I am not generally a big fan of these animated thingies, but when someone threatens my friends, I’ll go to great lengths (including posting something that flashes) to protect them. The Cookie Monster, Big Bird and the Grouch – particularly the Grouch – have been friends of mine for a long time… and their program, and others like it, are under attack.
When I received an email today from one of my coworkers with a subject line ‘Save NPR and PBS’, I thought not again. I’ve received that fake petition more times that I can count; I assume that the petition has shown up in your inboxes as well.
Sadly, this is not a scam or a joke. National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service really are facing severe funding cuts. Last Friday, the New York Times published this:
A House Appropriations panel on Thursday approved a spending bill that would cut the budget for public television and radio nearly in half and eliminate a $23 million federal program that has provided some money for producing children’s shows that include “Sesame Street,” “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” “Between the Lions” and “Dragon Tales.”
By a voice vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee adopted a measure that would reduce the financing of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the organization that directs taxpayer dollars to public television and radio, to $300 million from $400 million. The subcommittee also eliminated $39 million that stations say they need to convert to digital programming and $50 million for upgrading aging satellite technology that is the backbone of the PBS network.
The cuts in financing went significantly beyond those requested by the White House and are likely to be approved next week by the full Appropriations Committee and then by the House. Lobbyists for public television and radio say they hope to have the money restored in the version of the bill prepared by the Senate, where they have support from several senior Republican members. The final legislation will be the product of negotiations between the House and Senate.
For more information, check out Hands Off Public Broadcasting. This site is part of Media Matters for America, a great source for analysis of misinformation in the media.
That .gif file of my friends is courtesy of Common Cause, which also has information on the proposed funding cuts.
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Thanks for bringing this to my attention. So sad. While I’m not a big fan of some of the shows affected (Clifford) and think the quality of Sesame Street over the last decade has faltered, children would be much, much poorer without them.
(My favourite was, and always will be, Grover.)
Your view of Media Matters is a bit… off.
They are just as guilty of bias as the entities they claim to objectively alayse. Plus, consider the inconsistent and haywire testimony of MM-drone Oliver Willis on his own site as an yardstick to measure is incompetence as a media anlyst.
Kimberley, I’d say we are definitely of like minds. I come to you blog and the first things I see are lovely flowers and a plea for the CPB. I’ll have to spend some more time here when I have more time to spend. Thanks for your visit.
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