Don't Let Trump Kill Public Media

The Trump Administration is pushing a plan to axe funding to hundreds of local NPR and PBS stations around the country. After coming out of an election where fake news was rampant and cable-news networks refused to call out racism, the last thing we need is an attack on public broadcasting.

Trump's transition team is reportedly recommending privatizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the entity that oversees distribution of federal money to public radio and television stations. While the United States spends a fraction of what other countries pay on public broadcasting, that hasn’t stopped politicians from threatening to defund the CPB time and again. One of the most high-profile attacks in recent history came in 2012, when then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney said during a debate that he would “cut the subsidy to PBS.” The backlash was swift and severe. We've saved public broadcasting from cuts many times before. We can save it again — but only if millions of us speak out.