence at bay?
| munchler wrote:
| Unfortunately, the necessary level of public support
| doesn't exist, so relying on government money isn't
| viable. I hope public broadcasting will get enough money
| directly from individuals to resist excessive corporate
| influence, but we'll have to see.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| It hasn't been interfered with until now, what are you talking
| about about?
| dralley wrote:
| NPR can also be a bit of a meme sometimes. Maybe it's just
| circumstance but every time I hear NPR for any period of time
| longer than about 20 minutes they do a segment on a topic like
| polyamory, how women are proudly reclaiming the word "bimbo",
| or people protesting the administration using interpretive
| dance.
|
| It is certainly not programming with much mass market appeal.
| Pfhortune wrote:
| Perhaps not every form of media needs to be engagement-
| driven?
|
| The beautiful thing about public media is that it can
| broadcast things that don't have a profit-motive for being
| broadcast.
| frumplestlatz wrote:
| Shouldn't publicly funded media at least be representative
| of the wide diversity of views and interests that the
| public holds?
| autoexec wrote:
| What topics and interests do you think they've never
| covered?
| swed420 wrote:
| > The beautiful thing about public media is that it can
| broadcast things that don't have a profit-motive for being
| broadcast.
|
| True, so one would expect to have heard much more about
| Bernie Sanders when he was making runs for president.
| Unfortunately the only coverage he usually got on likes of
| NPR was when it was something negative about him.
|
| So much for straying from profit motive.
| radiofreeeuropa wrote:
| Most of NPR's news programming has been terrible for many
| years.
|
| Pay attention to how many segments--even that are sort-of
| connected to an actual news event, which, _many aren 't_--
| revolve around political strategy, poll numbers, and (in
| season, which is now like three years out of four) electoral
| race polling.
|
| It's, like... a _lot_ of them, outside the human-interest and
| arts coverage stuff. They consistently divert into talking
| about political media messaging strategy and poll numbers and
| crap, and they do it so very much that it 's got to be
| something they're doing on purpose. This isn't news reporting,
| it's lazy, safe (because you don't have to engage with
| substantive questions of policy and outcomes, nor even
| questions of _fact_ ) horse-race bullshit. It's a complete
| waste of the listener's time, if they're there for actual news
| reporting.
|
| On the flip side, though, I'm not seeing a lot of "sink or swim
| in the market" US media doing much better, so I wouldn't bet on
| them shifting to anything better (though shift they might).
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I wonder how the people at NPR feel about all those donations
| they took from the Koch Foundation over the years...
| otterley wrote:
| They feel fine about it. They're run plenty of pieces that
| run counter to Koch Industries' interests.
|
| (Also, did you mean the Charles Koch Foundation or the David
| H. Koch Foundation? The Koch Foundation is a different entity
| with a different mission.)
| arrosenberg wrote:
| You obviously know which ones I mean.
| gizzlon wrote:
| > when it stands on its own without interference from
| politicians
|
| Why on earth do you think it will be free of interference?
| Obviously they will find other ways to pressure and censor
| them. As they have done in many cases already.
| jfengel wrote:
| You prefer interference by corporations?
| Pfhortune wrote:
| What's really horrifying here is that, even if the appetite for
| funding CPB were to come back in 2026, 2028, or whenever, you
| can't just spin it up again; those people have moved on, those
| assets are liquidated. You would have to start up again pretty
| much from scratch.
|
| That's why this careless crusade against governmental
| institutions is so horrific. Institutions with decades of history
| are being destroyed, and it would take years to decades to spin
| up something even close to equivalent, in an insane political
| environment where every public institution is framed as horrible
| socialism.
| frumplestlatz wrote:
| I guess I just don't find that as horrifying as you do. The
| market cannot hold public broadcasting accountable, and this is
| one of the few levers that we have to do so.
|
| Conservatives have wanted to defund public broadcasting for
| decades. What made it finally possible was that public
| broadcasting made their bias obvious and undeniable. Over the
| past 10 years, the stark shift leftward has been undeniable --
| they became what they've been accused of being for a very long
| time.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| This is a better outcome than Trump minions taking over CPB
| tptacek wrote:
| What would they have been able to do? CPB mostly just funnels
| money to stations. They don't produce content.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Put conditions on said funneled money?
| softwaredoug wrote:
| "If you want CPB money, you'll have to make/broadcast a
| Trump PSA" seems totally within the realm of possibility.
|
| Which might still happen if rural PBS stations now need to
| take sketchy sources of money
| burkaman wrote:
| They could have chosen which specific shows they would fund,
| they weren't required to give out no-strings-attached grants.
| They once hand-picked Tucker Carlson to host a new PBS show
| that they would fund.
| tptacek wrote:
| OK, but now they're funding zero shows.
| burkaman wrote:
| I understand, just answering your question about what
| they would have been able to do.
| legitster wrote:
| Contrary to the conservative spin over the years, I have found
| public broadcasting to be one of the least biased sources of
| headline news and information available. (For their national
| broadcasts at least - local ... can be hit or miss).
|
| In particular, their kids programming is the absolute best.
| Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education
| and has zero agenda. And the PBS kids apps are one of the few
| things I can hand to my kid worry-free. And the fact that it's
| money-free and ad-free to access in this modern age is a miracle.
|
| The only people who could support this are not just wrong, they
| are people out of touch with reality. These are people who think
| public parks are a waste of space. Or that having nice things to
| share is elitist.
| another_twist wrote:
| Thats expected. In functioning democracies state media is run
| for the purpose not profit. It doesnt have the corrupting
| influence of political money. PBS in the US could be so much
| better. Just look at what BBC is able to do in the UK.
| thrownawaysz wrote:
| >Just at what BBC is able to do in the UK.
|
| This is funny because BBC is a prime example of being a
| propaganda channel for the government of the day. And that's
| not new at all just look back at the coverage of the Troubles
| or the miners strikes in the 70s-80s.
|
| Yes it's not on the level of CGTN or Russia Today but BBC is
| not neutral at all
|
| https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-
| the-...
| fidotron wrote:
| In fairness to the BBC on the rare occasions they do cross
| paths with the government this happens:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry
|
| I'm not sure anyone that is familiar with this has been
| able to take what they say seriously since because they are
| so clearly on such a short leash.
| efitz wrote:
| A lot of people are unable to see their own political bias;
| they look at BBC or Fox News and see "unbiased true
| reporting".
|
| I highly suggest using Ground News (ground.news) for a week
| or a month as your sole portal into news stories, and then
| use their features to analyze bias in your selection of
| news stories and outlets.
|
| I use it regularly to try to offset my own biases.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Ground News worries me because now we don't need to use
| our brains the app just tells me the bias! Ground News
| could be biased!
|
| Leads to shallow discussion where all news sources are
| tossed out for bias leaving nothing (or what ground news
| wants you to listen to). God forbid we critically examine
| for ourselves the information we consume.
| esseph wrote:
| This makes 0 sense
|
| Ground news links all of their sources on a per article
| basis and you can simply scroll left/right through each
| news source. And you can add your own sources!
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| You didn't address the meat of my argument. The sources
| are irrelevant. They try to tell you the media bias which
| can itself be biased and gamed and which (I think) leads
| to readers not critically examining sources for
| themselves.
| esseph wrote:
| If somebody is going to be uncritical I don't see how any
| of this actually helps, but that's totally on them.
|
| I'm not going to argue with them saying that Fox News is
| right wing or that MSNBC is more left wing. "Duh".
|
| Maybe we're looking at this from a different angle, or
| maybe we just use the service in different ways.
|
| The "bias" part that is relevant is showing you the
| difference in headline and contents between dozens or
| hundreds or thousands based on historical leanings of the
| news org, and which ones are even reporting on a
| particular topic.
|
| It's not saying a particular article leans a particular
| way, it's saying the source does.
| timr wrote:
| I don't know about your suggested site, but I use foreign
| news for this. I have switched to "consuming news" [0]
| almost entirely from a variety of English-language
| foreign services.
|
| All national media services have their own bias and
| propaganda, but if you switch them up it becomes obvious
| very quickly. It also means that I miss out on most of
| the US political noise [1], which is a benefit to my
| mental health [2].
|
| [0] Hot/lukewarm take: "consuming news" is a waste of
| time, and should be minimized. This really hits you like
| a brick to the head when you see the stuff that _foreign
| countries_ are obsessing about, and how tiny it feels to
| you. Guess what: your news media is filled with the same
| crap.
|
| [1] I still get the foreign opinion on it, obviously, but
| this is usually pretty mild. Most countries don't care
| about the US nearly as much as US citizens think they do.
|
| [2] If you think that CPB/NPR don't have bias, I strongly
| suggest that you try this. You're probably in a bubble,
| and an "international perspective" is something that most
| NPR listeners claim to value. Removing US media from my
| life eliminated a huge source of angst ( _particularly_
| after 2016), and revealed that all of the major US media
| sources are various forms of hyper-polarized clownery.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I suspect most people who look at international media and
| think it's better are using rose-tinted glasses.
|
| Indian media is broadly worse if anything, latin american
| media is a trip if you have any understanding of the
| complicated political landscape, Aus is central to the
| Murdoch news dynasty, and East asian media has lots of
| famously partisan organizations. Maybe middle eastern
| media, explicitly funded for soft power political goals
| or African media, which span the gamut from bloodthirsty
| factional rags to leftover colonial institutions to
| tightly controlled extensions of the state apparatus?
|
| They're _differently_ biased, but you can 't escape
| consuming media critically. "Averaging" by listening to a
| lot of different perspectives is 1) a lot of effort and
| 2) also something that can (and is) manipulated by making
| sure there's lots of "both sides" messaging present.
| timr wrote:
| > I suspect most people who look at international media
| and think it's better are using rose-tinted
| glasses....They're differently biased, but you can't
| escape consuming media critically.
|
| I went out of my way to head off this exact criticism,
| but I guess I didn't put it in blinking, bold, 30 point
| font.
|
| Again: _every national media outlet has bias_ (indeed,
| every media outlet has bias). My experience is that it 's
| pretty easy to notice when you switch your sources
| regularly.
|
| It doesn't take me any effort to do this, and even if I
| hear a hyper-partisan take, it doesn't melt my brain. I
| go _" oh weird, so that's what the Indian government
| thinks"_ -- which is still vastly preferable to hearing
| what some reporter at NPR or CNN or whatever thinks about
| what India thinks.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Also the Wikipedia Current Events portal [1]. It's
| definitely biased by the Wikipedia editors decisions on
| what to add there (especially the "Topics in the News"
| box) but it gives a more or less neutral dump of the
| daily events.
|
| It's pretty much the only place I know to find news on
| all the conflicts that Western media tends to ignore.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Notably when I was checking the Current Events Portal for
| a while, most coverage of the Israel/Hamas war was
| sourced from Al Jazeera and it definitely felt biased.
| Checking it just now, it appears to be more balanced now.
| glial wrote:
| At your recommendation I took a look at Ground News.
