The Threat to Public Radio Funding and Its Consequences

From the moment President Trump and Republicans took control of Washington this year, they set out to turn their longtime threats against public media, which they see as biased, into action.

Now, a piece of Republican legislation would cut more than a billion dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances PBS and NPR.

As the bill makes its way through Congress, those who work in public media are warning that radio stations in red, rural and Republican America will feel the deepest impact.

Guests: 

• Jessica Cheung, a senior audio producer at The New York Times
• Tom Abbott, the general manager of KFSK-FM in Petersburg, Alaska
   

Background reading: 

• Some Republican senators voiced concern over the House-passed bill that would rescind money for NPR and PBS stations in their states.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Photo Credit: Ash Adams for The New York Times.
Caption: The town of Petersburg, Alaska, voted for Donald Trump by an almost 2-to-1 margin in the last election. Now Republicans in Congress are trying to pass cuts that would defund the community’s radio station.

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