Corporation for Public Broadcasting to shut down after being defunded by Congress, targeted by Trump

WASHINGTON AP The Corporation for Inhabitants Broadcasting a cornerstone of American values for three generations reported Friday it would take attempts toward its own closure after being defunded by Congress marking the end of a nearly six-decade era in which it fueled the production of renowned educational programs cultural content and even emergency alerts The demise of the corporation known as CPB is a direct development of President Donald Trump s targeting of community media which he has repeatedly stated is spreading political and cultural views antithetical to those the United States should be espousing The closure is expected to have a profound impact on the journalistic and cultural landscape in particular inhabitants radio and TV stations in small communities across the United States CPB helps fund both PBS and NPR but greater part of its funding is distributed to more than local constituents radio and television stations around the country The corporation also has deep ties to much of the nation s the majority familiar services from NPR s All Things Considered to historically Sesame Street Mister Rogers Neighborhood and the documentaries of Ken Burns The corporation explained its end years after being signed into law by President Lyndon B Johnson would come in an orderly wind-down In a announcement it declared the decision came after the passage through Congress of a package that clawed back its funding for the next two budget years about billion Then the Senate Appropriations Committee reinforced that initiative change Thursday by excluding funding for the corporation for the first time in more than years as part of a broader spending bill Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called wrote and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB we now face the challenging reality of closing our operations announced Patricia Harrison the corporation s president and CEO A last-gasp attempt at funding fails Democratic members of on the Senate Appropriations Committee made a last-ditch effort this week to save the CBP s funding As part of Thursday s committee deliberations Sen Tammy Baldwin D-Wis authored but then withdrew an amendment to restore CPB funding for the coming budget year She noted she still assumed there was a path forward to fix this before there are devastating consequences for residents radio and television stations across the country It s hard to believe we ve ended up in the situation we re in she declared And I m going to continue to work with my colleagues to fix it But Sen Shelley Moore Capito R-W Va sounded a less optimistic tone I understand your concerns but we all know we litigated this two weeks ago Capito reported Adopting this amendment would have been contrary to what we have already voted on The closure will come in phases CPB disclosed it informed employees Friday that largest part staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept It declared a small transition crew will stay in place until January to finish any remaining work including it revealed ensuring continuity for music rights and royalties that remain essential to the general media system Society media has been one of the greater part trusted institutions in American life providing educational opportunity urgency alerts civil discourse and cultural connection to every corner of the country Harrison noted We are deeply grateful to our partners across the system for their resilience leadership and unwavering dedication to serving the American people NPR stations use millions of dollars in federal money to pay music licensing fees Now a great number of will have to renegotiate these deals That could impact in particular outlets that build their initiatives around music discovery NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher estimated lately for example that particular of all classical music broadcast in the United States is on citizens radio stations Federal money for populace radio and television has traditionally been appropriated to the Corporation for Constituents Broadcasting which distributes it to NPR and PBS Roughly of the money goes directly to the PBS and NPR stations across the country although that s only a shorthand way to describe its feasible impact Trump who has called the CPB a monstrosity has long commented that residents broadcasting displays an extreme liberal bias helped create the momentum in current months for an anti-public broadcasting groundswell among his supporters in Congress and around the country It is part of a larger initiative in which he has targeted institutions particularly cultural ones that produce content or espouse attitudes that he considers un-American The CPB s demise represents a political success for those efforts His impact on the media landscape has been profound He has also gone after U S authorities media that had independence charters including the venerable Voice of America ending that media outlet s operations after multiple decades Trump also fired three members of the corporation s board of directors in April In legal action at the time the fired directors disclosed their dismissal was governmental overreach targeting an entity whose charter guarantees it independence