Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

cpb.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 646 posts

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#281

Post by timr »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #278
timr wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about your suggested site, but I use foreign news for this. I have switched to "consuming news" [0] almost entirely from a variety of English-language foreign services. All national media services have their own bias and propaganda, but if you switch them up it becomes obvious very quickly. It also means that I miss out on most of the US political noise [1], which is a benefit to my mental health [2]. [0…

I suspect most people who look at international media and think it's better are using rose-tinted glasses. Indian media is broadly worse if anything, latin american media is a trip if you have any understanding of the complicated political landscape, Aus is central to the Murdoch news dynasty, and East asian media has lots of famously partisan organizations. Maybe middle eastern media, explicitly funded for soft powe…

> I suspect most people who look at international media and think it's better are using rose-tinted glasses....They're differently biased, but you can't escape consuming media critically.

I went out of my way to head off this exact criticism, but I guess I didn't put it in blinking, bold, 30 point font.

Again: every national media outlet has bias (indeed, every media outlet has bias). My experience is that it's pretty easy to notice when you switch your sources regularly.

It doesn't take me any effort to do this, and even if I hear a hyper-partisan take, it doesn't melt my brain. I go "oh weird, so that's what the Indian government thinks" -- which is still vastly preferable to hearing what some reporter at NPR or CNN or whatever thinks about what India thinks.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#282

Post by jmull »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #192
legitster wrote: post #38

Contrary to the conservative spin over the years, I have found public broadcasting to be one of the least biased sources of headline news and information available. (For their national broadcasts at least - local ... can be hit or miss). In particular, their kids programming is the absolute best. Nothing flashy or exciting, but it's laser focused on education and has zero agenda. And the PBS kids apps are one of the…

>Contrary to the conservative spin over the years, I have found public broadcasting to be one of the least biased sources Can we break this down? You open with a effectively derogatory accusation about conservatives making things up…which I have no opinion on. That immediately shows your own likely liberal bias and then you say you saw no problem with the programming. Isn’t that exactly the issue? That you saw no iss…

Your argument is just assuming the (1) previous poster has liberal bias, (2) CPB has liberal bias, (3) previous poster is unable to recognize their own or CPB’s liberal bias.

Maybe these are true, but I don’t see the basis for it here.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#283

Post by terraqueous »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #250
TheCondor wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a specific example of the left-leaning bias you can mention?

The show had six guests on- 2 left, 1 right, 2 neutral(?) and 1 CIA deep state mouthpiece. The show gave mostly balanced coverage of every issue covered, but declined to dig into the Epstein issue beyond "Trump+Epstein", gave the deep-stater seven minutes to defend the CIA without meaningfully pressing into any of the other questions raised by the latest declassifications (such as HRC & DNC involvement in orchestrati…

Texas already completed redistricting in 2021 after the most recent census (2020). They are only redrawing the maps again now because Trump is demanding an even more egregious gerrymander.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#284

Post by tptacek »

anigbrowl wrote: post #224
tptacek wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they will, but public funding for my local NPR and PBS stations amounts to something like 5% of their budget; they aren't going anywhere. NPR and PBS as institutions are more threatened by the Internet than they are by this funding cut. I don't support the cut, but I get the vibe that many people commenting on this thread don't know what CPB is.

OK, but iirc you live in a big city (as do I). This is gonna be a serious problem for people in rural areas, and as well as decline in broadcasting operations it will probably mean less quality news coverage of rural issues, and so fewer rural stories on big-city NPR/PBS stations.

Right, but drastically fewer people are consuming linear NPR/PBS content. My guess is that at this point most NPR consumption occurs via podcasts (maybe 60/40? there's still a big drive-time component, but podcasts eat into drive-time too!), and presumably an even sharper shift to the PBS streaming site.

Like, for elderly viewers, availability of linear media still matters (something I've learned tediously through serving on a local commission managing our cable franchise). But... that's basically it?

So, back to: this is not an existential threat to PBS or NPR. I think people think I'm being glib when I say the Internet is a bigger threat to PBS (as an institution called "PBS") than this funding cut. I'm not being glib.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#285

Post by radiofreeeuropa »

KaiserPro wrote: post #201
efitz wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are unable to see their own political bias; they look at BBC or Fox News and see “unbiased true reporting”. I highly suggest using Ground News (ground.news) for a week or a month as your sole portal into news stories, and then use their features to analyze bias in your selection of news stories and outlets. I use it regularly to try to offset my own biases.

I think comparing BBC new to fox news is a piss take. of _course_ there is bias at the BBC. But to comparing it to Fox is uncharitable at best.

The comparison for something as openly partisan on the left as Fox News, in US media, would be something like Democracy Now! or maybe The Nation.

