Public Broadcasting is Under Attack

We should know the fate of Public Broadcasting this week, as the Senate is expected to vote on President Trump’s Rescission bill. It has already passed the House.

Virginia Public Media President and CEO Jayme Swain sat down exclusively with Neighbors for Change to talk about the threats facing PBS and NPR. Swain says, “It’s 8% of our budget somewhere around $1.5 million dollars for us, so it’s real dollars. I think it’s important for people to understand what happens when the money goes away and how the money works”.  Swain says if the money goes away, all aspects of public broadcasting would be affected and quickly.

VPM connects almost 2 million people across Central Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley with news, education and arts programming. “I don’t think we know what the next steps look like. We’re definitely looking at what the worst could be”, says Swain.

The Senate must vote before Friday. But Rescission is only one part of a difficult 3-pronged threat against Public Broadcasting.

Rescission s a general term for a bill that seeks to cancel previously allocated government spending. “They’re going to go back and take money already appropriated. If rescission goes through – we won’t even get to plan, we will already be into our fiscal year if that money gets pulled so it is like the rug getting pulled out from under you in a very, very quick way”, Swain says.

Last week, Trump posted on Truth Social “It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Rescissions bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is works than CNN and MSDNC put together. Any republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue will not have my support of my Endorsement. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The second threat is Trump’s Executive Order. The EO was signed to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.  “While we’re being attacked as left leaning liberal media, we have always had bipartisan support, and we have always tried to serve everybody. We are accountable to people”, says Swain. She says that many public broadcasting stations don’t have the cash flow to handle the cuts in the EO, “particularly stations in rural communities, this is where you’re going to see the devastation and those are the people that need it the most. These are people that may not have any other locally owned and operated media to serve – particularly in news deserts” (of which there are many in Southwest Virginia).

Lastly, there was an immediate termination of the Department of Education Ready to Learn grant. The grant has been around for 30 years, and this money supports children’s programming.” I don’t know if people know what the literacy rates are right now in Virginia, but they’re not good”, Swain says. She says PBS plays an important role in childhood development,  “It takes 2 years at least for new programs to come to air for PBS, because they spend so much time with educators and thinking about the curriculum and learning outcomes and that Department of Ed grant also funds research so we know the efficacy of the learning – that we are actually improving literacy skills, math skills, social/emotional skills”.

Sesame Street, a signature children’s show on PBS, has been rescued for now by Netflix, who plans to air it on the streaming platform but also on PBS free of charge. But Swain is concerned about how long a deal like that can be sustainable, and how other educational programming will be affected. “One of the things we are working on right now is a messaging campaign that 90% of a child’s brain develops between the ages of 0 and 5. So many families are just overwhelmed. They’re just trying to get their kid to kindergarten which is free in public school, and it is too late by that point. You have already set your child on a path that doesn’t set them up for success in school and life”.

Swain struggles to understand the attacks on public broadcasting when it has always enjoyed bipartisan support.  “I think about the BBC – nothing is more British than the BBC. They take pride in their public media. I do not understand why in this country we do not take pride in our joint public media because it is so core to our democracy”.

NPR and PBS have already sued the Trump administration over the Executive Order.

Swain worked at PBS Headquarters during the first Trump administration. She says a few things have changed since then. “The media is being called anti-American for reporting facts , and I just caution people that it’s a dangerous and slippery slope that we go down, these attacks on the media”, Swain says these will have long term effects on the American way of life, “ The news is not here to validate your personal politics, the media is here to inform you. And if you question, if you think something is liberal, great, dig into that, why do you think that, maybe look at another source and question why you think that. It is all of our responsibilities to be civically engaged and informed”.