|
| I'm not a fan of the continued reification of "left" and
| "right". I have heard conservatives lament that MAGA
| isn't truly conservative. I've heard economic reformers
| lament that liberal social policies are sucking the
| oxygen out of the room for real structural reform. In
| both cases the idea of a single "left" and "right" as a
| group, or even worse as the two sole options on the menu
| of how to think, is severely damaging to productive
| political dialogue.
|
| Framing everything as left-vs-right is like doing PCA and
| taking only the first principal component - sure it might
| be contain some signal, but it flattens any nuance.
| Critically, it also pre-frames any debate into competing
| camps in a way that harms rather than serves. I would
| challenge groups like Ground News to offer other framings
| - why not "owners vs workers"? Why not "rural vs urban"?
| We should ask why they chose the framing they do. I have
| my own cynical opinion but I'll refrain from sharing.
| esseph wrote:
| It's also showing you Where and IF people are even
| talking about the issues in their bubbles.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I think comparing BBC new to fox news is a piss take.
|
| of _course_ there is bias at the BBC. But to comparing it
| to Fox is uncharitable at best.
| radiofreeeuropa wrote:
| The comparison for something as openly partisan on the
| left as Fox News, in US media, would be something like
| Democracy Now! or maybe The Nation.
|
| The thing is, though, there are a few components here:
| there's level of favorability toward a certain kind of
| politics, which some barely-popular left-leaning outlets
| roughly match Fox News on, plus _propensity to lie and
| exaggerate_. And there 's reach.
|
| Nothing left-partisan in the US that I'm aware of touches
| Fox on either of those latter fronts--propensity to just
| make shit up, and (certainly not) reach.
|
| Nobody's putting Democracy Now! on in waiting rooms. Hell
| IDK maybe at Planned Parenthood, never been, wouldn't
| know, but not at a dentist's office or at the auto shop
| or what have you.
|
| There are equivalents to Fox News on the Left (Fox News
| viewers think it's MSNBC because that's what Fox News and
| AM radio told them, LMFAO, no) in the US, in terms of
| level of commitment to supporting partisan causes.
| There's nothing like it as far as willingness to deviate
| from reality to do so, nor in reach. Nothing remotely
| close.
| esseph wrote:
| I've been a subscriber for a few months now and it's well
| worth it.
| intended wrote:
| The BBC has routinely been called biased by all sides of
| the spectrum - it is effectively the best we are going to
| get in terms of neutrality.
| another_twist wrote:
| To quote David Mitchell - "news is a very small of the
| BBC...BBC is an organization that is loved around the world
| for its drama and stories and not just the ruddy news".
|
| How is it not neutral ? I follow some of the news. They've
| criticized both Conservative and Labour governments. Of
| course there are problems like the whole Martin Bashir
| thing but recently I've seen the BBC be more self-critical
| than other private TV channels. If we're comparing mistakes
| from the past then in the 90s, Roger Ailes was molesting
| women behind locked doors. Lewd comments were the norm
| across several news rooms. Doesn't mean that all private
| media is bad.
| unleaded wrote:
| >They've criticized both Conservative and Labour
| governments
|
| this is really the main problem with the bbc. for example
| one week they publish a story talking about something
| horrible israel has done then the next they publish
| another seemingly taking their side on something. it just
| ends up annoying and confusing both sides instead of one
| Devilspawn6666 wrote:
| The BBC is pro-Establishment rather than in favour of the
| government of the day. I.E. Strongly pro-EU / anti-Brexit.
| It's also decidedly pro-Woke.
| exasperaited wrote:
| I do think it is pro-establishment but as a remainer I
| was exasperated by both the outsized presence Mr Farage
| got on BBC programming and also the uncritical nature of
| the coverage of the post-Brexit negotations and treatment
| of dissenting MPs, so I am not convinced at all the BBC
| had a particularly pro-EU position.
|
| I think you could argue it had a sort of pro-Cameron lean
| to it for a while simply because he initially positioned
| himself as quite a boring centrist, but I don't believe
| there was any policy alignment generally.
|
| Less sure re: the scottish independence vote but I think
| in that case the BBC was sort of paralysed by what the
| outcome would mean for _it_ , and that may have made it
| difficult for it to comprehensively handle.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It would help a lot if you would offer some points of
| comparison for which channels you think do a better job in
| this area.
| tetris11 wrote:
| BBC has unparalleled quality TV programming for both kids and
| adults, but their news channel has been compromised by
| conservative influence (namely the director Tim Davie) for a
| while now.
|
| Channel 4 news is surprisingly now the better news source for
| actual events.
| rgblambda wrote:
| Channel 4 unfortunately doesn't have the breadth of news
| coverage (though they definitely have the depth) that the
| BBC has. They don't have anything like the local/regional
| news coverage and have to be very selective about what they
| report on. They're also 1 medium only (TV) whereas the BBC
| are TV, radio, and what is effectively the UK's biggest
| online newspaper.
|
| They're also living on borrowed time. Channel 4 is publicly
| owned but completely self funded, largely through ad
| revenue. Ad revenue for TV is not what it used to be.
|
| There's been serious consideration given to the idea of
| merging Channel 4 into the BBC to share admin costs but
| keep it editorially separate.
| colechristensen wrote:
| >Just at what BBC is able to do in the UK.
|
| Every household that watches BBC in the UK needs to pay
| PS174.50 ($230) a year. (the wording here has to be done
| carefully, let's not digress into being exact on who has to
| pay it)
|
| Federal funding for public media distributed out to $1.54 per
| person in the US last year.
|
| There's... uh... a bit of a difference in the national
| funding for the BBC and public media in the US.
| another_twist wrote:
| Agreed. My argument was that US has a much stronger economy
| than the UK and clearly bigger state coffers. With proper
| funding there's no reason why state run media can't put out
| good quality stories and content. Not just news.
| reorder9695 wrote:
| Every household that has a TV, regardless of their use of
| the BBC. I don't know why people who essentially use a TV
| as a monitor for games consoles need to pay it.
| butterknife wrote:
| We don't.
| exasperaited wrote:
| True. I personally do (and I don't currently own a TV!)
| but I think non-payment is going to become a significant
| enough issue within the period of _this_ parliament that
| we will likely see an end to the licence fee shortly
| after the 2030 election if not sooner.
| legitster wrote:
| BBC is a bad example because they clearly cater to local
| politics and their monopoly on programming and news for large
| swaths of their country is not particularly healthy.
|
| State media is inherently going to be pro-establishment and
| failures to report on their own internal scandals I think
| should give everyone pause about being all-in on something
| like the BBC.
| exasperaited wrote:
| Monopoly?
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > PBS in the US could be so much better.
|
| PBS Newshour is pretty much the best/balanced news
| programming on US TV at this point. They take deeper dives
| into issues than most of the other shows out there. And then
| there's Frontline which is excellent and goes even deeper
| with a documentary format. The rest of PBS - there are a few
| good parts like Nova, but a lot of what plays on PBS stations
| these days is UK crime dramas - man, there seems to be a lot
| of mayhem going on in merry old England these days.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| >PBS Newshour
|
| Haven't watched this since I was a kid. Just scrubbed
| through the latest episode. I was surprised, it's not bad.
| Left-leaning to my eye, but FAR less so than any other
| left-leaning mainstream TV media I can think of. And as you
| point out, more substantial and meaningful coverage than
| you typically get anywhere else. I would be happy to
| encourage anyone to watch more PBS Newshour based on that
| TheCondor wrote:
| Is there a specific example of the left-leaning bias you
| can mention?
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| "Reality has a well-known liberal bias"
|
| .. Stephen Colbert
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| The show had six guests on- 2 left, 1 right, 2 neutral(?)
| and 1 CIA deep state mouthpiece. The show gave mostly
| balanced coverage of every issue covered, but declined to
| dig into the Epstein issue beyond "Trump+Epstein", gave
| the deep-stater seven minutes to defend the CIA without
| meaningfully pressing into any of the other questions
| raised by the latest declassifications (such as HRC & DNC
| involvement in orchestrating Russiagate), flashed a
| debunked/misleading statistic on screen about Russians
| influencing the the 2020 election via social media, and
| gave a one-sided take on redistricting in Texas ignoring
| the side that says redistricting after a Census is normal
| and routine.
| terraqueous wrote:
| Texas already completed redistricting in 2021 after the
| most recent census (2020). They are only redrawing the
| maps again now because Trump is demanding an even more
| egregious gerrymander.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| In that case I wish Newshour had made that detail
| plainer. I see now they lightly brush over it in the
| intro of the segment. Thank you for the clarification.
| legitster wrote:
| > such as HRC & DNC involvement in orchestrating
| Russiagate
|
| I'm not trying to be dismissive of your viewpoint, but
| why should anyone bother speaking to this? Absolutely
| nothing new was divulged. It's not the media's
| responsibility to give airtime over every government
| press release.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/declassifie
| d_d...
| legitster wrote:
| These documents don't really contain anything.
|
| All you see are staffers at the Hillary campaign
| discussing the news of the Russian influence campaigns
| (which this report reiterates are real) and how they can
| use it for their campaign.
|
| Nothing in here is novel or even that salacious. How is
| this newsworthy?
| tzs wrote:
| Is there much to say on Epstein besides "Trump+Epstein"?
|
| Epstein was not some Darth Vader or Joker (The Dark Night
| version) or Commodus (from Gladiator) or Sauron or
| Voldemort type of villain who was openly villainous and
| did not have a public good side (either an actual good
| side or a front to try to hide his villainy).
|
| Epstein was more a Han from Enter the Dragon kind of
| villain.
|
| Epstein had a fairly extensive public good side (maybe
| real, maybe just a front, probably a mix of both)
| appearing as a legitimate businessman and a
| philanthropist.
|
| A big part of his philanthropy was directed toward
| supporting scientific research, universities, and the
| arts. He liked to invite top people from particular
| fields, like physics and AI, to events on his island
| where they (the invited people) would discuss major
| scientific and philosophical issues from their field. Get
| an invite to one of those, and it was a chance to go
| spend a few days for free in a resort setting,
| participate in some pop science level discussions to keep
| the rich guy happy, and maybe try to talk him into
| funding your lab.
|
| Because of this most of the time it isn't all that
| interesting when some famous person shows up in Epstein's
| documents.
|
| It becomes interesting with Trump because he spent a lot
| of time using his opponent's Epstein connections against
| them in ways that made his followers come to believe any
| association with Epstein is practically proof that you
| are an active pedophile.
|
| He did this even though he knew he himself had
| connections to Epstein (including to people who actually
| were part of Epstein's villain side). And now that's
| biting him.
| koolba wrote:
| > PBS Newshour is pretty much the best/balanced news
| programming on US TV at this point.
|
| Ah yes, the news show that has a weekly politics round
| table that brings in a balanced approach to see issues from
| both sides: The side of an anti-Trump Democrat and the side
| of an anti-Trump Republican.
|
| Good riddance!
| legitster wrote:
| How many pro-Trump Republicans actually want to engage in
| a fair round-table style debate?
|
| This administration makes a point that they only do
| interviews with sources favorable to them. They can't opt
| out of the media and then pretend to be victims.
| koolba wrote:
| > How many pro-Trump Republicans actually want to engage
| in a fair round-table style debate?
|
| There's plenty to pick from. The problem is that having
| someone effective in that position would anger the one
| people that PBS actually cares about, their donor class.
| It doesn't matter that Trump won the popular vote in the
| most recent election, they'll still go out of their way
| to ensure that the token conservative voice is against
| him.
|
| > This administration makes a point that they only do
| interviews with sources favorable to them. They can't opt
| out of the media and then pretend to be victims.
|
| This is the most accessible and transparent
| administration in decades, if not longer. The POTUS has
| held more interviews, with just about every national
| media organization, and regularly holds open ended press
| conferences with pools of reporters.
|
| What you're describing is the previous administration
| which not only hand selected the reporters, they even
| gave Biden a cheat sheet of reporters (with pictures!) so
| he would know exactly who to call on:
| https://www.newsweek.com/white-house-defends-bidens-
| cheat-sh...
|
| Is that your paragon of media transparency?
| wtfwhateven wrote:
| >There's plenty to pick from.
|
| No there's not. Name three.
|
| >This is the most accessible and transparent
| administration in decades, if not longer. The POTUS has
| held more interviews, with just about every national
| media organization, and regularly holds open ended press
| conferences with pools of reporters.
|
| This is simply an absurd lie with no basis in reality, I
| really don't know why you even spouted it. It contradicts
| observable truth. Strange.
| jaredklewis wrote:
| > PBS in the US could be so much better.
|
| Do you have a specific grievance? How could it be better?
