RI Public radio and TV cutting staff after federal funding cut

RI PBS, The Public’s Radio offer buyouts, warn of layoffs due to federal defunding

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

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Staring down an estimated $1.1 million budget gap resulting from congressional defunding, Rhode Island’s recently merged public media entity is cutting staff — first on a volunteer basis, and later, potentially through layoffs.

Pam Johnston, CEO of Rhode Island PBS and The Public’s Radio, notified employees of cuts in a staff meeting Wednesday. The internal announcement was followed up with a statement published on the company’s website shortly after. 

Citing the “significant and painful cut” prompted by the federal rescission package, which eliminated federal support for public broadcasting, Johnston said the company will be offering voluntary buyouts to “most” staff members. If not enough workers take the offer by the Sept. 5 deadline, the next step is organization wide layoffs, according to the email.

It's a beautiful day in his neighborhood

What was cut

'We Have Lost a Giant': Broadcast Legend Bill Moyers Dies at 91

"Moyers believed that journalism should serve democracy, not just the bottom line."

Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams

The life and work of journalist Bill Moyers was being celebrated across the world of independent and public media on Thursday as news of his death at the age of 91 spread across the United States and beyond.

"RIP Bill Moyers, one of the greatest of the greats," Press Watch's Dan Froomkin said on social media as remembrances and celebrations of the legendary broadcaster, democracy defender, and longtime Common Dreams contributor poured in.

Moyers died of complications from prostate cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

He began his long media career as a teenager, reporting for his local newspaper in Texas. He was also an ordained Baptist minister and former President Lyndon B. Johnson's press secretary.

A joint statement from the LBJ Presidential Library, his foundation, and the Johnson family noted that "Moyers played a central role in developing and promoting Johnson's Great Society agenda, an ambitious domestic policy program to eliminate poverty, expand civil rights, and improve education and healthcare nationwide."

Moyers left the White House and returned to journalism in 1967. He served as publisher of Newsday, then launched his award-winning television career, from which he retired in 2015. His website, BillMoyers.com, went into "archive mode" in 2017.

With his television programming—much of which aired on PBS—Moyers took "his cameras and microphones to cities and towns where unions, community organizations, environmental groups, tenants rights activists, and others were waging grassroots campaigns for change," Peter Dreier wrote for Common Dreams a decade ago.

Save Public Radio and Television!

Attorney General Neronha co-leads coalition in support of lawsuits challenging NPR and PBS funding cuts

Steve Ahlquist

From a press release:

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha co-led a coalition of 21 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of two lawsuits brought by National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) that seek to block proposed funding cuts to their organizations and local affiliates.

“Make no mistake: when the Trump Administration attacks NPR and PBS, they are attempting to severely limit the public’s right to receive critical information,” said Attorney General Neronha. “NPR and PBS are American institutions responsible for delivering emergency information, educational programming, and reliable news, all of which Americans use to inform how they live their lives. These massive cuts would have dramatically negative impacts on the flow of public information, especially in rural and tribal areas, with potentially life-threatening consequences. We must fight to protect every American’s ability to access information, regardless of income level or zip code. We must fight to protect our public stations.”

At issue in the case is an executive order signed by President Trump on May 1 directing the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and executive branch agencies to end federal funding for NPR and PBS. On May 27, NPR and three Colorado public radio stations—Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio, and tribal-serving KSUT in southwestern Colorado—sued to block the proposed cuts. PBS and a Minnesota-based affiliate filed a separate lawsuit on May 30.

The coalition of attorneys general, led by those from Rhode Island, Colorado, Arizona, and Minnesota, argues that public broadcast stations serve a critical role in delivering information to the public, and the proposed cuts would severely harm Americans. 

Trump wants America to be ignorant because ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny

Trump’s Vicious Attack on the American Mind

Robert Reich

This is Donald Trump's new official portrait. Really.
Meet the new Big Brother. White House photo.

Why is Trump trying to cancel “Sesame Street,” which has helped children learn to read and count for over half a century?

Why is he seeking to destroy Harvard University?

Why is he trying to deter the world’s most brilliant scientists from coming to the United States?

Because he is trying to destroy American education — and with it, the American mind.

Throughout history, tyrants have understood that their major enemy is an educated public. Slaveholders prohibited enslaved people from learning to read. The Third Reich burned books. The Khmer Rouge banned music. Stalin and Pinochet censored the media.

And Trump, like past authoritarians, wants to control not just what we do, but also how and what we think.

He has embraced one of the mottos from George Orwell’s 1984: “Ignorance is strength.” He knows that an uninformed public is easier to divide and conquer.

There are five facets to Trump’s authoritarian attack on the American mind:

1. Rewrite history

The protagonist of 1984 works in the so-called Ministry of Truth, where he’s made to literally rewrite history because Big Brother knows that he “who controls the past controls the future.”

That’s chilling in a dystopian novel. It’s far scarier in real life, where Trump and his MAGA cronies are making schools whitewash slavery and segregation, cover up the genocide of Native Americans, and erase the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

Authoritarians know that if they can convince us our country has never been wrong, they can make us believe our ruler is always right.

If they can make us forget how brave activists fought for change in the past, they can stop us from seeking change in the future.

