Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order • Hacker News Board

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#101

Post by flkiwi » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

hypeatei wrote: post #25

bhouston wrote: post #3

The US is so weird right now. You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority and often doing so for what he views as ideological crimes. Also arresting and trying to deport people for things that are not clearly crimes (newspaper op-eds, etc) and without due process. Very strange times. Right now I have some faith the…

> Right now I have some faith the courts in the US will stand up to this I think "the guardrails will hold" thinking is flawed when you have someone who is willing to completely side step the system and push the limits. We're not actually sure what holding someone from this administration in contempt even looks like functionally since U.S. marshals are under the DOJ.

The Attorney General went out of her way to assure Cabinet members that the US Marshals would not be arresting them. So, well, that's great.

Congress needs to transition the US Marshals to the judiciary or expressly codify that the AG has no authority to direct their actions. Won't happen, but it's what Congress needs to do.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#102

Post by yladiz » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #72

hadrien01 wrote: post #2

I suppose this is in response to this executive order: ENDING TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZATION OF BIASED MEDIA https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/endi... I would add that PBS has this to say about public media funding: > The U.S. is almost literally off the chart for how little we allocate towards our public media. At the federal level, it comes out to a little over $1.50 per person per year. Compare that…

PBS would say that. Back here in reality the BBC is trusted by only about 40-44% of the British population, and actively distrusted by around a quarter. The true number who trust it is probably lower, as those polls suffer volunteering bias and other problems that push responses to the left when there's no ground truth to weight to. There's a profound moral problem with forcing people to pay money for media they acti…

What profound moral problem are you talking about? If you take your point even further, you could argue there’s a moral problem with forcing people who are distrusting of or despise the government to pay taxes at all, but it’s generally agreed that the health of a country in part does depend on revenues generated by taxes (since you need money to pay for things that benefit many people, like roads, public transit, etc.).

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#103

Post by micromacrofoot » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #7

hadrien01 wrote: post #2

I suppose this is in response to this executive order: ENDING TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZATION OF BIASED MEDIA https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/endi... I would add that PBS has this to say about public media funding: > The U.S. is almost literally off the chart for how little we allocate towards our public media. At the federal level, it comes out to a little over $1.50 per person per year. Compare that…

Totally toothless. CBP is created and funded by Congress, the president doesn't get to tell them how to spend their funds.

thousands of people have been laid off due to similarly "toothless" orders

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#104

Post by whodidntante » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

I watch/listen to a variety of news sources - CNN, Fox News, NPR, NYTimes, WSj, as well as a number of smaller podcasts and substacks.

There are no longer "unbiased" news sources, all sources have moved to either the left or right.

I used to have respect for NPR, today it is, to me, the Fox News of the left, and no different than other sources. I do not have a problem with that, it is what it is. But it should not be funded with taxpayer money.

Try listening to the president of NPR at the congressional hearing and then her interview on NPR done shortly after that hearing. For the former, she was unable/unwilling to express any opinions, nor was she able to recall anything she personally said/posted for the past two years. For the latter, she was fed a series of flattering softball questions clearly made to make her and NPR look good. That is not news or reporting, it was NPR doing PR for NPR.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#105

Post by alabastervlog » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

cyanydeez wrote: post #49

bhouston wrote: post #3

The US is so weird right now. You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority and often doing so for what he views as ideological crimes. Also arresting and trying to deport people for things that are not clearly crimes (newspaper op-eds, etc) and without due process. Very strange times. Right now I have some faith the…

there's no saving grace here until rubber meets the road and ICE, among others, start being arrested. Otherwise, it's just a lot of harms being created and not resolving to anyones benefit. This is accelerationist entropy not being stopped but slowed. It's like saying, we're only going to give you one paper cut per day.

The structural problems that got us here, like our system of elections, a Supreme Court that's got at least a couple members that are obviously being bought and seeing no consequences for it, the courts cutting off the possibility of curtailing or even tracking private cash in elections, and right-wing radicalization pipelines via engagement-focused feed "algorithms", are none of them likely to be addressed even in the most optimistic scenarios.

