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Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

cpb.org

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Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#21

Post by mc32 »

dingnuts wrote: post #8
AznHisoka wrote: post #3

Does this mean the end of PBS?

For the last twenty years PBS proponents have been telling me that PBS and NPR are mostly member supported, and that the Federal funds couldn't corrupt the messaging because there just wasn't enough of it to matter. So if that's true, I guess not. If it was actually a mouthpiece, I guess so

Yah they also took money from the “Archer Daniels Midland” corporation (not that I’d have anything against organic produce, for example) and the Ford and many other biased endowments —so I think it’d be hard to believe their messaging was unaffected. That or they bit the hand that fed it and the hand didn’t mind getting bitten for some reason.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#22

Post by Pfhortune »

What's really horrifying here is that, even if the appetite for funding CPB were to come back in 2026, 2028, or whenever, you can't just spin it up again; those people have moved on, those assets are liquidated. You would have to start up again pretty much from scratch.

That's why this careless crusade against governmental institutions is so horrific. Institutions with decades of history are being destroyed, and it would take years to decades to spin up something even close to equivalent, in an insane political environment where every public institution is framed as horrible socialism.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#23

Post by stego-tech »

thevillagechief wrote: post #13

Woah! This stuff is unwinding faster than my priors. I'm going to have to re-evaluate everything I thought true about the US. I just always assumed "strong institutions" meant something here. That it was all a house built on sand is disconcerting.

Institutions are only as strong as their defenders and supporters - and like countless Empires before it, the USA has bled its institutions dry of credibility and/or resources over the past several decades in a futile attempt to satiate a handful of wealthy extremists.

This was entirely expected and predicted once neoliberalism took hold in the Democratic and Republican parties and began rotting out the central pillars of American Democracy and Empire.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#24

Post by xnx »

atonse wrote: post #12

According to this page [1] PBS only receives about 15% of its funds from federal funding. The rest is from donations. 1: https://foundation.pbs.org/ways-to-give/gifts-to-the-pbs-end... So this certainly won't be the death of PBS, as I had feared. Update 2: For the record (easier to respond in this original post than to each response), I am not defending the decision at all. I grew up listening to NPR, and have been o…

> PBS only receives about 15% of its funds from federal funding

I'm a big fan of PBS, but I wonder if this common stat is misleading. Don't a huge portion of PBS funds come from member stations, which get a portion of their funds from federal funding?

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#26

Post by darknavi »

abtinf wrote: post #16

Whenever the question of federal funding for public broadcasting has come up in the past, a small army of commenters would always claim that less then 1% of the funding for public media comes from the government. Turns out that was perhaps an incomplete argument.

Certainly an incomplete picture. NPR its self may only get a small percentage of its total pie from CPB, but member stations (that license NPR content and what not) that exist all over the country use various amounts. The result will likely be that many small, local, already underfunded local stations will cease to function in their current capacity.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#27

Post by Onawa »

thevillagechief wrote: post #13

Woah! This stuff is unwinding faster than my priors. I'm going to have to re-evaluate everything I thought true about the US. I just always assumed "strong institutions" meant something here. That it was all a house built on sand is disconcerting.

The dissolution and dismantling of US gov institutions that we are witnessing is unprecedented in modern times. Hell, a few of the agencies being attacked were created with bipartisan support.

I would say it isn't that our institutions were built on sand, more that its hard to stop a madman who broke into your house with a chainsaw (a la Musk) from knocking down a few load-bearing walls.

It is easier to destroy almost anything than it is to create it in the first place.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#28

Post by rectang »

atonse wrote: post #12

According to this page [1] PBS only receives about 15% of its funds from federal funding. The rest is from donations. 1: https://foundation.pbs.org/ways-to-give/gifts-to-the-pbs-end... So this certainly won't be the death of PBS, as I had feared. Update 2: For the record (easier to respond in this original post than to each response), I am not defending the decision at all. I grew up listening to NPR, and have been o…

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5408014-rural-stations-vu...

> Rural stations hit hardest

> Up to 18 percent of about 1,000 member stations would close

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#29

Post by Arubis »

thevillagechief wrote: post #13

Woah! This stuff is unwinding faster than my priors. I'm going to have to re-evaluate everything I thought true about the US. I just always assumed "strong institutions" meant something here. That it was all a house built on sand is disconcerting.

The institutions WERE strong. It’s taken decades to unwind them. But yes, we’ve definitely crossed a big acceleration lately.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#30

Post by Pfhortune »

munchler wrote: post #20

I listen to NPR every day and, honestly, I think this might be for the best. It's going to hurt for a while, but in the end, I think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands on its own without interference from politicians.

> I think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands on its own without interference from politicians.

What does the "public" in "public broadcasting" mean to you?

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