The House of Representatives narrowly approved legislation recently to eliminate the next two years of federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The Senate still has to vote on the cut of $1.1 billion dollars over two years, which is less than 1/100th of 1% of the federal budget. Ruby Calvert chairs the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and spoke with KHOL’s Sophia Boyd-Fliegel about what’s at stake. (KHOL received about 20% of its annual funding from CPB).
Editor's Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sophia Boyd-Fliegel: Ms. Calvert, you spent decades managing and producing for Wyoming PBS, and you're still based in Riverton. You're a Republican and come from a conservative background. How do you approach conversations with people in your party and maybe even Wyoming's own elected officials on the topic of defunding CPB?
Ruby Calvert: I think it's important for everyone to understand how the funding works when it goes to CPB, and then where it goes from when it leaves CPB. And when I talk to my conservative colleagues, I explain that most of the funding, probably 95% of the fund, goes out to stations in some form or other of direct community service grants or some sort of support grants. In general, Republican colleagues are in favor of the local stations.They want that local autonomy. They want the local stories, history and culture. So I think it's just important in how you handle the local programming and then what you do in terms of making sure you have a broad array of viewpoints on any show that you're producing. I think it does not matter whether you’re conservative or not, those are important to your communities.
SBF: I want to just get one clarification out of the way: Congress can defund CPB, but it can't defund PBS or NPR. These member stations are separate entities entirely. So if the Senate votes the way the House just did, what will Americans be left with in that public media landscape? What will survive?
RC: Well, that's a really good question. It is correct that the funding that comes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting comes directly from Congress. We are an independent, non-profit corporation. The legislators and the congressional delegation who created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting specifically designed it so that there would not be political interference. I think it would be very difficult for Wyoming PBS, for example, to raise $1.3 million in a year, to have it come in and help pay the electric bills and pay the staff.
It's not, however, just the community service grants. We also pay a lot of the music rights. And there's an economies of scale because we negotiate those rights for all stations.
I can't say strongly enough that a cut would definitely hurt rural markets, because you don't have the access to thousands and thousands of listeners or viewers, so you don’t have the membership. In fact, for a lot of rural stations, CPB makes up 40% to 50% of their budget.
SBF: You talked about cultural programming, helping us get music on the air. And that's one side of the issue that I do think is a little more hidden. The other that's at the forefront of this discussion with the rescission is accusations of bias. So what's your defense when you field these accusations of biased coverage?
RC: The first thing we want to make clear is that at CPB, we are in charge of receiving funds from Congress and distributing the funding to stations. Neither PBS nor NPR are any part of CPB. So there is an autonomy that local stations have in terms of what programs they pick, what programs they air, and then what kind of feedback they give to NPR or PBS.
Everybody, everybody has an omission or an issue that maybe they forgot to cover. I'm not saying that that hasn't happened to a lot of seasoned folks, too. But I think it really helps to have people who have more experience in the field. And I would just hope that as we go along here, knowing this bias issue has surfaced, that we pay really careful attention in our newsrooms to, you know, just that oversight of all those stories and who's represented in those stories. The more we can assist local stations in where those omissions are occurring, I think things will get better and better.
SBF: I know that this is not a new fight. I heard you recall the shock you felt when a cadre of politicians led by Newt Gingrich advocated for CPB cuts when you were still in programming. The conversation came back up in 2017. It's been around since the creation of CPB. What feels different this time?
RC: Part of it is the preponderance of conservative voices. In 2012, when Newt Gingrich stood on the Capitol steps and called out a “Contract [with] America” in defunding public broadcasting, I think it's interesting to note that after all that time, Newt Gingrich just produced a documentary on immigration. And where did he bring it? He brought it to PBS.
Every time we're threatened. We take a look at the things that we've done over the last two or three or five years and people say, ‘Oh yeah, that's right, that was really important.’ And particularly with children’s programming on PBS. I mean, all of my children were raised on public television. And there are so many three and four-year-olds who cannot go to preschool; they learn their colors and letters and empathy off of public television programming. I don't want to see public television and public radio go down on my watch, that is for sure.
SBF: Ms. Calvert, I can hear the emotion and the determination in your voice. Thanks for joining us today on KHOL.
RC: You bet, thank you.
