WASHINGTON (AP) — Public Broadcasting, the foundation of three generations of American culture, announced it will take steps towards its own closure after being repaid by Congress on Friday.
The end of the company known as the CPB is a direct result of President Donald Trump’s targeting public media, which he has repeatedly stated. The closure is expected to have a major impact on journalistic and cultural landscapes, particularly public radio and television stations. A small community across the US.
CPB funds both PBS and NPR, but most of that funding is distributed to over 1,500 local public radio and television stations nationwide.
There are deep connections to companies too Many of the most familiar programming in Japan, From NPR’s “All Things” to historically “Sesame Street,” “Mr. Rogers,” and documentaries by Ken Burns.
The company said it ended with “a blown by an orderly wind” 58 years after the law was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. In a statement, He said the decision came later Passes the package’s council It curtailed funding for the next two years. That’s about $1.1 billion. The Senate Budget Committee subsequently reinforced policy changes on Thursday by excluding funding for businesses for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill.
“Despite the extraordinary efforts of the millions of Americans who have called, written, petitioned and petitioned Congress to maintain federal funds for the CPB, we are now facing the difficult reality of shutting down our business,” said Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the company.
The final attempt at fundraising fails
Democrats on the Senate Approvals Committee made their last effort this week to save CBP funds.
D-Wis as part of the committee’s deliberations on Thursday. Sen. Tammy Baldwin of the company has retracted an amendment to restore CPB funds for the upcoming budget year. She said she believed there was a path before “we have a path to fix this before the devastating consequences of public radio and television stations across the country.”
“It’s hard to believe we’ve come to the situation we’re in,” she said. “And I’m going to continue working with my colleagues to fix it.”
But Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of RW.Va. made a sound that was not optimistic.
“I understand your concerns, but we all know that we all sued this two weeks ago,” Capito said. “Adopting this amendment would have been contrary to what we had already voted for.”
Closures will be in stages
The CPB said it notified employees on Friday that it would end in the fiscal year of September 30. It said a small transition team would continue until January to finish the rest of the work, including “guaranteeing the continuity of musical rights and loyalty, essential to the public media system.”
“Public media is one of the most trusted institutions of American life, providing educational opportunities, emergency warnings, civic discourse, and cultural connections to every corner of the country,” Harrison said. “We appreciate our system-wide partners for their resilience, leadership and unwavering dedication to serving the people of America.”
The NPR Station uses millions of dollars in federal money to pay music license fees. I have to do a lot now Renegotiate these transactions. It can in particular affect outlets that build programming around music discovery. Katherine Maher, president and CEO of NPR, recently estimated that about 96% of all classical music broadcast in the US, for example, is on public radio stations.
The federal government of public radio and television has traditionally been assigned to businesses for public broadcasting, and distributes it to NPR and PBS. Around 70% of the money goes directly to 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations nationwide, but that’s just a shorthand accounting for the potential impact.
Trump, who called CPB a “monster,” has long said that public broadcasting has shown extreme liberal prejudice and has helped to generate momentum in recent months for anti-public broadcasting ground swell among supporters across Congress and across the country. This is part of a larger initiative that targets agencies that support attitudes that produce or support content he considers to be “non-American.” The CPB end mise represents a political victory over those efforts.
His influence on the media landscape is profound. He also followed the US government media, which had an independent charter that included a venerable voice of America, and ended the operation of that media outlet decades later.
Trump also fired three members of the company’s board of directors in April. In legal action at the time, the dismissed directors said their dismissal was an overreach of the government targeting entities that the Charter ensures independence.
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