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| BBC is not 100% neutral on all issues. No one is. One could
| argue that it is less bad than the for-profit channels in the
| UK but no channel is without biase.
| nemo44x wrote:
| State media doesn't have corrupting influence of POLITICAL
| money? It's inheriting my political! Government media is the
| worse possible thing.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| > but it's laser focused on education and has zero agenda.
|
| I totally support public broadcasting of all stripes, and do
| not advocate for this POV at all, but ... there are people who
| claim the opposite. Sesame Street is 'full woke', apparently,
| because it has talked about skin color and race with muppets.
|
| What many people consider normal... is 'full woke agenda' to
| others.
| toast0 wrote:
| > In particular, their kids programming is the absolute best.
| Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education
| and has zero agenda.
|
| I dunno, the Odd Squad has almost as much green screen as a
| Guardians of the Galaxy movie. If that's not flashy, I dunno.
| And Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman was pretty out there; a space
| ghost style host ordering kids around the streets of Boston.
|
| Also, the reboot of CyberChase was pretty clearly on the Ag
| agenda, all about Organic this and that. Maybe that doesn't
| count as an Agenda because the department of agriculture was
| funding it.
|
| Also, Sesame street has always been in the pocket of those
| letter and number sponsors.
| stockresearcher wrote:
| FYI, Odd Squad was/is a Canadian kids TV show.
|
| It really surprised me to learn this; it always felt so Ohio
| to me.
| mandevil wrote:
| I believe GP was quite firmly tongue in cheek.
| toast0 wrote:
| I _was_ indeed unaware that the Odd Squad was foreign
| propaganda, but a lot of the stations broadcasting it
| were supported by CPB, so I think it 's still fair to
| call it out as flashy, regardless of the location of my
| tongue with respect to my cheek. I think it's also fair
| to call out Guardians as Odd Squad for adults :P
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| You clearly have multiple kids... or a very niche set of
| entrainment you prefer.
| toast0 wrote:
| Just one, but you know, I prefer to say a very rich set of
| entertainment. Although entrainment might be just as
| accurate. :)
| Cyph0n wrote:
| The world of Daniel Tiger is the definition of a welfare
| state - too socialist for my taste.
|
| Peg + Cat relies on numerology and emphasizes DEI above all
| else.
|
| Alma's Way is pro-illegal immigration and unbelievably on the
| nose about it.
|
| I can keep going. Point is, PBS Kids should have been
| shutdown a long time ago.
|
| /s
| mc32 wrote:
| The national stuff was okay to good. The Children's programming
| was in general good.
|
| The local stuff though was quite questionable. For example
| they'd support different causes or efforts by referencing a
| single poorly supported research paper. Usually those research
| papers supported some narrative. It could be homelessness, drug
| treatments, etc., however there was little if any scrutiny of
| the paper the whole effort or narrative was based on.
|
| They also had annoying presenters like Kai Ryssdahl. He was
| insufferable but hardly the only one.
|
| Also, despite being a public system, individual comp is high
| relative to their listeners', I'd say[1]. I'd guess most
| listeners would not imagine their comp being as high as it is,
| for example:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Public_Radio
|
| [1] In addition, those at the top enjoy perks like being
| invited to elite events, and the perks of schmoozing for
| donations. Those are experiences that are alien to the average
| listener.
| wffurr wrote:
| Losing PBS Kids will be a tragedy. One of the few high quality
| sources of kids' programming out there. So much of the
| commercial options are dreck.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| +1. PBS Kids is a goldmine. Time to sails the high seas if
| you aren't already :)
|
| The other tragedy is the PBS Kids Games app on iOS and
| Android. It is chock full of educational games that tie into
| the various shows.
| legitster wrote:
| As a reminder, none of these are going away (yet). So far
| this only affects smaller member stations and the larger
| bottom lines of PBS and NPR.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Glad to hear that, thanks for clarifying!
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| Conservative here.
|
| I wasn't very happy with the PBS defunding. One of their best
| shows was Frontline and the amount of just straight down the
| middle documentaries they did was great. For a lot of the
| issues that became very politicized, I would regularly turn to
| them for an unbiased view of what was going on.
|
| I agree on the educational stuff as well. How many generations
| of kids grew up watching PBS kids shows? My parents donated
| regularly and supported PBS the whole time.
|
| Hopefully they can continue, I'm sad to see such a pillar of
| goodness go away.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Frontline is one of the best (if not _the_ best) current
| events /documentary shows on US television. It'd be a tragedy
| if it went away.
| rectang wrote:
| I'm socially liberal by American standards, but on the
| subject of government funding for media I feel like a small-c
| conservative. Government funded media faces constant pressure
| to become propaganda.
|
| I'm rather looking forward to public radio programming that
| would strike you as liberally biased, now that public radio
| productions no longer have to please Republicans in
| government.
| autoexec wrote:
| Do you have examples where PBS or NPR were forced by the
| government to spew maga talking points? You'd think that if
| public media in the US were busy pleasing Republicans all
| day and all night they wouldn't have had their funding cut
| a_thro_away wrote:
| Your parents efforts, like many of the the good efforts to
| move humanity forward over many decades, have been thrown
| into the trash. The next generations of Americans will have
| social/educational gaps that CPB/PBS filled _for educational,
| cultural, historical, and sociological reasons_ ; not because
| they liked influencing little kids ideologically. And the
| future will suffer for it, as they say, if you don't learn it
| at home, society foots the bill to correct it.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| > Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at
| voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is
| headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered
| Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans.
| None.
|
| https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-tru...
| marricks wrote:
| Just because conservatives hate kids and don't want to be
| teachers/educators/work at universities doesn't mean it's
| biased or bad.
|
| It's like if you wanted a diversity of opinions designing a
| rocket so you decided to pull in flat earth's as well as new
| earth creationist. You're not getting a better rocket.
| Perhaps a better fireworks show, though.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| right on! down with DEI!
| nullc wrote:
| > because conservatives hate kids
|
| https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-trump-bump-the-republican-
| fer...
| leviathant wrote:
| Yeah yeah. If you want to find the Republicans in public
| broadcasting, look at the board members. Same thing happened
| with newspapers and local TV news after Bush 2 loosened media
| ownership rules.
|
| Next you're going to tell me the New York Times has a liberal
| bias, right? Save it.
| legitster wrote:
| For the record, Uri story is not corroborated and doesn't
| seem to be in good faith.
|
| https://steveinskeep.substack.com/p/how-my-npr-colleague-
| fai...
|
| > When I asked Uri, he said he "couldn't care less" that I am
| not a Democrat. He said the important thing was the
| "aggregate"--exactly what his 87-0 misrepresented by leaving
| out people like me. While it's widely believed that most
| mainstream journalists are Democrats, I've had colleagues
| that I was pretty sure were conservative (I don't ask), and
| I've learned just since Uri's article that I am one of
| several NPR hosts of "no party" registration.
|
| To a broader point, viewpoint diversity != unbias. If I staff
| half a newspaper with Stalinists that doesn't mean the
| reporting is going to become more factual or the coverage
| less biased. If it's become a Republican party position to
| attack mainstream media, we shouldn't expect them to even be
| applying for these jobs.
| kristopolous wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's because it's unbiased.
|
| Do a mental exercise, if they had joined the MAGA loving trump
| train, would that have saved them?
|
| Now you have your real answer. They're not going to fund
| anything unless it's a bunch of lackeys
| ncr100 wrote:
| Apologies for the following snark - it's tragic, so this is
| more of a reaction comment:
|
| > I have found public broadcasting to be one of the least
| biased sources of headline news and information available
|
| > kids programming is the absolute best
|
| Fixed that for you:
|
| > I USED TO FIND public broadcasting provided the least biased
| sources of headline news and information available
|
| > kids programming WAS the absolute best
| legitster wrote:
| CPB is going away, NPR and PBS are not.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| Yet.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I don't want to be "that guy", but I often find myself as the
| "intolerable lib" in some situations and the "intolerable con"
| in others, so here we go:
|
| There is a degree of quasi-political messaging in PBS
| children's shows. I can say this because I've watched more
| hours than I'd like of several of them, but I'd like to focus
| on on Molly Of Denali. It's a good children's show about an
| inuit girl who lives in Alaska and teaches children general
| good morals and specifics of inuit and Alaskan culture.
|
| When I say it's political, I mean that it makes points without
| nuance on historical and current issues which range from widely
| accepted and important ideas (example: They didn't let Native
| Alaskan People vote in the past, so it's important to exercise
| the right to vote now), to what I would consider less widely
| agreed upon and important ideas, such as it being deeply
| upsetting and disrespectful for a "white" teacher to call a
| native child "T", because she had trouble pronouncing his
| native name. Another example is them introducing the importance
| of "land acknowledgements" in a children's show. A final
| example is the "clueless white" trope wherein the offensive
| rude white visitor has to be educated by the wise natives over
| and over and over.
|
| I'm not trying to say that any of these examples are "right" or
| "wrong", but they do represent "politics" in the mind of wide
| sections of the population.
|
| This said I like the show and of course we need to fund public
| broadcasting, I would just prefer if we did our best to keep
| the most controversial stuff for when the kids are a bit older
| to make it a smaller target for outrage (from the right or
| left).
