PBS chief: ‘I wish I knew’ why President Trump wants to defund us

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For the third year in a row, the Trump Administration’s proposed federal budget would zero-out funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger doesn’t understand why.  “I wish I knew,” Kerger said. “I don’t understand why we seem to be perennially in this fight.” “I see the impact our local stations have in communities; red states, blue states. I see the work that our stations are doing for advancing civil conversation,” Kerger said. “I am in places where local journalism has really collapsed, and our local radio and TV stations really are the local media presence.” President Donald Trump’s cuts could, she worries, create new media deserts across vast expanses of America. “When you look at the entire economy of public broadcasting, about 15 percent of the funding for our stations comes from federal appropriations — but that’s an aggregate number,” Kerger said. “For some of our stations in rural parts of the country — so Cookeville, Tennessee, for example, it’s probably about 40 percent.” President Trump’s proposed 2020 federal budget, which was released on March 11, would eliminate all taxpayer funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over a two-year timespan, cutting the organization’s annual appropriation in the first year from $465 million to $30 million, or 94 percent. More than 70 percent of the CPB’s annual funding goes to local public TV and radio stations.


PBS chief: ‘I wish I knew’ why President Trump wants to defund us