For more than half a century, Republican leaders, from Ronald Reagan to Newt Gingrich, had sought to slash federal support for public radio and television. Time and again, they were rebuffed, often stalling at the prospect of public outrage, particularly from dedicated audiences of popular shows like Sesame Street. But on Friday, that decades-long effort recorded its first significant victory: $1.1 billion in funds for public broadcasting were withdrawn in a vote motivated by today’s Republican majority.
Trump’s Influence Shakes Party Line
This change in policy is commonly attributed to Donald Trump, who made it very clear that any Republican who voted against the cuts would risk being primaried. That threat, said Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, pushed long-time public media supporters to abandon the institutions. “Republicans who’ve spent their whole career supporting public media are voting to kill it, and there is only one reason: Donald Trump,” he said.
Markey also connected the action to a larger Trump-led effort to discredit mainstream reporting. Markey referenced Trump’s lawsuits of large news networks and threats to punish media outlets via the FCC as one aspect of a campaign to dominate media narratives.
A Changing Media Landscape
Aside from Trump’s impact, this funding reduction also represents shifting public opinion on journalism and media use. When public broadcasting was established in the 1960s, it was to provide programming of cultural and educational significance that was free of commercial considerations. This followed Newton Minow’s seminal criticism of television as a “vast wasteland.” The 1967 Public Broadcasting Act aimed to replace it with quality, commercial-free programming.
Yet, from its start, public broadcasting endured political opposition. Richard Nixon, dismayed by perceived liberal bias, attempted to cut all funding after PBS introduced a national news program in the Watergate years. Nixon was unsuccessful, but his attempts set a precedent for conservative distrust of public media.
Local Support Once Shielded PBS and NPR
In earlier decades, public media existed largely due to grassroots support, particularly in conservative states. When, in 1995, Speaker Newt Gingrich spearheaded a genuine bid to cut off funding to PBS, he met unexpected opposition from fellow Republicans who cherished their local stations. But grassroots support does not exist today.
Steve Oney, author of a history of NPR, said: “People get their news from anywhere they want, so there’s not the critical-mass support back in red-state America for public broadcasting.”
Can Local Stations Survive?
Most worry that national NPR and PBS will survive, while smaller local stations will be hardest hit. Bill Goodman, a former KET-TV host in Kentucky, noted that local public television still provides in-depth, nonpartisan reporting not available on commercial media, such as hour-long debates over Medicaid.
Ironically, one of Goodman’s past guests, Senator Rand Paul, was among the lawmakers who supported the cuts. While he said he didn’t object to public TV, he mentioned larger objectives for curbing government expenditures.
Even Gingrich, who had previously been a vocal critic, worried about local stations that don’t have the economic buffers of the national networks. “Those little local stations don’t have real assets,” he explained, implying that they should not have been cut. However, most Republicans did not agree with him. Kansas Senator Roger Marshall summarized the sentiment of most: “Federal funding of public media is one of the niceties we can do without.”