|
| The most jarring part, to me personally, is the drastic shift
| in tone and presentation for injustices with wildly different
| levels of impact. Perhaps rudely, I think to myself in the
| voice of the Inuit grandfather from the show "The white man
| took me from my family, did not allow me to speak my language,
| beat me and did not allow me to vote, and worst of all...... He
| did not let me smile in photos"
|
| I don't mean any of this as racist or disrespectful and I hope
| this is a nuanced comment for consideration and not a kneeejerk
| reaction or evidence of my subconscious biases run wild.
| Kye wrote:
| It's impossible to make self or mind small enough to be safe
| from regressives.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I appreciate the poetic response and think that the point I
| believe you're making: "people who are inclined to
| criticize anything which isn't exactly as they'd like it
| will never be pleased, so you can't spend all of your time
| trying to please them." is correct and useful generally.
|
| Where I might disagree with you, if I understand you
| correctly, is in how applicable your comment is as a
| response to my mine. At the outset I attempted to
| communicate that some of the things that the most likely to
| be outraged people would take issue with (the importance of
| exercising the right to vote - especially if your ancestors
| didn't enjoy the right) are pretty universally accepted and
| even presenting it without nuance inside of a children's
| show is acceptable because it is done so with a positive
| focus (be involved in the democratic process).
|
| If I misunderstood you I apologize.
| legitster wrote:
| Counterpoint, when these episodes were first aired, these
| weren't viewed as political issues. Only in response to these
| ideas have they become politicized.
|
| And since PBS _has_ backed away from making episodes like
| these.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I might be missing what you mean, but I tried to explain as
| best as I could how I would understand these things to be
| "related to "politics" ".
|
| Offensiveness of difficultly in pronouncing native Alaskan
| name - I believe this would be grouped under the umbrella
| of something like "linguistic imperialism" by people of
| particular political bents, which is an issue that at least
| heavily relates to politics.
|
| Land acknowledgements - As far as I can tell, these have
| always been politicized because they originated "with
| indigenous Australian political movements and the arts" at
| least according to Wikipedia. I don't know much about the
| subject
|
| Rude clueless white trope - I think this is to some extent
| a "positive" inversion of the "noble savage" trope, which
| Wikipedia tells me was historically political.
| legitster wrote:
| None of these things are inherently political unless you
| interpret them to be.
|
| They have several shows that depict interracial
| marriages, while some people might try to take this as a
| political statement, most of us would not see it that
| way.
|
| In a similar vein, I don't see how pronouncing names
| correctly could be a political issue.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I agree with you in that the question of something being
| "political" is inherently related to the context, and
| that some things some people might find political (like
| the importance of voting from my original comment) are
| not "political enough" to be something which shouldn't be
| in a children's show.
|
| I would also agree with you that pronouncing names
| generally is not (and largely probably should not be) a
| political topic, but that it necessarily is in this
| context because of it being included in a show about
| native Alaskans. If the teacher were inuit, or the
| student also white, or it was presented a simple
| misunderstanding along the lines of "can I call you T"
| "No please don't" "okay sorry I'll do my best" it would
| not be "political". Because it's in this show in this
| context and explicitly connected to previous abuses of
| native people being made to use "white names", my
| contention is that the creators of the show intend for it
| to be political .
| mcphage wrote:
| > When I say it's political, I mean that it makes points
| without nuance on historical and current issues which range
| from widely accepted and important ideas [...] to what I
| would consider less widely agreed upon and important ideas
|
| Another example of this: when Mr. Rogers invited an African
| American neighbor to share his pool. It certainly wasn't
| widely agreed upon at the time.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I understand and sympathize with the desire to directly
| equate every current social issue no matter how small with
| a social issue from the past as part of a larger "chain of
| social progress" because I think it originates with the
| desire to correct past injustices and treat everyone with
| respect and decency.
|
| I disagree that this is a useful or accurate way to engage
| in discussion about an entirely different and specific
| subject in an entirely different context. The only way they
| are related is with this "chain of social progress"
| framework, and even within that framework, they are not the
| same issue.
|
| I perceive it to be a dismissive approach which shuts down
| conversation, and I think it's clear when viewed plainly in
| the opposite direction: "If you have concerns with any of
| the political messaging in children's shows, you would not
| allow a person of a different race into your swimming
| pool", or in a slightly different way, "If you have
| concerns about this you are explicitly the "bad guy"".
| mcphage wrote:
| > The only way they are related is with this "chain of
| social progress" framework, and even within that
| framework, they are not the same issue.
|
| The way that they are related is that PBS childrens'
| shows deliberately address political content, and have
| done so for many years, and that is both important and
| good that they do so.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I agree with you generally, but the two points I want to
| make are that these shows are messaging politically (I
| know you agree with this, and I appreciate you saying so
| as many others in this thread do not agree), and that
| this political messaging is not inherently good in and of
| itself, and must be evaluated on a case by case basis,
| both for the "correctness" of the political messaging,
| and for potential concerns of alienating audiences when a
| specific case is included in a children's program.
| vel0city wrote:
| > such as it being deeply upsetting and disrespectful for a
| "white" teacher to call a native child "T", because she had
| trouble pronouncing his native name.
|
| Imagine _not_ finding it disrespectful for your teacher to
| just completely ignore and disrespect your heritage and you
| 're expected to just accept it and be totally OK with it.
|
| IMO kids should be taught to be proud of their names.
| Apparently, that's a political stance.
|
| I have many coworkers who I have trouble saying their names.
| I try as best as I can to say their names and be as
| respectful as possible. I wouldn't just go "I can't say your
| name, so you're just T now."
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I agree that it's generally important to respect other
| people and other cultures, both ethically because it is a
| ethical thing to do, and practically because it helps us
| all "get along".
|
| I find, if we strip this from the colonial context, or
| remove it from the racial context entirely (this is now a
| conversation between two Han Chinese people of the same
| social class, for example) there is some relationship
| between what I perceive to be an increasing focus on the
| critical importance of a child being called their exact
| name and no abbreviation, mispronunciation, standard
| nickname, or contextually assigned nickname, to be a
| symptom of an American hyper individualism and "rights
| culture".
|
| As an aside I have been told by more than one person with a
| foreign name before even attempting their name that they
| would prefer I just call them an Americanized abbreviation
| of their name for convenience. Obviously I want to try to
| do what they would like, but if they were to insist on a
| name I struggled with, I would consider them to be a
| generally annoying person.
| vel0city wrote:
| Wanting to be called your name and not liking having a
| person in a superior position arbitrarily rename you as
| an example of "American hyper individualism". Incredible.
|
| It is literally someone over you stripping you of your
| own choice of identity.
|
| Even if we removed the idea of teacher/student
| relationship from this, are you still fine with people
| just arbitrarily renaming you? That someone respects you
| so little they won't even respect your own choice in
| name, that's fine?
|
| I'm absolutely fine with someone who has a name which
| could be difficult to pronounce in the local language
| choosing to go with another name. It is their choice.
| That's the big difference. They're choosing to go by that
| name in those contexts. It wasn't just arbitrarily chosen
| _for_ them.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >Contrary to the conservative spin over the years, I have found
| public broadcasting to be one of the least biased sources
|
| Can we break this down?
|
| You open with a effectively derogatory accusation about
| conservatives making things up...which I have no opinion on.
|
| That immediately shows your own likely liberal bias and then
| you say you saw no problem with the programming.
|
| Isn't that exactly the issue? That you saw no issue and
| everyone that disagrees is just wrong?
|
| How do you know? How would you know if CBP's biases weren't
| just your own?
|
| Do you know the arguments against the biases of CPB, NPR, PBS
| from the people that can make their most effective arguments
| against those orgs, or do you know the lines of the people that
| already agree with you?
|
| Jon Stewart Mill's On Liberty has a great part about this...
| [It is not enough to know the refutations from your own
| teachers, you must learn them from the people that present them
| in their truest form].
| jmull wrote:
| Your argument is just assuming the (1) previous poster has
| liberal bias, (2) CPB has liberal bias, (3) previous poster
| is unable to recognize their own or CPB's liberal bias.
|
| Maybe these are true, but I don't see the basis for it here.
| Klonoar wrote:
| One does not need to hold liberal bias to identify
| conservative spin.
| jordanpg wrote:
| Every parent reading this knows full well how much time their
| kid has spent watching PBS Kids and playing the many pretty-
| decent games on the PBS Kids app.
|
| All free.
|
| Donate. Recurring is better.
| jmull wrote:
| > one of the least biased sources of headline news and
| information available
|
| I'm pretty sure that's the fundamental problem they have with
| it. They want media whose content they control.
|
| (All of this is about control/power, not making things nice or
| doing things right.)
| lokar wrote:
| Facts have a well known liberal bias
| burnte wrote:
| I agree. I swore off of cable news many years ago because
| they're ALL toxic. They all have to keep people watching so
| it's stuffed full of breathless journalism making you think
| something major is happening any moment now. We'd all be better
| served with NO 24/7 news networks at all. NPR is not
| breathless, and is very fair.
|
| I hated Fox News because it's so full of lies. I hated CNN
| because it's making mountains out of molehills and manufactured
| outrage. MSNBC was less yellow, but it's still full of opinion
| shows engineered to make you upset. NPR didn't do that, ever.
| They'd say when democrats screwed up just as much as when
| republicans did. It was true.
| duped wrote:
| > NPR didn't do that, ever.
|
| Right now I'm drinking out of my NPR mug that I pay $12/month
| for. I've been a daily listener since college, it's my
| default radio station in the car, and when I road trip I like
| searching for the local station. But I disagree with this.
| There are a number of nationally syndicated shows (at least,
| in all the markets I've lived in) that I'd put in this
| category. _1A_ just off the top of my head. _Reveal_ is
| another, but that 's because their mission is to find things
| that need to be revealed and they're usually pretty
| upsetting.
| burnte wrote:
| Sorry, to be clear I was referring to programming labeled
| as news only, not non-news content. There's lots of opinion
| content, but they don't call it news, unlike cable news
| networks.
|
| I didn't mean to say there's never incorrect or partisan
| content.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on
| education and has zero agenda.
|
| That's not true. It just matches your agenda which you feel is
| no agenda. Of course you are against getting rid of instruments
| of persuasion that agree with your world view.
|
| In the end it's better for you too. Government shouldn't
| support media.
| rectang wrote:
| I wonder if now, shorn of the need to "bothsides" everything to
| justify government funding, public radio news will begin to
| reflect the political affiliations of its donor base more
| closely.
| aanet wrote:
| Exhibit 39 on the List of American Institutions That Have Been
| Killed
|
| _shake my head_
| falaki wrote:
| Every government program should have an expiration date attached
| to it when signed into law.
| ObscureMind wrote:
| The expiration date should be 0 seconds after it's signed.
| tbeseda wrote:
| Including the military. Hell, even the constitution.
| mcphage wrote:
| Well, looks like that problem has been solved for you!
| cabaalis wrote:
| This. And to make it even better: every law should only be
| about one thing, just the thing it's meant to deal with, and
| nothing else.
| wvenable wrote:
| Then the obstructionists will just always get what they want.
