GOP-led Senate votes to cancel $9 billion in funding for foreign aid, NPR and PBS; NBC News, July 16, 2025

Sahil Kapur, Frank Thorp V and Brennan Leach , NBC News; GOP-led Senate votes to cancel $9 billion in funding for foreign aid, NPR and PBS

[Kip Currier: Notice how Trump 2.0 and the GOP (except for a couple of legislators) are going after sources of information: cutting funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Voice of America, PBS, NPR, etc. 

Control the information sources and you can more easily influence and control how people get their information and what they think.

Autocracies restrict access to information; democracies don't.]

[Excerpt]

"The Republican-led Senate Republicans voted Thursday morning to pass a package of spending cuts requested by President Donald Trump, sending it to the House. 

The rescissions package cancels previously approved funding totaling $9 billion for foreign aid and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. Republicans passed it through a rarely used process to evade the 60-vote threshold and modify a bipartisan spending deal on party lines.

The vote of 51-48 followed a 13-hour series of votes on amendments, with two Republicans joining Democrats in opposition to the final bill: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska."

Musicians brace for impact as Senate vote on public radio looms; The Washington Post, July 15, 2025

Ethan Beck, The Washington Post; Musicians brace for impact as Senate vote on public radio looms

"For the more than 1,000 public radio stations that play independent music, Boilen says the bill is an existential threat...

“All stations would be in trouble of not being able to play music,” NPR president and CEO Katherine Maher said. The CPB spends nearly $20 million on licensing most years, covering an expense Maher said would be impossible for most stations to afford. “Regardless of how big you are, even the largest station in the NPR network and in public radio still operates on a budget of less than $100 million a year.”

Licensing isn’t the only thing threatened by the rescission bill, which also retracts funding from foreign aid programs such as global AIDS prevention and other public media such as PBS."

Bill Moyers, a Face of Public TV and Once a White House Voice, Dies at 91; The New York Times, June 26, 2025

Janny Scott, The New York Times; Bill Moyers, a Face of Public TV and Once a White House Voice, Dies at 91

"In an age of broadcast blowhards, the soft-spoken Mr. Moyers applied his earnest, deferential style to interviews with poets, philosophers and educators, often on the subject of values and ideas. His 1988 PBS series, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” drew 30 million viewers, posthumously turned Mr. Campbell — at the time a little-known mythologist — into a public broadcasting star, and popularized the Campbell dictum “Follow your bliss.” 

A Sense of Moral Urgency’

To admirers, many of them liberals, Mr. Moyers was the nation’s conscience, bringing to his work what one television critic called “a sense of moral urgency and decency.” Others, mostly conservatives, found him sanctimonious and accused him of bias. In a 2004 retrospective, the conservative website FrontPageMag.com called him a “sweater-wearing pundit who delivered socialist and neo-Marxist propaganda with a soft Texas accent.”...

PBS to CBS and Back

Mr. Moyers turned down offers to edit newspapers, run colleges and co-host the “Today” show on NBC. (“I just didn’t like the idea of selling dog food in a world where so many people were eating it,” he told People magazine.) Instead, he began producing a weekly public affairs program on PBS, devoting entire shows to topics like the Watergate scandal and public education. John J. O’Connor of The Times called his show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” “one of the most outstanding series on television.”

If Trump cuts funding to NPR and PBS, rural America will pay a devastating price; The Guardian, June 6, 2024

Margaret Sullivan , The Guardian; If Trump cuts funding to NPR and PBS, rural America will pay a devastating price

"With the sharp decline of the local newspaper business over the past 20 years, many parts of America have turned into what experts refer to as “news deserts”. These are places that have almost no sources of credible local reporting.

As local newspapers have shuttered or withered – at a rate of more than two every week – news deserts have grown. The effects are sobering. People who live in news deserts become more polarized in their political views and less engaged in their communities.

One of the foundations of democracy itself – truth – begins to disappear. People turn to social media for information and lies flow freely with nothing to serve as a reality check.

Right now, many small and rural communities that are on the brink of becoming news deserts do still have access to public media – particularly to National Public Radio’s network of member radio stations, which employ dedicated local reporters.

But the Trump administration’s new effort targeting public radio and television is a serious threat...

Voters – especially those in rural areas, small towns and red states – should let their elected representatives know that they need public radio and television to continue. That public media may even be their lifeline."

NPR sues Trump administration over executive order to cut federal funding to public media; AP, May 27, 2025

DAVID BAUDER, AP; NPR sues Trump administration over executive order to cut federal funding to public media

"National Public Radio and three of its local stations sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, arguing that his executive order cutting funding to the 246-station network violates their free speech and relies on an authority that he does not have.

Earlier this month, Trump instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies to cease funding for NPR and PBS, either directly or indirectly. The president and his supporters argue their news reporting promotes liberal bias and shouldn’t be supported by taxpayers.

Retaliation is Trump’s plain purpose, the lawsuit argues. It was filed in federal court in Washington by NPR and three Colorado entities — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE, Inc., chosen to show the system’s diversity in urban and rural areas...

The lawsuit says 11% of Aspen Public Radio’s budget is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It is 6% for the Colorado Public Radio, a network of 19 stations, and 19% of KUTE’s budget. That station was founded in 1976 by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe."

Criticism of Trump Was Removed From Documentary on Public Television; The New York Times, May 23, 2025

 Marc Tracy, The New York Times; Criticism of Trump Was Removed From Documentary on Public Television

[Kip Currier: Another example of anticipatory obedience]

[Excerpt]

"The executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning “American Masters” series insisted on removing a scene critical of President Trump from a documentary about the comic artist Art Spiegelman two weeks before it was set to air nationwide on public television stations.

The filmmakers say it is another example of public media organizations bowing to pressure as the Trump administration tries to defund the sector, while the programmers say their decision was a matter of taste.

Alicia Sams, a producer of “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse,” said in an interview that approximately two weeks before the movie’s April 15 airdate, she received a call from Michael Kantor, the executive producer of “American Masters,” informing her that roughly 90 seconds featuring a cartoon critical of Trump would need to be excised from the film. The series is produced by the WNET Group, the parent company of several New York public television channels."

What if "Sesame Street" Were Open Access?; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), October 25, 2019

Elliot Harmon, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); What if "Sesame Street" Were Open Access?

"The news of iconic children’s television show “Sesame Street”’s new arrangement with the HBO MAX streaming service has sent ripples around the Internet. Starting this year, episodes of “Sesame Street” will debut on HBO and on the HBO MAX service, with new episodes being made available to PBS “at some point.” Parents Television Council’s Tim Winter recently told New York Times that “HBO is holding hostage underprivileged families” who can no longer afford to watch new “Sesame Street” episodes.

The move is particularly galling because the show is partially paid for with public funding. Let's imagine an alternative: what if “Sesame Street” were open access? What if the show’s funding had come with a requirement that it be made available to the public?"