Listener supported WNYC Studios.

Brian Laird on WNYC.

It was NPR and PBS's turn to be put on the Doge and Marjorie Taylor Green Oversight Committee hot seat yesterday,

as they called the chief executives of the two networks to a congressional hearing,

where the conclusion was apparently determined before the event.

It was called anti-American airwaves.

Obviously, I'm an interested party.

WNYC says about 4% of our budget comes from the federally funded corporation for public broadcasting.

The station describes this as a relatively modest but still very meaningful revenue source and says the loss of government

funding would significantly impact our ability to serve our city and state.

I'm told that some of that funding is in grants for specific initiatives such as our Capital

Bureau expansion, which allowed us to hire another reporter to cover statewide issues, cover

Albany, basically,

coverage that we share with other public radio stations across New York State,

as well as the Tri-State Music Collaborative, which is a partnership between our sister's station, WQXR,

and other music format public radio stations, WBGO, WSHU, and WSUV, FUV, that air the non-commercial

music formats of classical jazz and adult alternative. So with that disclosure, I'll do my best to

characterize the arguments on both sides. Republicans mostly accused the networks of

liberal bias and of grooming kids to become trans.

They also made the case that the government can't afford to fund public broadcasting anymore,

and the many streams available on the Internet now make the need for taxpayer-funded public stations obsolete

in the rural areas where they have been essential.

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