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| There are plenty of countries where all government services
| have "expired". Which one would you like to live in?
| declan_roberts wrote:
| This is true. We can't view every postwar boomer institution as
| sacrosanct. These organizations aren't meant to grow in
| perpetuity.
|
| I just wish Americans saw some of that saved money either in
| their pocket or public works. But the reality is probably just
| going to be one more missile shipped to a foreign country.
| buildmonkey wrote:
| Must see TV when I was little was Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and
| Sesame Street. As I grew and my interest in what makes the
| natural world work became more sophisticated, Nova was something
| I watched regularly. Every one of these programs was supported by
| the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I am saddened by this
| loss.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Sesame Street helped black boys succeed in school, whereas the
| new regime wants them to literally pick cotton.
|
| https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20170300
|
| https://tonicrowewriter.medium.com/did-maga-farmers-believe-...
| hinkley wrote:
| This Old House taught me mortal fear of water damage, and The
| Woodwright's Shop taught me terrible, terrible puns. And some
| woodworking skills. Roy, you absolute legend.
| xer0x wrote:
| Don't worry, this will help us consume the new truth easier.
| ivape wrote:
| The Taliban used to destroy their history too:
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/afghanista-tal...
| smithkl42 wrote:
| > Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in
| American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency
| alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner
| of the country," Harrison said.
|
| If that was true, losing the CPB would be a travesty. But as a
| loyal NPR listener for decades, I've found their stuff lately to
| be unlistenable. It's Fox, but for the Left, and with a bit more
| of an intellectual spin. What makes it most annoying is their
| utter blindness to their own bias. The Fox hosts know that
| they're taking one side of a story. I've never gotten the
| impression that any of the NPR hosts are even that self-aware.
| setsewerd wrote:
| Yeah I've been bummed by how far NPR has swerved leftward,
| especially since 2016. Even ten years ago I liked tuning in
| because it was quality journalism that still made an honest
| effort to cover multiple sides of an issue, even if the topics
| they chose were primarily "liberal" topics. But yeah, now they
| seem just as tribal as Fox.
| buerkle wrote:
| Not every side deserves to be covered for each story. This is
| the problem with major media today, they give equal
| opportunity to people that have no idea what they are talking
| about. It's like one side says 2+2=4, the other 2+2=5, and
| media gives them equal air time.
| atonse wrote:
| Can you point me to a good source that actually gives equal
| opportunity to multiple sides of a story? Because I rarely
| see that (regardless of which side), the whole reason why I
| subscribe to things like ground.news.
| nabwodahs wrote:
| Can you cite specific examples of this "bias?"
| photonthug wrote:
| As linked elsewhere in this thread, see Uri Berliner on the
| subject https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-
| americas-tru...
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Here's Fox reporting on NPR's bias:
| https://www.foxnews.com/media/npr-head-asks-critics-show-
| me-...
|
| As you can see, it's mostly gotcha quotes and unfair glosses.
| For example:
|
| > NPR also called America's interstate highways racist. I did
| not know our highways were racist. I thought they were
| concrete, but not according to NPR.
|
| Of course, it's a historical fact that many minority
| neighborhoods were bulldozed to make room for interstate
| highway development, among them Cincinnati, OH and St. Louis,
| MO.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-freeways-flattened-
| black...
|
| But of course this history that actually happened is
| interpreted as Reuters' liberal bias. There's no winning
| this.
| specialist wrote:
| Have you read Robert Caro's The Power Broker? It's a
| biography of Robert Moses.
| hitekker wrote:
| "Babies are not babies until they are born. They're fetuses."
| from https://wamu.org/story/19/05/15/guidance-reminder-on-
| abortio...
|
| I'm not against abortion. In fact, I actually see the legal
| necessity of it in an overpopulating world. But NPR's bias on
| the front does not align with my own bias or, I think, with
| most people.
|
| Everyone has bias and that's perfectly human. The problem is
| when we don't own up to it. NPR tries to cover theirs with
| circuitous language and lies-by-omission, https://www.npr.org
| /sections/publiceditor/2019/05/29/7280694.... That double-
| talk served well in insulating them from criticism, but it
| ended up costing them the public trust.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| > Babies are not babies until they are born. They're
| fetuses.
|
| This is a factual statement with accurate medical
| terminology.
|
| We don't call them meteorites until they hit the earth,
| either.
| aydyn wrote:
| I hate to have to inform you of this, but "babies" is not
| a medical term.
| nabwodahs wrote:
| He didn't say it was.
| aydyn wrote:
| Yes he did bro
| 9x39 wrote:
| It's verbal sleight of hand in the cultural tug-of-war to
| emphasize or de-emphasize the future human. The point is
| that massaged language blunts or sharpens its impact, and
| an org's political choices therein reflect the bias.
|
| Meteorites don't have that baggage.
| nabwodahs wrote:
| It's a style guide; not "verbal sleight-of-hand." It
| codifies what terms should be used by their reporters,
| and refers to the AP style guide.
| radiofreeeuropa wrote:
| In medical jargon, sure. In common usage, _including
| among medical professionals_ , it's extremely common to
| just say "baby" in many contexts, especially when the
| baby is wanted and expected to be viable and brought to
| term. Nobody but a few weirdos or people trying to make
| some kind of a joke are gonna say to their partner "oh,
| did they give you any pictures of our _fetus_ from the
| ultrasound? Oh look at our _fetus_ ' tiny little hands!"
|
| (I'm pro-choice but think the "acksually they're fetuses"
| angle is fucking gross, both on an intellectually-honest
| debate level because it's semantic bullshit, and because
| it absolutely reads as a move toward dehumanization, and
| I hate to provide reasons for those kinds of accusations
| from pro-lifers to ring true)
| aydyn wrote:
| You're responding to someone who thinks pointing to a
| dictionary automatically wins an argument.
| lenkite wrote:
| > Can you cite specific examples of this "bias?"
|
| Read https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-
| americas-tru... by NPR veteran that shows how NPR developed a
| left wing bias over time. Also at https://archive.is/H7QNM
|
| https://washingtonstand.com/news/npr-has-zero-
| republicans-87...
|
| NPR Has Zero Republicans, 87 Democrats on Editorial Staff
| legitster wrote:
| If you are going to reference Uri's interview, you should
| also reference the response from his former colleagues:
|
| https://steveinskeep.substack.com/p/how-my-npr-colleague-
| fai...
| nabwodahs wrote:
| "NPR Has Zero Republicans, 87 Democrats on Editorial Staff"
|
| How many "Republicans" applied?
| autoexec wrote:
| I guess they expect NPR to have diversity hires to meet
| republican quotas now?
| lenkite wrote:
| Of-course, I am sure a government funded 100%-republican
| news and broadcasting agency with news pieces spouting
| right-wing talking points trotted out with regularity
| would be fully accepted as an excellent use of taxpayer
| money in the public interest by democratic politicians.
| smithkl42 wrote:
| Undoubtedly that's the reason for the under-
| representation of women as Fortune 500 CEO's. They're
| just not applying.
| nabwodahs wrote:
| Would applying be a personal and professional liability
| for women, the way doing so at NPR could very well be for
| a "Republican?"
|
| How many "Republicans" apply for jobs in gay bars?
|
| Nice false-equivalency attempt.
| specialist wrote:
| Why would anyone care about A's criticism of competitor B?
|
| --
|
| FWIW:
|
| _" The Washington Stand is Family Research Council's
| outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview.
| The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is
| published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith,
| family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a
| biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by
| partnering with FRC."_
| linotype wrote:
| Well, congratulations, now there won't even be that, but Fox
| will persist.
| lenkite wrote:
| Is Fox news government funded ?
| dpkirchner wrote:
| I don't agree -- NPR is about as center-right as it's possible
| to be. Just look at the efforts they've made to normalize
| Trump, it's way over the top.
| smithkl42 wrote:
| What I said about NPR might apply to some of their listeners
| as well: "What makes it most annoying is their utter
| blindness to their own bias."
| breakyerself wrote:
| The right in the US is so far right that centrism looks like
| communism to some people. NPR and PBS are far more influenced
| by their corporate donors than they are the political
| leanings of their audience.
| treyd wrote:
| And nonetheless it's an important voice to have since it will
| leave a void in the media landscape to be filled by
| opportunists.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Oh, I agree, don't get me wrong. I'm just kinda shocked
| people think it is leftist. It's like they have no idea
| what the term means (it's not "left of my personal
| beliefs").
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| So true, it is so telling that everyone complaining about it
| is a conservative...
| nemomarx wrote:
| I've seen leftist complaints about NPR - they take
| corporate sponsorships after all
| leviathant wrote:
| > It's Fox, but for the Left
|
| There was a distinct shift to the right at NPR when Obama took
| office, and by the time he took his second term, NPR News'
| social media was posting clickbait trash instead of real
| headlines. "The liberal media" is an irrational boogeyman used
| to whip ownership in line. Everyone who complains about "bias
| in the media" is arguing in bad faith while they continue to
| turn a blind eye to the overwhelmingly dominant conservative
| slant of the 21st century American media.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| smithkl42 says that NPR is leftward, and you say that it's
| rightward. Maybe we're all operating from different
| baselines.
| leviathant wrote:
| No. If that's what you took from my post, I've
| miscommunicated.
|
| NPR has _turned_ rightward. The entertainment shows are,
| without a doubt, liberal, on the American political
| spectrum. There are countless discussions and papers about
| the role empathy plays in successful entertainment.
|
| The editorial content has turned rightward - and the
| leadership has turned rightward. This has been ongoing for
| at least two decades, probably longer, but I wasn't paying
| attention at that level when I was under 20.
| dh2022 wrote:
| NPR was not rightward this past election, for sure. I
| don't think NPR missed to report a single Kamala
| endorsement last fall.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I thought they meant NPR was generally neoliberal left of
| center, and their coverage has perhaps moved toward the
| center post-Obama while still being left of it.
| vkou wrote:
| Where exactly is the American 'center' as of 2025? Where
| is the midway point between the modern establishment left
| and the establishment MAGA right?
|
| Because to me, that midpoint looks to be _way_ to the
| right of, say, Mitt Romney or George Bush Jr or Reagan.
| philistine wrote:
| OP is arguing nuances, and you seem to be intent to
| distill everything to a binary construct. Nuances are
| what runs the world, not binary groups.
| nullc wrote:
| There is a surprising amount of influence in terms of what
| stations you listen to, not just due to the local programming
| but due to their choice of which national programming they air.
| thisisit wrote:
| I am always confused by this narrative. People extolling the
| virtues of old media organization as if those people weren't
| toeing the government line and were cold robots with no bias.
|
| It is the rise of media org like Fox news where these kinds of
| comments have started surfacing. Because for Fox news is more
| commentary than facts. And then the narrative trick from Fox
| and other conservative media outlets have constantly pushed an
| agenda - "others do it too".
|
| It has led to comments like these and this is fine.
|
| > It's Fox, but for the Left
|
| But then when you start adding stuff like this:
|
| > and with a bit more of an intellectual spin. What makes it
| most annoying is their utter blindness to their own bias. The
| Fox hosts know that they're taking one side of a story. I've
| never gotten the impression that any of the NPR hosts are even
| that self-aware.
