“The work of journalists is under fire”, in America of Trump – Thage

Donald Trump is launching federal funds from public media. E. Tammy Kim talks with leaders in the stations of the affiliate NPR across the country on why this attack feels different and what the consequences of deceased would be

One hundred days from the second presidency of Trump, the chaos has settled in a upheaval to reasons.

The administration continues to divert and dismantle government institutions, fire of independent decision makers and insulting and intimidating the press.

These strategies met last week, when Trump targeted the company for public transmission, a non -profit organization founded in 1967. The CPB finances the public radio and television stations in local markets, as well as fifteen percent of the public transmission service and one percent of the national public radio.

Trump attempted to remove three of the five members of the CPB Board of Directors, to deprive him of the quorum and freeze his activities. (CPB sued to block that action in court.) So last night, it issued an executive order to instruct the CPB to “cease funding directed to NPR and PBS … to ensure that federal funding does not support the coverage of distorted and partisan news”.

In a press release, the White House listed “Examples of the garbage that passed for” news “at NPR and PBS”, including a segment on the culture of the diet, a feature on a book on “Queer Ducks” and a documentary on repairs. He also mentioned NPR’s alleged refusal “to cover the explosive scandal of Laptop Hunter Biden”.

The previous republican leaders have made similar attempts to determine public media. The large and existential cuts were historically avoided, above all because the Americans were willing to take a step forward towards Elmo and “Newshour”, not to mention the radio of the community on which we all entrust ourselves when the fires and hurricanes hit.

What seems different this year is that “many people are afraid to speak”, Jennifer Ferro, CEO of Kcrw, the Los Angeles public radio station, told me. “Many public radio stations are hosted in universities that do not want to be in opposition to the administration”.

Kcrw is a relatively large station in a rich city; About five percent of his budget comes from the CPB, but Iron is also on the Board of Directors of Marfa Public Radio, in the rural areas of Texas – “The only live broadcast service for about thirty thousand square miles”, he said, that it would be seriously wounded by a federal cut. Margaret Low, CEO of Wbur, in Boston, told me that, although only three percent of the station budget comes from the CPB, its national programs are based on “millions of dollars in commissions of mayor and sponsorships” from other stations across the country.

Ira Glass, the guest of WBEZ Chicago’s “This American Life”, who is not based on government funding but airs on many affiliates of the NPR, said that part of the damage to the executive order is that he poses a “branding problem”: “It is not nice to have the president who says that your coverage is biased”.

NPR, PBS journalists and any other store in the United States have much more than worry about their paychecks. As the Committee said to protect journalists in a recent report, “these are not normal times for the freedoms of the American press”.

On the same day that Trump issued his executive order, the Prosecutor General, Pam Bondi, announced that the Department of Justice will use quotes and warrant to obtain telephone records, notes and testimonies of journalists to investigate the government’s “losses”.

“The work of journalists is under shooting in a way that has an emotional and psychological effect,” Tina Pamintuan told me, outgoing CEO of St. Louis public radio, while he was in Washington Lobby for federal funds. (More than six percent of the expected revenues of his station come from the CPB) “Yet they still go out there and do this fantastic work”.

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