IT was fully predicted that Donald Trump would follow the public media in America. Harming the journalism based on reality-in all its forms, whether it is general or private-is an essential part of its playing book to control the political narration as it transports the country towards an authoritarian model of the government.
For Trump, the message is everything, and anything on the way to be photographed as evil for society and seal.
Like all possible Autocrat, Trump has a Writing toys to combat media. It is covered by interested journalists, describing the enemy of the people, and the prosecution of news organizations and controlling the tight access to newspaper makers.
All this is being implemented in the first three months of Trump 2.0, as well as efforts to dismantle the voice of America and free Europe, funded by the federal government.
Now, it led to the attack on the national public radio and the public broadcasting system.
The radical left “monsters”, as Trump described it in a social media post a few weeks ago.
Then another shoe fell. Last week, NPR mentioned itself The Trump administration was a memorandum to call for the elimination of federal funds for the public media.
According to what was reported, “cancellation” included – a ban on more than a billion dollars already approved by the Congress for the Public Broadcasting Company, the father of NPR and PBS. The memo, in theory, will give Congress 45 days to agree to cut or maintain funding.
Although the money has already won approval, Trump is fond of behavior as if every whim will become a law. for him A barooring records of executive orders It includes many who are challenged in federal lawsuits.
This entire topic, of course, is a political theater at its best. Watch, for example, President of the Million ally of Congress, Margori Taylor Green of the extremist Georgia, who helped lead this charge against the public media.
“You can all hate us on your own,” Green insisted in a hearing in Congress in late March. The facts are largely lying the play. NPR receives about 1 % of its funding directly from the federal government; However, many small “member stations” in societies throughout the country depend more on federal funds. The loss will be destroyed for them – and for the public, which has no other form of news in societies that have become increasingly “news desert”.
Congress must send filling Trump’s plan and continue to provide financing-not because NPR and its members stations are perfect, not because PBS always gets it properly in the excellent NewShour program that is broadcast every evening, but because, respectively, they are an important part of the ecosystem of news based on the facts necessary for the democratic self.
This is especially true at a time when media companies are increasingly owned by large companies or by individual billionaires, all with their financial schedules. Disney owns ABC News. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Warner Bros has CNN. Most local newspapers are now owned by large chains or private stock companies. (Fortunately, the Guardian is different; it is owned by Scott Trust, which works like non -profit, not a company.)
Public financing – at least in theory must provide some distance from the ownership of companies by the wealthy and strong.
Should taxpayers pay for the news? I think it is reasonable – legitimate news, after all, a major element in our democracy. And throughout Western Europe, according to PEW research studyThe public media is not only more dominant, but are more confident than private news organizations.
NPR and members stations make a lot of right. They correct their mistakes – a Litmus test for legitimate news organizations. They also still have grievances or public editor to work as a representative of readers and consider complaints.
When I met the CEO of NPR, Catherine Maher, on stage in Tribfest last year in Austin, I asked whether she was to keep a public editor – unlike many news organizations, including the Times and Washington Post, which eliminated the role. She publicly pledged to do so as long as she was responsible.
NPR is also proud of many excellent journalists, who devote the facts and obtain stories properly. In the field of my specialization – journalism and news industry – there is no American media correspondent to respect more than David Volkswageck, whose work is characterized by active, non -biased and repeated reports.
I was not convinced of the complaints of the former URI Berliner former NPR business editor, who stole last year against the left -wing drift of the employer. Erik Wimble from the Washington Post, who gave a profound look at NPR reports on Trump’s relationship with Russia, was not Budliner Product.
Wimble A suitable conclusionNPR is not a cell of left -wing ideology, as Berliner will get it, but rather a unique news organization, one “driven by old magazines matches, alienation from abuse to anyone, and a fixed tendency for listeners.”
Minus, definitely. But in the same way it is important for the comprehensive ecosystem – and it deserves to be behind the Congress behind it, regardless of the bullying Trump, and now and in the future.