|
| It becomes clear you are regurgitating RW talking points and
| both side-ism. And because Fox is worse, the only saving
| argument is that Fox at least knows their bias. God help this
| country if this is level of intellectual spin people can give
| to reinforce their points.
| lazyeye wrote:
| And you are clearly regurgitating left-wing talking points
| etc.....
| triceratops wrote:
| If Fox keeps moving further and further right, even centric
| stuff starts sounding far left.
| testing22321 wrote:
| > _If that was true, losing the CPB would be a travesty._
|
| America and many Americans have lost their way, and have always
| struggled to get perspective on a topic.
|
| As out outsider looking in, let me be clear.
|
| This IS a travesty, and will be a notable mark in the history
| books when people look back in 50 or 100 years and ask "how did
| it happen?"
| fireflash38 wrote:
| Considering that reporting factual information gets blamed as
| left wing bullshit... I don't think your post has merit.
|
| See: COVID, vaccines, climate change. You have one side
| explicitly denying what we can do with the scientific method
| and decades of peer reviewed research, and then blaming anyone
| who contradicts them as biased sources.
|
| Comparing to Fox News is even more ridiculous. You say that
| them _knowing_ they 're spouting bullshit is better than the
| people not spouting bullshit at all?
|
| Cmon now. Take the group that is actually trying to engage in
| good faith rather than the one that is knowingly producing
| crap. Maybe this is why people voted for Trump: he told them
| what he is, and they liked the honesty.
| johnsmith1840 wrote:
| This is one point that has irked me.
|
| The real narrative problem is that relying on "science" as
| truth.
|
| Science has been weaponized by all sides it is incredivly
| easy to manipulate research into a narrative. But the left's
| media empire is by far the most effective at doing this and
| with heavy left bias in academia it's a corrupt system.
|
| Data has a priority say in everything we do but dropping
| context and information then calling everyone dumb for not
| "trusting the science" is propoganda. The response of the
| left is to simply call everyone who denies today's science as
| ignorant.
|
| This is how you get climate deniers. Weaponize science and
| unsuprisingly you get countless people who stop believing ANY
| politically angled research.
|
| Not sure how much you've spent in academia but modern science
| is nasty buissness. Incentive structures are completely
| warped.
| dionian wrote:
| i dont think they are blind to their own bias, i think they are
| championing their own values, but that's the problem.
| onepremise wrote:
| Again, it's all part of the plan, which is referred to as the
| butterfly revolution, by Curtis Yarvin. Leaders that have
| literally invested in this platform are buying into this
| nonsense. These guys have polarized the two parties to a point
| all weaknesses are surfacing. It isn't about democrats vs
| republicans. It's just working class vs the billionaires. You
| know the ppl sitting behind Trump at his inauguration. Literally,
| they want to break apart the US and discredit the constitution.
| Unless we come together and carve a new narrative that works.
| These guys may succeed and you can kiss your life, liberty, and
| pursuit of happiness goodbye, as well bill of rights.
|
| Peter Theil, JD Vance, Marc Andreesen, Garry Tan, Srinivasan, and
| many others, wanting to overthrow democracy and dissolve nation
| states. This effort is to establish Network States with those
| that worship them, sycophants and cults. They want to transform
| the US into an Autocracy. The polarization of the media and
| political parties is on purpose. They want America to fall. It's
| not a secret, not a conspiracy theory. It's definitely being
| rolled out by billionaires. It would be wise for others here to
| really do your research and understand why we are being polarized
| to hate each other. Enter the butterfly revolution:
|
| 1. Reboot ("full-power start") Suspend or bypass existing
| constitutional limits; concentrate absolute sovereignty in one
| new organization--analogous to Allied occupation powers in
| post-1945 Japan/Germany. Eliminate checks and balances that block
| rapid change.
|
| 2. CEO-Monarch model A single executive (chosen like a corporate
| CEO) rules; the former president becomes a figurehead "chairman
| of the board." Treat the state as a firm run for efficiency, not
| democratic representation.
|
| 3. RAGE strategy "Retire All Government Employees" by mass-firing
| the civil service and replacing it with loyal appointees. Remove
| institutional resistance ("the Cathedral") and ensure obedience.
|
| 4. Parallel regime Build a fully staffed shadow government in
| exile before inauguration; unveil it on Day 1 to take over
| agencies at once. Prevent the bureaucratic slow-rolling that
| stymied Trump's first term.
|
| 5. Media & academia clampdown Defund or shutter universities and
| independent press seen as hostile. Break what Yarvin calls the
| Cathedral's cultural dominance.
|
| Resources:
|
| "The Straussian Moment", https://www.hoover.org/research/peter-
| thiel-straussian-momen...
|
| Freedom Cities in Trumps presser:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJA_GBhCGgE
|
| Billionaire example: https://www.praxisnation.com
|
| Apocalypse Now? Peter Thiel on Ancient Prophecies and Modern Tec,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqHueZNEzig
|
| A.I., Mars and Immortality: Are We Dreaming Big Enough?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV7YgnPUxcU&t=404s
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-in...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
|
| https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/11/patchwork-p...
| eschaton wrote:
| It's all so horrible and obvious.
| spencerflem wrote:
| I appreciate your response and agree with it, but don't quite
| get the emphasis on polarization. They don't want two polarized
| media sources, they want one completely controlled propaganda
| source. And I don't see how it's playing into their hands or
| something being "polarized" against billionaires and trump
| supporters.
| wbpayne wrote:
| Thank you so, so much GOP! Now children won't have the
| educational programming from PBS and us adults won't have our PBS
| documentaries and shows. I'm so very disappointed in our
| government right now.
| ivape wrote:
| They also raised $100 billion from tariffs. No clue where all
| this money is being diverted to. Obviously not PBS.
| nullc wrote:
| Unfortunately we've been running a massive and growing budget
| defect since 2002. The government would need to bring in or cut
| an extra 1.6 trillion dollars per year to get back to balanced
| in order for your statement to make sense.
| imsofuture wrote:
| Superficially this is 'just' partisan politics, but I wonder if
| it's actually much more of a death knell for traditional media.
| nabwodahs wrote:
| Disgraceful.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I identify neither as a liberal nor as a conservative, but
| outsiders will likely see a left bent in me.
|
| The thing about PBS and NPR: I just don't have any alternatives!
| Wherever I've lived, all the other radio stations/channels just
| suck - liberal or not. MSNBC, CNN, Fox News _totally_ suck. ABC,
| CBS, NBC mostly suck. The half-good radio stations are just _way_
| too biased and make NPR /PBS appear like paragons of neutraltity.
| I can tolerate losing NPR/PBS if I had alternatives. I simply
| don't.
|
| Conservatives lump NPR/PBS viewers with other liberals. It's
| generally not true. All my liberal friends declare NPR to be
| "part of the problem". NPR/PBS viewers are just in another
| category altogether. They don't have choices.
|
| I'd really like to hear from conservatives: Are there any
| channels/radio stations they like? Their complaint is continually
| that NPR/PBS is too left wing (which I can dispute but won't).
| But do they have a gaping hole in their choices the way people
| like me are about to have?
| jleyank wrote:
| Fox News. Supposedly they love the thing, although it gets a
| bit left-wing radical at times.
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| I'll listen to snippets of right wing talk radio but it
| generally doesn't take long before the exaggeration (Glenn
| Beck) or Trump idol worship (Clay Travis) get annoying.
|
| I like hearing perspectives on stories that I won't hear
| elsewhere but in general, I don't need very much political news
| in my life. I'm happier spending my time on audio books and
| podcasts.
|
| I'm not sure I've ever engaged with NPR beyond seeing
| conservatives mock some of their silliest propaganda headlines
| in the past few years.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I'm not sure I've ever engaged with NPR beyond seeing
| conservatives mock some of their silliest propaganda
| headlines in the past few years.
|
| What about all the nonpolitical shows on NPR/PBS? Snap
| Judgement, This American Life, Prairie Home Companion,
| Nature, NOVA, etc.
|
| Lots of people watch PBS/NPR not for politics, but for the
| entertainment/educational content.
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| I've never watched any of them. Maybe Nova a few times when
| I was a kid.
|
| PBS/NPR will be fine. Their business model might have to
| change but that might ultimately be a good thing.
| ls612 wrote:
| Prairie Home Companion died almost 8 years ago man don't
| remind me.
| Goronmon wrote:
| _I'll listen to snippets of right wing talk radio but it
| generally doesn't take long before the exaggeration (Glenn
| Beck) or Trump idol worship (Clay Travis) get annoying._
|
| I remember being in the gym and catching some coverage of Fox
| News on Trumps trade war and potential deals. I believe the
| quote from one of the people talking was something like:
|
| _" We don't know the specifics about what's in this deal but
| we do know that this is a huge win for American businesses
| and the American people."_
| 83457 wrote:
| I like that NPR/PBS is calm. Most other outlets are based
| around breaking news, excitement, and often anger. I started
| watching PBS News Hour on youtube this year. Now I can't stand
| watching a show like ABC evening news which starts with intense
| music and urgent words from Muir at the start of every
| broadcast.
| delichon wrote:
| I hear many things on broadcast media that are contrary to my
| values, and tend to prune those sources from my media diet. When
| I am obliged by law to support those sources anyway, I get
| resentful. So I have been wishing for this since Ronald Reagan
| proposed it.
|
| To me the bright line of "Congress shall make no law ...
| abridging the freedom of speech" is crossed at least in spirit
| when the state seizes a dollar from a taxpayer and spends it on
| speech, because that abridges the taxpayer's resources for speech
| by a dollar. "You have free speech but I can take the money you
| use to be heard to speak against you" is a big loophole.
| bix6 wrote:
| So the government should just not say anything? Let's just get
| all our news from X, the famously truthful platform!
| jleyank wrote:
| And balanced. Don't forget balanced.
| throwawa14223 wrote:
| Yes the government should just not say anything but this is
| not dependent on X existing or not existing.
| sleet_spotter wrote:
| While I sympathize with the feeling, it's a stretch to say
| "obligated by law". You pay taxes, which your legally-elected
| representatives decide how to spend. We elect them to speak and
| choose on our behalf. It isn't a "loophole" when this runs
| afoul of an individual's values. It is simply that we have a
| representative government that makes decisions by majority
| votes. I don't agree with most defense spending, but I
| acknowledge that a majority of this country wants it. This is
| the purpose of compromise. If there had been a good-faith
| proposal to reform CPB [1], we could have made it better. The
| collateral damage from destroying the good parts (e.g., PBS)
| due to our failure to compromise should not be celebrated. [1]
| Such a proposal isn't hard to imagine. A key purpose of local
| stations is to give a platform to the voices of local people.
