Public television and radio broadcasters may be facing major budget cuts. Yesterday, a House Appropriations subcommittee approved a bill that would chop funding for public TV and radio in half, and relieve the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) of 25% of their annual budget (UPDATE: as of 6/23, the House has voted to restore the $100 million potential cut to CPB's 2006 budget; the vote will now go to Senate, which is generally more supportive of public broadcasting). Click to read the article.
Although this bill is not yet in its final incarnation, this decision does not bode well for public broadcasters. PBS and NPR have recently been targeted by conservatives: content investigations have been instituted, right-wing commentators have been added to the programming roster, and we won't even go into that whole uproar over the cartoon bunny interviewing a lesbian couple's kids... More on the changing public broadcasting climate available here.
Media Matters for America has started a campaign urging people to contact their Reps about this issue, and to urge the Reps to support a letter written by Representatives Dingell (D-MI) and Obey (D-WI) to the CPB alerting them to investigate the matter. More here.
Posted by: jima | June 10, 2005 at 02:28 PM
In related events - a proposed law would allow private internet service providers to kill any public efforts to institute free broadband to citizens. Unbelievable.
Learn more and sign the petition here:
http://www.freepress.net/action/sessionsbill
Posted by: kevin | June 10, 2005 at 03:12 PM