Trump wants us to forget (or never know) that he lost the 2020 election and then instigated a coup against the United States.

He even claimed last weekend that former President Joseph R. Biden was “executed in 2020” and replaced by a robotic clone.

2. Gut education

As Trump tries to abolish the Department of Education, he’s also proposing to cut funding for K-12 public schools and to force universities to let him influence student admissions, faculty hiring, and what is taught.

As a professor, I know firsthand how education empowers young people’s minds. We can’t have a functioning democracy if people cannot deliberate critically about it. That’s why authoritarians replace education with indoctrination.

But the Trump regime doesn’t want a functioning democracy.

Instead of teaching students to think for themselves, authoritarians seek to instill blind allegiance and suppress dissent. As Trump adviser Stephen Miller said: “Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots.”

This is why the Italian and German fascists of the 20th century immediately turned their countries’ educational systems into instruments of the party.

3. Dismantle science

By freezing university research grants and attacking the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and USAID, Trump is stifling medical and scientific research.

And his cuts to the Centers For Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration put all of us at risk.

He’s also abducting and deporting international scientists who disagree with his administration. Can you imagine a crueler way to rob America of the global intellectual capital that has helped us become the world leader in scientific research?

He is now revoking visas of some Chinese college students. Some 277,000 students from China attended school in the United States last year, second only to the number of students from India. The United States employs tremendous numbers of scientific and technological experts originally from China. We need this continued pipeline of intellect and skill.

How can medical research and disease prevention be political? How can scientific research in general become political? Why is Trump afraid of science?

Because science acknowledges objective facts. Authoritarians insist that the ruler is more powerful than the facts. Trump wants to control the facts.

As George Orwell wrote, “it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this.”

4. Suppress the media

From suing ABC and CBS over their news coverage to threatening to strip network broadcast licenses to defunding PBS and NPR, Trump is trying to silence America’s sources of news.

As Trump repeatedly says: “I call it the fake news media.”

He wants control over what information Americans can (or cannot) get.

His regime is even going through social media accounts of people seeking visas to the United States.

A free press exists to question authority and help the public question it as well. But authoritarians insist that they must never be questioned.

Authoritarians want to consolidate state power over what the public can know.

5. Attack the arts

The arts exist to provoke us, challenge our thinking, and help us see beyond ourselves.

They arts are an important and independent aspect of an educated society, which is why authoritarians have historically attacked them.

So it’s no surprise that Trump is canceling grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, is dictating what’s displayed at the Smithsonian, and has installed himself as the chair of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

To limit art is to limit free speech and expression. It’s a crucial step that authoritarians use to silence anyone who dissents through creativity.

***

Added up, these five facets of Trump’s attack on the American mind render us less informed, less inspired, and easier to control.

They empower him to divide us with hatred and fear.

And they prevent us from discovering that we have more in common with one another than with the authoritarians who try to rule us.

This attack on our minds reduces our capacity for self-government because ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.

What you can do: Please share this essay, and help spread the truth.

Big Bird is a commie!

Rhode Island public radio and TV merger is OK'd

Hopes high for stronger non-profit journalism

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

AG Peter Neronha's statement that the
merger offers "a community benefit"

Rhode Island PBS and The Public’s Radio’s will soon be one entity.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha announced the approval of the merger of the two public media organizations Tuesday after conducting a review to ensure compliance with state law.

Elizabeth Delude-Dix, chair of the board of directors of The Public’s Radio, thanked the attorney general’s office and said in a statement: “The Public’s Radio and Rhode Island PBS have long provided honest journalism, robust educational programming, and engaging and entertaining content to Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. Our impact will be increased and our audience expanded as we take these next exciting steps forward.” 

Torey Malatia, CEO of The Public’s Radio, said via email: “I agree the new institution has great potential for community service.”

Now, a new jointly-made board will begin to work with staff from both broadcast stations to align their respective operations and administration, according to a press release from Rhode Island PBS. 

Public radio can help solve the local news crisis

Needs more funding to expand staff and coverage

Thomas E. Patterson, Harvard Kennedy School

Can public radio fill the hole left by the decline of local
news outlets? Talaj/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Since 2005, more than 2,500 local newspapers, most of them weeklies, have closed, with more closures on the way.

Responses to the decline have ranged from luring billionaires to buy local dailies to encouraging digital startups. 

But the number of interested billionaires is limited, and many digital startups have struggled to generate the revenue and audience needed to survive.

The local news crisis is more than a problem of shuttered newsrooms and laid-off journalists. It’s also a democracy crisis. Communities that have lost their newspaper have seen a decline in voting rates, the sense of solidarity among community members, awareness of local affairs and government responsiveness.

Largely overlooked in the effort to save local news are the nation’s local public radio stations.

Among the reasons for that oversight is that radio operates in a crowded space. Unlike a local daily newspaper, which largely has the print market to itself, local public radio stations face competition from other stations. The widely held perception that public radio caters to the interests of people with higher income and education may also have kept it largely out of the conversation.

But as a scholar who studies media, I believe that local public radio should be part of the conversation about saving local news.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I agree. You won't find more in-depth coverage of South County news than the coverage of Alex Nunes, South County Bureau Chief for the Public's Radio. - Will Collette