The thing is, though, there are a few components here: there's level of favorability toward a certain kind of politics, which some barely-popular left-leaning outlets roughly match Fox News on, plus propensity to lie and exaggerate. And there's reach.

Nothing left-partisan in the US that I'm aware of touches Fox on either of those latter fronts—propensity to just make shit up, and (certainly not) reach.

Nobody's putting Democracy Now! on in waiting rooms. Hell IDK maybe at Planned Parenthood, never been, wouldn't know, but not at a dentist's office or at the auto shop or what have you.

There are equivalents to Fox News on the Left (Fox News viewers think it's MSNBC because that's what Fox News and AM radio told them, LMFAO, no) in the US, in terms of level of commitment to supporting partisan causes. There's nothing like it as far as willingness to deviate from reality to do so, nor in reach. Nothing remotely close.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#286

Post by [deleted] »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #250
TheCondor wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a specific example of the left-leaning bias you can mention?

The show had six guests on- 2 left, 1 right, 2 neutral(?) and 1 CIA deep state mouthpiece. The show gave mostly balanced coverage of every issue covered, but declined to dig into the Epstein issue beyond "Trump+Epstein", gave the deep-stater seven minutes to defend the CIA without meaningfully pressing into any of the other questions raised by the latest declassifications (such as HRC & DNC involvement in orchestrati…

[deleted]

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#287

Post by tptacek »

drozycki wrote: post #246
glial wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any way to find out which stations will be affected, and by how much (e.g. proportion of budget)?

https://www.axios.com/2025/08/01/cpb-npr-pbs-corporation-pub... Some stations will lose 2%, others 98%.

I'm sure we're going to lose a lot of hyperlocal news and current event programming in Shreveport or whatever, but those programs have tiny audiences (even relative to their media market). Most of what we think of as PBS and NPR programming is delivered principally over the Internet now, not via local broadcast stations.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#288

Post by eschaton »

onepremise wrote: post #82

Again, it's all part of the plan, which is referred to as the butterfly revolution, by Curtis Yarvin. Leaders that have literally invested in this platform are buying into this nonsense. These guys have polarized the two parties to a point all weaknesses are surfacing. It isn't about democrats vs republicans. It's just working class vs the billionaires. You know the ppl sitting behind Trump at his inauguration. Liter…

It’s all so horrible and obvious.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#289

Post by MisterBastahrd »

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.

This has been an attack on democracy over 40 years in the making. Conservatives have been openly saying what they've wanted to do all the time, but most people thought there'd never be a moment where they'd actually have enough power to pull it off. Meanwhile, liberal politicians have and still are operating under the delusion that they don't have to pass laws when they gain power, they can merely cast feelings and hope that the courts will back that up.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#290

Post by mulmen »

tptacek wrote: post #284
anigbrowl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but iirc you live in a big city (as do I). This is gonna be a serious problem for people in rural areas, and as well as decline in broadcasting operations it will probably mean less quality news coverage of rural issues, and so fewer rural stories on big-city NPR/PBS stations.

Right, but drastically fewer people are consuming linear NPR/PBS content. My guess is that at this point most NPR consumption occurs via podcasts (maybe 60/40? there's still a big drive-time component, but podcasts eat into drive-time too!), and presumably an even sharper shift to the PBS streaming site. Like, for elderly viewers, availability of linear media still matters (something I've learned tediously through se…

> Right, but drastically fewer people are consuming linear NPR/PBS content. My guess is that at this point most NPR consumption occurs via podcasts (maybe 60/40? there's still a big drive-time component, but podcasts eat into drive-time too!), and presumably an even sharper shift to the PBS streaming site.

Is the source of that 60/40 more substantial than any part of your anatomy?

> Like, for elderly viewers, availability of linear media still matters (something I've learned tediously through serving on a local commission managing our cable franchise). But... that's basically it?

Ok so you hear from elderly viewers that they care about this content and because you don’t hear from anyone else you assume they don’t exist? Are you really satisfied with that conclusion? Is it possible other listeners just have less time to be involved? Have you reached out to get their thoughts? Why are you so willing to dismiss the elderly?

> So, back to: this is not an existential threat to PBS or NPR. I think people think I'm being glib when I say the Internet is a bigger threat to PBS (as an institution called "PBS") than this funding cut. I'm not being glib.

I do think you are being glib. I don’t care about the comparison you’re making and I think it’s incredibly shallow. By your own estimate this will negatively impact 40% of NPR listeners. The existence of a larger threat is no consolation.

Why do PBS and NPR need to compete with anything? This is a public good, not a competitive business. That’s the entire point.

Does this funding cut somehow help NPR and PBS generate non-linear programming or online content? Of course it doesn’t. This is a bad thing for NPR and PBS even if they continue operating in spite of it.

Post reply on HN