Cuts threaten US public broadcasting

Hundreds of television and radio stations across the United States risk seeing their resources evaporate, after President Donald Trump prevailed Friday in scrapping federal funding for public broadcasting.

- ANDRÉA BAMBINO

The cuts follow Trump's accusations of ideological bias and will deal a bitter blow to information dissemination nationwide, including rural areas with limited news resources.

At the Republican president's urging, lawmakers along party lines approved the clawback of $1.1 billion in funding already allocated by Congress over the next two years to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Created in 1967 by president Lyndon Johnson, the nonprofit CPB finances a minority share of the budgets of national radio and television mainstays NPR and PBS.

But the unprecedented rescission will also critically impact some 1,500 local radio and TV stations, from the East Coast to Alaska, that air part of the public broadcasters’ content.

“Without federal funding, many local public radio and television stations will be forced to shut down,’ warned CPB president Patricia Harrison.

CONNECTION

Stations have been sounding the alarm for months. Prairie Public Broadcasting, which has served North Dakota for 60 years, estimates it could lose 26% of its budget between combined cuts in state and CPB funding.