It's harvest season. #Cherry farms are short of workers amidst an #ImmigrationCrackdown
July 6, 20258:14 AM ET
By Monica Nickelsburg
"The federal immigration crackdown has raised concerns among #agricultural workers. In Washington, growers say it's leading to a labor shortage during cherry season."
#PublicBroadcasting #News #ICEKidnapping #ICERaids #USPol #CherryHarvest #WashingtonState #FoodWaste #TrumpSucks!
It's exhausting to think about how much work is involved in keeping smaller public radio stations on the air.
We have some good ones in Minnesota.
''And with the cuts to local newspapers across this vast rural region, KAXE [in Grand Rapids] is often the main source for local news. During the spring’s forest fires, listeners tuned in to find out about road closures and impending danger.
"But it has gotten more expensive. [general manager Sarah] Bignall said she pays thousands of dollars each month for electricity for the radio towers alone."
https://www.startribune.com/federal-funding-cut-could-silence-tribal-rural-radio-stations-many-in-minnesota-consider-vital/601372507?utm_source=gift
From the WPR statement—
Programs that will end later this year include:
• To The Best Of Our Knowledge: TTBOOK has explored big ideas and beautiful questions as they looked to help listeners find new sources of meaning, purpose, and wonder in daily life.
• Zorba Paster On Your Health: Dr. Zorba Paster and colleagues have provided listeners with health and fitness tips to live a full and healthy life.
• BETA: This program has taken an immersive, innovative, playful and provocative approach to exploring arts, culture and technology.
• University of the Air: This program has traditionally invited faculty guests from UW-Madison to discuss topics in music, art, writing, theater, science, education and history.
WPR has relayed its plans to PRX, the distributor of the three national programs, who will communicate with stations across its network.
https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-public-radio-layoffs-cut-programs-federal-fundingu
Ferreting out the story at Vilas Hall—
"Amid ongoing budget shortages and facing potential federal funding cuts, Wisconsin Public Radio has notified at least 15 staff members that they will be laid off.
"Four radio programs, including the nationally syndicated “To the Best of Our Knowledge,” will also end, in what WPR Director Sarah Ashworth described in a Friday letter to sustaining members obtained by WPR as an attempt to address “multiple challenges” and an “urgent need to adapt our services.”
"WPR leadership referred all media requests to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a parent organization for WPR. Representatives from UW-Madison referred to a public release from WPR."
https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-public-radio-layoffs-cut-programs-federal-funding
PBS Funding Cuts: A Blow to Children Who Need It Most
[Show your support with a subscription/membership.]
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/pbs-funding-cuts-a-blow-to-children-who-need-it-most/ #PBS #PublicBroadcasting #Television #Children #Politics #Education #Media
#Republicans attacked the programs they targeted for cuts in speeches Thurs before the vote. "Don't spend money on stupid things & don't subsidize biased media," Ohio #GOP Rep. #GymJordan said.
#Democrats defended #PublicBroadcasting as providing essential services. They cited the need for #local #information during natural #disasters & balanced #news coverage.
#House Majority Leader Steve Scalise formally introduced the #legislation last week, saying it "codifies #Trump's cuts to *wasteful* #ForeignAid initiatives within the #State Dept & #USAID, as well as woke #PublicBroadcasting, including #NPR & #PBS, at the #CPB, which is a business the federal government shouldn't even be in."
The remainder would slash $1.1 billion for the Corporation for #PublicBroadcasting [#CPB], which allocates nearly all of the funds to #LocalNews stations, for the next 2 fiscal years. By #law, that money is supposed to be approved in advance as part of an effort to insulate public broadcasting from #political influence over fleeting issues.
President Trump took yet another step to place NPR and PBS at the center of his broader clash with major cultural institutions, formally asking Congress to take back the $1.1 billion it set aside for all public broadcasters for the next two years.