I think when Trump suggested at a rally that his supporters could shoot his opponent if she won, and that didn't immediately end his political career, we were in new and extremely dangerous territory to a degree that most failed to appreciate. Nothing short of fixing the structural problems above will get us out of it. If Trump doesn't manage a fascist takeover, we're just buying time for the next person who tries. Under the current culture and legal circumstances, one can clearly run and govern as a fascist and still see significant support.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#106

Post by mjevans » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #72

hadrien01 wrote: post #2

I suppose this is in response to this executive order: ENDING TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZATION OF BIASED MEDIA https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/endi... I would add that PBS has this to say about public media funding: > The U.S. is almost literally off the chart for how little we allocate towards our public media. At the federal level, it comes out to a little over $1.50 per person per year. Compare that…

PBS would say that. Back here in reality the BBC is trusted by only about 40-44% of the British population, and actively distrusted by around a quarter. The true number who trust it is probably lower, as those polls suffer volunteering bias and other problems that push responses to the left when there's no ground truth to weight to. There's a profound moral problem with forcing people to pay money for media they acti…

In the US the 'press' / media is supposed to be a quasi 4th branch of government (society by the people, for the people).

Such organizations are important for the voting public to remain informed and thus elect with an informed choice.

... It would also not surprise me if ~25-35% of the US population 'did not trust PBS / NPR' because they didn't like what they heard and thus preferred to disbelieve the sources.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#107

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

hadrien01 wrote: post #2

I suppose this is in response to this executive order: ENDING TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZATION OF BIASED MEDIA https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/endi... I would add that PBS has this to say about public media funding: > The U.S. is almost literally off the chart for how little we allocate towards our public media. At the federal level, it comes out to a little over $1.50 per person per year. Compare that…

Yeah, this is the funniest thing about this EO.

Decades of the Republicans chipping away at public broadcast funding resulting in public broadcasting having to ground itself firmly in outside charitable donation. Of all the ostensibly-federal organisms, they (and the Post Office, thanks Amazon) are best-situated to be outside direct monetary government influence.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#108

Post by mike_hearn » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

erkt wrote: post #73

Not much of a quote. > “CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government. “In creating CPB, Congress expressly forbade ‘any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television o…

Congress isn't forbidden from exercising editorial control (can Congress forbid itself from doing anything except via constitutional amendment?). They forbade the executive branch from doing so whilst simultaneously imposing rules on what the CPB may fund.

This looks like a thorny legal tangle indeed. It would appear incoherent lawmaking to insist that no "officer of the United States" can "exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees or contractors" whilst simultaneously legislating that it may not "contribute to or otherwise support any political party."

Who is meant to enforce that rule exactly, if nobody who works for the US government is allowed to exercise any supervision or control? A literal reading would say that even the DoJ may not prosecute any infraction of the political neutrality rule, thus violating the principle that nobody is above the law.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#109

Post by TimorousBestie » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

cyberlurker wrote: post #69

beardedwizard wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big supporter of NPR but you don't need to look hard to see their progressive bias.

I listen to planet money and a few other podcasts. They seem pretty fair to me. The only way I could maybe see a progressive bias is that they have representation in their staff of racial and sexual minorities. I see no issue with that. Honest question, does NPR have any token conservative pundits or voices on their broadcasts or shows? I know they have a lot of minority representation. As usual, Trumps proposed solu…

> does NPR have any token conservative pundits or voices on their broadcasts or shows?

They used to (e.g., Bob Edwards, who founded Morning Edition) but the Overton Window shifted out from under them. Steve Inskeep today lies somewhere in the center-right (a fiscally conservative Never-Trumper is my brief take on him) but that’s not right enough to count as a conservative these days.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Statement Regarding Executive Order

#110

Post by laborcontract » Fri, May 02, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

voakbasda wrote: post #99

laborcontract wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internment of the Japanese cannot be brushed off. That was a gross violation of power that, if Trump were to do something similar, would tear this country apart. On top of that, one of the side effects of the internment is that it's sowed a deep distrust in the federal government and the Census that continues to harm representation to this day. They used Census data to round people up. It doesn't get much worse t…

Well they kept them in the US that time around. We won’t be so lucky this time.

I’m hoping to shine some light on bad executive behavior, not to create a contrast that makes Trump look good relative to what FDR did.

We agree here.