| Simply shifting funding from national programming to local
| programming (without changing the total) would have
| accomplished this "debiasing" and empowered the (tragically
| endangered) local news.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >While I sympathize with the feeling, it's a stretch to say
| "obligated by law". You pay taxes,
|
| The number of steps that "Pay Taxes" is removed from
| "Literally At Fucking Gunpoint" is not as many steps as you
| might think.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| you can either pay taxes at gunpoint or you can pay
| tribute/protection/insurance/ransom/bribes at gunpoint. not
| sure there are (or have ever been) many places in the world
| where you don't owe some debt of obligation to a larger
| organization, be it a government, organized crime, or
| something else.
| sleet_spotter wrote:
| I'm not sure if you are intentionally trying to miss the
| point. The comment was claiming they are obligated by law
| to support media they don't agree with. We are all
| equivalently obligated by law to not steal or commit other
| crimes. We pay taxes. They are part of the contract of our
| society. What our representatives decide to spend them on
| doesn't change that.
| kianN wrote:
| I think the children's programming is a really undiscussed aspect
| of this. Some investments don't have immediately measurable
| outcomes. But as someone whose parents worked long hours growing
| up, I'm really grateful that my exposure to television was PBS
| rather than cable children's shows.
| ivape wrote:
| If your parents couldn't afford cable, then you couldn't get
| round the clock children's content from Nickelodeon. Your
| content during day time would have been stuff like the Maury
| Show, all the Judge shows, soap operas, and day time talk
| shows. PBS would have been the thing that offered the free
| children's content.
| breakyerself wrote:
| I can't fucking stand these Republican fucks
| qrush wrote:
| A good day to make sure you're a member of your local public
| media station and supporting them directly.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I'm pretty certain that if public libraries didn't already exist
| and someone proposed the idea now it would be labeled "woke" and
| "socialist" and not get anywhere. We're in a very weird era, but
| pendulums swing and this too shall pass (in the meantime lots of
| damage is being done).
| heavyset_go wrote:
| There's a reason public libraries are under attack, and it's
| this.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I'm pretty certain that if public libraries didn't already
| exist and someone proposed the idea now it would be labeled
| "woke" and "socialist" and not get anywhere.
|
| Public libraries _do_ already exist and they are labeled
| "woke" and "socialist" and are dealing with both assaults on
| their funding and on their function.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| True. I'm fortunate to live in a community that funds it's
| public libraries well, but I do know that downstate there are
| rural communities that have completely defunded theirs. I
| just don't think the _idea_ of public libraries would get any
| traction now given how far to the right we 've gone.
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| You don't think it might have something to do with the
| Internet and having access to all of the knowledge in the
| world on your phone?
|
| I'm glad libraries exist but a lack of traction if the idea
| were introduced today would have more to do with the
| impracticality of them than any political leanings.
|
| My town spent millions on a small expansion to the library
| this past year. A project that if it was in the private
| sector would have cost a couple hundred grand at most. I
| can't tell how they managed to spend as much as they did.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Nowadays most library systems offer digital content -
| ebooks and movies (through services like Kanopy).
|
| Still, it's nice that there are third spaces like
| libraries in the community where you can go and aren't
| expected to have to engage in any commercial activity.
| That requires buildings. Our library hosts all manner of
| groups & activities. I went to a seminar on seed-saving
| the other day at our library, for example. I've gone to
| others on the art of making Japanese tea, candidate
| debates for local races, local author book fairs, Taiko
| drumming, etc. All of that requires some kind of physical
| infrastructure.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Your dumb little phone doesn't contain even the barest
| shadow of "all of the knowledge in the world" and the
| people who sincerely believe that are among those who are
| destroying America right now.
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| I guess we're both fans of using hyperbole.
| bentt wrote:
| This is sad but the US is too diverse to have a single source of
| public broadcasting. It was always destined to end like this.
| supplied_demand wrote:
| I'm sure the elimination of free, educational content will be
| great for the working class.
| bbanyc wrote:
| When Congress passed the CPB defunding bill, the Republican
| sponsors paraded around the most deranged takes to air on NPR in
| the last few years and asked, why should our tax dollars keep
| going to this?
|
| And I'll be the first to admit that NPR has completely lost its
| mind, it's losing its listenership, and it needs to be humbled a
| bit. But audio is much cheaper than video and NPR's remaining
| listeners will easily be able to make up the shortfall. Meanwhile
| we're going to see PBS, whose news coverage mostly avoided the
| pitfalls NPR fell into and who run a lot more non-news
| programming, take a huge funding hit and resort to even more
| pledge drives and reruns, while local affiliates in large swaths
| of the country have to close entirely.
|
| This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and not even
| throwing out the bathwater.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Am I mistaking that repeatedly CBP claimed that they were only
| minority government funded?
| rgblambda wrote:
| You might be mistaking CBP for PBS or NPR.
| throwawayohio wrote:
| Commenters in this thread citing NPR as a reason that dollars
| shouldn't go towards helping kids learn how to count and not be
| antisocial is the kind of win right wing media could only dream
| about a decade or so ago.
|
| Absolutely embarrassing for a site like this that claims to value
| education and democratizing it (and always jumps into threads
| about childrens education with all of their anecdotally built
| ideas, of course!) isn't condemning this.
| abeppu wrote:
| As with many things, I wonder if we should start unbundling
| services the federal government provides. If many states like
| public broadcasting, what if a pool of states were to opt-in to
| continuing to fund it (and decide whether to limit it to
| supporting stations in those states)?
|
| Some things (defense, diplomacy) perhaps can only be done through
| the federal government. But so many things (national weather
| service operations, HUD housing assistance, grants for local PBS
| stations, SNAP benefits) have a largely local or regional
| benefit. Rather than disassembling these things entirely, why not
| allow them each to be run by and for a coalition of states (or
| even cities?) which opt to participate?
| duped wrote:
| > But so many things (national weather service operations, HUD
| housing assistance, grants for local PBS stations, SNAP
| benefits) have a largely local or regional benefit.
|
| You should look up which states/regions/counties provide the
| funding and which states/regions/counties receive the benefits,
| it's disproportional. Unironically, unbundling HUD, SNAP, and
| NWS would probably cause famine in Mississippi.
| abeppu wrote:
| Oh I'm acutely aware that my taxes have been subsidizing
| people in red states that call me a slur.
|
| But it's pretty messed up that presently the places that
| _were_ willing to pay for these things are deprived of the
| benefits. If instead we kept things alive on an optional
| basis, the participating states might get _better_ services
| and outcomes for a while because some poor red state
| communities would not be a sink for funds. But also, if the
| political pendulum swings the other way in a future election
| cycle, and more places opt-in, then having kept these
| programs alive in a reduced form would put them in a better
| position to resume activity.
| subsistence234 wrote:
| the disproportionately black american mississippi?
| wnevets wrote:
| The amount of damage trump and musk have done this is country is
| absolutely criminal.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| It's a terrible time to be convincing the American public that
| the media is trustworthy.
|
| It will regain its trust, but it has a long, uphill battle to get
| there since, especially since the months leading up to 2016.
| mcphage wrote:
| > It will regain its trust, but it has a long, uphill battle to
| get there since, especially since the months leading up to
| 2016.
|
| Why do you think that? Do you imagine that the individuals and
| institutions pushing the idea that the media is untrustworthy
| will suddenly stop pushing their agenda?
| aagha wrote:
| Turns out elections have consequences.
| mring33621 wrote:
| Downvote all you want, but...
|
| Fuck Trump!
|
| And fuck any of you that voted for him!
| neilv wrote:
| I certainly remember hearing the name many times, on good TV
| programming, so am surprised that the Wikipedia article doesn't
| talk much about the CPB's _impact_.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadca...
|
| The Wikipedia page looks almost entirely about politics and
| funding.
| tptacek wrote:
| This is a giant thread full of people lamenting the demise of
| public broadcasting so it seems like someone should write the
| comment that points out that CPB doesn't do PBS programming. They
| don't develop content. They're a grantmaking organization that
| manages the distribution of the congressional PBS appropriation.
|
| The actual PBS and NPR shows you're familiar with are generally
| developed and produced privately, and then purchased by local PBS
| stations (streaming access to PBS content runs through
| "Passport", which is a mechanism for getting people to donate to
| their local PBS station even while consuming that content on the
| Internet). This (and other streaming things like it) is how most
| people actually consume this content in 2025. If your local PBS
| affiliate vanishes, you as a viewer are not going to lose
| Masterpiece Theater or Nova, because you almost certainly weren't
| watching those shows on linear television anyways.
|
| The cuts are bad, I just want to make sure people understand what
| CPB ceasing operations actually means.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I mean you kind of made it sound not too bad at all.
| hyperpape wrote:
| This is useful, though it leaves open the question of what it
| means in practice that the grant-making organization is
| disappearing.
| vel0city wrote:
| > and then purchased by local PBS stations
|
| If those stations go off the air, who is buying that content?
|
| It's like arguing it doesn't matter if the stream dries up the
| plants don't get water from the stream, the plants get the
| water from the ground. Where did that water in the ground come
| from? The stream!
|
| You're right, these shows aren't going off the air tomorrow.
| But this does affect the funding for the shows produced by PBS
| and NPR.
| tptacek wrote:
| This would make sense if CPB cuts meant _all_ stations were
| going off the air, but the major market stations where most
| of the money comes from are fine.
| vel0city wrote:
| If 20% of your pretty static set of clients went bankrupt
| wouldn't that pretty negatively affect your company? Or
| would it only affect it if _all_ your clients went
| bankrupt?
| monetus wrote:
| It is weird to think the production value of every show
| won't go down. Barring some other factor, less funding
| will mean lower quality and/or fewer productions.
| Baffling to think that won't be the case.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Don't worry, they will be able to get plenty of grants for
| content promoting Trump's businesses
| joshuahaglund wrote:
| > The actual PBS and NPR shows you're familiar with are
| generally developed and produced privately
|
| Off the top of my head, two programs I watch that get CPB
| funding include: Frontline
| https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/about-us/our-funders/ NOVA
| https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/funders/
|
| This is one place some sorta "trickle down" economics worked.
| CPB contributed to developing the content on PBS. Now PBS
| either has to cut costs by either canceling programs or
| ordering cheaper content that corporate sponsors like, run more
| pledge drives, or seek more corporate sponsors. None of those
| are appealing to me.
|
| Also CPB helps keep rural stations open means all the niche
| local productions about state history or geology or whatever
| can happen.
|
| It's a cut to the already strained budget of a wonderful
| resource. I'd be surprised if there weren't lost jobs and less
| quality as a result.
|
| Edit to add: Just sentimental but I'll miss hearing "this
| program was made possible by The Corporation for Public
| Broadcasting and by contributions from viewers like you!"
| tptacek wrote:
| I think the cuts are bad and certainly there will be
| programming losses. It's just not an existential threat to
| public media in America, which has over the last 20 years
| become far less dependent on local stations. GBH, which
| produces Frontline, gets $177MM in revenue from major donors
| and viewer subscriptions.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Yeah, I think you underestimate the structural dependency.
|
| Xkcd comic is closer to reality. There is a base load to
| public good and we are about to find out
| tptacek wrote:
| We'll find out, but I think always the bias on HN is
| towards whichever interpretation of an event is most
| dramatic.
