Senate votes to kill entire public broadcasting budget in blow to NPR and PBS
Senate votes to rescind $1.1 billion from Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
They’re just straight up evil.
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I donate to NPR/PBS annually; probably will need to double my donation.
This is the one and only time that I'm hoping that someone on Lemmy is a billionaire.
I hope you are in the top 5% of income earners because otherwise you probably won't get a tax break from the money the government "saved" and rather probably pay more in taxes.
I don't care about the write off. I care because public radio is something I worked in for a half decade and well afterwards it gave me a connection to my community and the world at large. I'll give more money to spite them. Fuck their right off. I donate because it is good and true. And fuck anyone that says otherwise.
Cheers to that. Question for you. With no funding being allocated, do you think this will be the final break of any remaining influence the federal gov has over public radio? I don't know how much there was to begin with, but I imagine it is similar to infrastructure funding that came with stipulations.
The people that work in public radio are like career gov workers or direct care workers. I say that because I've been two of those three, and count some career beurocrats as good friends.
. The people that work in these industries will sell their souls to keep fighting the good fight. Underpaid and understaffed. But in this case, the economics will start to eat away at local stations and the people who truly believe will be forced to abandon it eventually.
Economics are economics.
At the end of the day, it's a public service. The federal government is a necessary part of how it continues to exist. Public services are not very viable through charity as a sole funding source. They aren't money makers. They provide a free service for the bare minimum.
The most insidious bit is that none of these stations will disappear tomorrow. They are filled with dedicated individuals that will fight tooth and nail to keep them running. And donors that will try their best to keep them afloat.
The true toll, like everything this administration is doing, will take years to unfold. One by one stations will drop out and close. And it will be with a whimper. A death by a thousand cuts. Exsanguinated to death drop by drop.
Many will drop out before this administration ends. And I have little faith in the compitence of their replacements to restore this funding. Even if "my side" wins.
There really isn't that much federal influence to the public broadcasting sector, other than providing funds and some regulations on what they can or can't say. And it's not a 'can or can't say' propaganda thing. It's a "don't put a dollar value to products in your underwriting", or " don't endorse and sell trump gold coins to the elderly" sort of restrictions. Public radio doesn't have advertisers. They have underwriters. They get their name out as a sponsor to the programming, not to sell a product. Those are the rules.
They are just stealing funds from nonprofits at this point.
Yeah, advertisers and corporate interests has already brought ruin to for profit news. I expect the passionate people will always exist and keep doing what they think is right. The cohesion will crumble before their spirit. Might be time to push local gov to help more with funding public stations.
Local government will do very little. Local businesses and individuals of a philanthropic mindset or personal will, that's what we've got. "Civic duty" keeps it afloat, and those sort of businesses and people become more rare by the day. In the places that need it the most, the political mindset is so corrupted, I fear we will never get it back.
If it existed, it's dead now. Our current situation is my only proof. But I would love for you to prove me wrong.
Pessimism or realism, I don't know what the difference is anymore tbh. I'm not stopping, but damn it it feels like a losing battle.
Local results are the only thing I have left to judge by. It has been a loosing battle for a long time, and they "patched" some of the last true communication and outreach available to indiviuals wanting to communicate nationally and worldwide. (The whole Twitter jounalist crackdown a while back comes to mind)
Everyone is getting too tired to put in effort for upholding values, but my stance is opposite that, I'm way more stubborn than people realize. I'm in the right place, and changed some things for the better at work. Might be time to switch my energy to my community. I want to transition from their Sysiphus to their fuckass-boulder.
The last step is finding out how to pit mega funding against eachother in a way that ultimately benefits locals.
Hey fair enough and good on you. Keep up the good fight.
With the current "government" I think that would only lead to the Orange Turd cutting money to local gov.