Core memories incoming. Which one’s yours? #ViewersLikeMePBS #PublicMedia #PublicBroadcasting
"Less than a day after President Trump attempted to fire three Corporation for Public Broadcasting board members last month, DOGE staffers also tried to assign a team to review its operations.
CPB leaders denied that request, citing federal law that establishes the independent nonprofit outside of the control of the federal government. The request comes as the president is launching a broad assault against the country's two largest public broadcasters. At the same time, the informal Department of Government Efficiency has sought to embed itself in numerous independent agencies Trump wants to shutter.
Those revelations come in court documents filed Friday in a lawsuit where CPB is challenging Trump's April 28 efforts to remove the board members, and after the president issued an executive order May 1 that also purports to end any federal funding to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio."
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/nx-s1-5395978/doge-cpb-board-members-trump-lawsuit-npr-pbs
#OnThisDay in 1961, #NewtonMinow, then FCC Chairman and later a guiding force behind the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, delivered his legendary “Vast Wasteland” speech. His challenge to broadcasters to serve the public good helped shape the landscape of educational and cultural programming we value today.
The #FCC Must Reject Efforts to Lock Up Public #Airwaves
President Trump’s attack on public #broadcasting has attracted plenty of deserved attention, but there’s a far more technical, far more insidious policy change in the offing—one that will take away Americans’ right to unencumbered access to our publicly owned airwaves.
#trump #publicbroadcasting #pbs #npr
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/05/fcc-must-reject-broadcast-drm
"The BBC is the heart of the UK’s media system. Yet despite the BBC being publicly funded, the public have no control over how it works.
Politicians have too much power to pressure the BBC, and it is struggling to compete against global streaming services and social media companies. Without radical reform, the BBC faces a bleak future of dwindling audiences and the loss of public trust.
By the end of 2027 the government is required to renew the BBC’s Royal Charter, which will set the terms of how the BBC operates for the next decade. The Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, has said she supports mutualising the BBC, with new structures for “genuine public representation and participation”.
This briefing explains how to transform the BBC into a new kind of institution: a public service mutual. Mutual organisations are run for the benefit of their members, and members are actively and directly involved in its operations.
As a public service mutual, the BBC will belong to all of us by right. We will all become BBC members — active and direct participants in its mission to inform, educate, entertain and connect.
Democratic mutualisation of the BBC requires that all members have two new powers, which together secure public representation and participation:"
https://www.common-wealth.org/publications/our-mutual-friend-the-bbc-in-the-digital-age
Sen. Amy Klobuchar: "Public media delivers news, education, and emergency information to millions of people across Minnesota and the entire country. It’s especially important in rural communities. Pres. Trump’s executive order would take that away. It's just plain wrong."
#PBS #NPR #PublicBroadcasting #politics #media.
@Sheril Echo that for Canadians too. Many of us support PBS.
#PBS #PublicBroadcasting #Media
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/nx-s1-5384790/trump-orders-end-to-federal-funding-for-npr-and-pbs
Trump says he's ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. They say he can't
President Trump issued an executive order late Thursday directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board of directors to "cease federal funding for NPR and PBS," the nation's primary public broadcasters, claiming ideological bias.
"Neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens," the order says.
The CPB noted that the statute Congress passed to create it "expressly forbade 'any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees or contractors."
Sidebar, when did #RobertReich @rbreich become my Luddite uncle who can’t figure out how to take a selfie?
#NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher said, “we will challenge this #ExecutiveOrder using all means available.” She called #Trump’s order “an affront to the #FirstAmendment rights of NPR & locally owned & operated stations throughout America to produce & air programming that meets the needs of their communities.”
…A representative for the #CPB did not comment on whether it will pursue legal action, but #PBS President Paula Kerger said in a statement that the service is “exploring all options.”
“The president’s blatantly #unlawful #ExecutiveOrder, issued in the middle of the night, threatens our ability to serve the American #public with #educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years,” Kerger said.