| atonse wrote:
| It's unfortunate, but as someone who's been on HN since
| probably 2010, I remember the ethos of this site to news
| like this used to be a lot more "let's find an
| opportunity" - maybe I'm looking with rose colored
| glasses.
|
| People would say "should we setup a donation site" or
| "how can we build a product that saves local affiliate
| stations money" etc etc etc. Maybe that's still happening
| quietly. But I just see a lot more doom nowadays in HN
| comments. (Just a feeling, obviously no data whatsoever
| to back it up)
| monetus wrote:
| I feel like when society has an air of doom you are more
| likely to see it wherever you are. HN is still fairly
| international though.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Yeah guy, you know they said fascism would happen and all
| we see are masked ICE agents arresting random brown
| people...silly libtards?
| pstuart wrote:
| We are now in a timeline where dramatic concerns are
| legitimate. I would love to be proven wrong on this, but
| there's plenty of clues to show that I'm not.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| I think I am starting to get paranoid but I wouldn't be too
| surprised if they went after these donors next.
| rangerelf wrote:
| I don't know if I'm the only one that finds fault with:
|
| > GBH, which produces Frontline, gets $177MM in revenue
| from major donors and viewer subscriptions.
|
| Given Frontline is a production for public consumption, for
| public good, it shouldn't have to be financed by donations,
| it absolutely should be financed by the federal government.
|
| I find your tone (sorry) offensive, in the sense that you
| DON'T find it dramatic and just plain terrible that CPB had
| to cease operations, just because billionaires feel it's a
| waste of "money that could be in their pocket" and
| obviously they prefer the greater population to be clueless
| and ignorant.
|
| Me? I am furious. But what can I do besides the usual?
| Write my congresscritters, call them, write angry posts on
| Hackernews, donate?
| ForOldHack wrote:
| They are horrible, and given that we now live in a fascist
| state run by fascists, I am just waiting for the pendium to
| reverse, and knock all of them out of existence, AGAIN.
| (Frontline rocks, NPR, and all of PBS rocks).
| ndiddy wrote:
| PBS stations in major markets will likely be able to carry on
| due to donations and corporate underwriting, but stations in
| rural areas (the types of places where Internet streaming is
| less viable due to poor infrastructure) will be heavily
| affected. Some rural stations get up to half their budgets from
| the CPB, and these cuts will likely make them have to shut
| down. In heavily rural states like West Virginia, Alaska, New
| Mexico, and Montana, the average public media station relies on
| CPB funding for over 30% of its budget. All of those stations
| are now at risk. More information:
| https://current.org/2025/04/heres-how-much-public-media-reli...
| tptacek wrote:
| I think the idea that people in rural markets are watching
| PBS OTA linear content is a claim that will need to be
| supported with evidence. Linear television is dead, pretty
| much everywhere.
| potatocoffee wrote:
| I watch OTA television.
| tptacek wrote:
| I listen to linear NPR. But I know what the statistics
| are. None of this is going to be here 20 years from now.
| ndiddy wrote:
| Sure! I'd love to provide you with evidence.
|
| In West Virginia, a state with a population of 1.8 million,
| West Virginia Public Broadcasting reported 193,687 weekly
| TV viewers and 85,933 weekly radio listeners in FY 2023.
| https://wvpublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/WVPB-
| Annual-...
|
| In New Mexico, a state with a population of 1.8 million,
| New Mexico PBS reported 720,000 weekly TV viewers in 2024.
| https://www.newmexicopbs.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/02/NMPB...
|
| In Montana, a state with a population of 1.1 million,
| Montana PBS estimated around 250,000 weekly TV viewers and
| Montana Public Radio estimated 70-80 thousand weekly radio
| listeners as of a couple weeks ago.
| https://www.krtv.com/news/montana-and-regional-
| news/montana-...
| tptacek wrote:
| I looked only at the New Mexico numbers, and they seem to
| be dwarfed by their own streaming numbers through
| Passport. Those OTA viewers are just going to switch to
| streaming.
| ndiddy wrote:
| The NM report says that there were 900,000 total Passport
| streams in 2024. Because there are 52 weeks in a year,
| that's an average of only about 17,300 streams per week.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If I was in a place without internet streaming, I'd get
| Starlink.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| PBS doesn't make PBS content either. They acquire it from
| people who make it using CPB money, among others. Then the
| stations that don't make the content license it from PBS,
| mainly using CPB money. And they use it to attract
| members/donors.
|
| You've framed this as if the disappearance of CPB and its money
| is basically a big nothing-burger, which is extremely far from
| the truth.
|
| Source: I work in the system at a level with visibility into
| these things.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't think it's a nothing-burger. I think there will be
| programming cuts and layoffs even in the major market
| stations. But it's clearly not an existential threat to PBS.
| jumpkick wrote:
| > because you almost certainly weren't watching those shows on
| linear television anyways.
|
| I'm just one person, but I definitely am watching the local PBS
| over an antenna, and so do several members of my family (living
| in different households).
|
| The local broadcast is excellent quality, I get a good signal
| to it, never any glitches, and I enjoy the local news and other
| programming too.
| sunshinesnacks wrote:
| I don't watch my local PBS over antenna much anymore, but it
| is great, just like you describe. Amazing what you can watch
| for free OTA, when you think about it.
| democracy_diy wrote:
| Here's a summary of the changes and the impact:
| https://democracy.diy/issues/save-pbs-and-npr/
|
| The PBS budget has been cut by 15%, and the NPR budget by 1%.
| That's not enough to end either one at the national level.
| However, _local_ stations depend on the CPB funding for 50% or
| more of their budgets. (Local stations provide local disaster
| alert systems and local programming.) There will definitely be
| local station closures and major cutbacks in the stations that
| survive. Large metropolitan areas will be the least affected.
| PBS and NPR will continue at the national level, as before.
|
| The funding cuts are the result of an executive order that
| Trump issued on May 1, ordering the immediate cessation of all
| federal funding. Similar executive orders have been found to be
| illegal in federal court. (Congress had already guaranteed
| funding for CPB from 2025-2027, and only congress can take that
| money away.)
|
| However, congress supported Trump a short while later (on July
| 24) by passing the Rescissions Act, which officially (and
| legally) ended all funding for CPB. And that's the reason for
| the current crisis: all federal funding for CPB is ending by
| the end of this year, which is only a few months away.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Local stations provide local disaster alert systems
|
| These days sending alerts via texting them to phones should
| be far more effective.
| hedora wrote:
| Given that CBP is only 15% of PBS funding, I'm surprised they
| don't start a national fundraising campaign instead.
|
| I'd happily donate some cash to keep PBS's lights on in red
| states.
| aksss wrote:
| Nothing stops any of us from donating to local stations or
| PBS/NPR directly. Here's a good reference link:
|
| https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/5000692392-w.
| ..
| tptacek wrote:
| Do you subscribe to your local station and have a Passport
| account? Consider doing that first.
| araes wrote:
| With a quick search online, here's a list of the donation
| links for the 21 states that are currently listed as "Red"
| (based on 270toWin.com). It's kind of a Googlish reply.
|
| Some are a little difficult because they're kind of
| fractured, like Missouri is a St. Louis link, Texas is an
| Austin link, Tennessee is a Nashville link, so its
| challenging to tell if your donation is going to the state in
| general or just the local town PBS. (May want to check
| specifically if you're targeting a specific market). Most
| tend to be statewide portals. However, you seem like you want
| to support PBS, so here's some links.
|
| Alabama (https://donate.aptv.org/aptv/donate), Alaska
| (https://alaskapublic.org/support), Arizona
| (https://azpbs.org/support/), Georgia
| (https://www.gpb.org/support), Idaho (https://idahoptv.pledge
| cart.org/home?campaign=1FF20990-A386-...), Kansas
| (https://donate.kansascitypbs.org/kcpbs/donate), Kentucky (ht
| tps://ket.secureallegiance.com/ket/WebModule/Donate.aspx?P...
| ), Louisiana (https://lpb.secureallegiance.com/lpb/WebModule/
| Donate.aspx?P...), Mississippi
| (https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/donate), Missouri
| (https://www.ninepbs.org/support/), Montana
| (https://donate.montanapbs.org/kusm/donate), Nebraska (https:
| //donate.nebraskapublicmedia.org/alleg/WebModule/Donat...),
| North Dakota (https://www.prairiepublic.org/support/),
| Oklahoma (https://www.pbs.org/donation/?station_id=edf8065c-f
| 56a-42f7-...), South Carolina (https://www.pbs.org/donation/?
| station_id=50ac3de0-09e0-43db-...), South Dakota
| (https://sdpb.pledgecart.org/donate/home), Tennessee
| (https://donate.wnpt.org/wnpt/donate), Texas
| (https://donate.austinpbs.org/austinpbs/donate), Utah
| (https://donate.nprstations.org/upr/support-
| upr?gad_source=1&...), West Virginia (https://afg.securealleg
| iance.com/wvpb/WebModule/Donate.aspx?...), Wyoming
| (https://donate.wyomingpbs.org/kcwc/donate)
| jordanpg wrote:
| You may be right, but I'm guessing the Administration is not
| done with NPR and PBS yet. This is just phase I.
| timuckun wrote:
| Maybe you weren't watching them on the TV but your grandma was
| most likely was.
|
| The more important thing is that this is just another tiny step
| in the death spiral of the United States. Sad to watch.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| CPB doesn't create programming. But they do write grants to the
| stations that purchase the programming. Isn't that just funding
| the creation of the programming with several steps in between?
| randcraw wrote:
| With the inevitable cutbacks coming to NPR, I wonder how big a
| hit classical music will take. NPR delivers 95% of the classical
| music that airs in America, much of which comes from small market
| stations which will be the first to die with the end of CPB.
| excalibur wrote:
| Coming soon to a Tiny Desk Concert near you: Ticketmaster!
| devwastaken wrote:
| a corrupt government would have appropriated it for propaganda.
| instead an old and out of use tax payer forced program is being
| finally put to rest.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Trump sucks
| none_to_remain wrote:
| I recall NPR throwing a fit over getting a "state media" label on
| Twitter.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Good it's a completely outdated concept. There's no barrier to
| producing and distributing content today. That public tax dollars
| go to a place where partisans distribute it to their favorite
| projects is a 1960s era concept that needs to die.
|
| Really the 1960s and 70s were such an insane era we should
| examine all government programs from that era that are still in
| commission with very suspicious eyes.
| wkoszek wrote:
| From Claude -> Notable Programs They Fund: Public television
| shows like Sesame Street, NOVA, PBS NewsHour, and Masterpiece, as
| well as NPR programming like Morning Edition and All Things
| Considered.
|
| I like all of those. NPR: $300m budget / 42m listeners =
| $7.14/yr. Sounds like if I donate $5/mo to KQED and $5/mo to
| KCSM, I'm supporting them to cover myself and couple other
| citizens?
|
| I don't get what I can do to support PBS - when I press donate on
| PBS site, it sort of wants to direct me to KQED/KCSM donations
| again.
|
| Anyone here with a little more time to understand/explain it?
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