Weakened US public broadcasters will fight for their lives in 2025 | Semafor
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As Republicans take power in Washington, there’s greater concern among public radio figures about the future of NPR and public radio broadly.

Summary

The Republican-led push to defund public broadcasters like NPR and PBS has gained new momentum with Sen. John Kennedy’s proposed “No Propaganda Act,” echoing longstanding conservative critiques of media bias and fiscal waste.

The effort is bolstered by changing media consumption habits, a weakened public radio audience, and competition from digital platforms like Spotify and The New York Times.

NPR faces challenges in adapting to a digital future, while internal divisions and declining funding threaten its sustainability.

Advocates warn this campaign may succeed where past efforts have failed.

  • doingthestuff@lemy.lolEnglish
    242·
    12 days ago

    Yeah keep advocating for the voice of our rulers. The Daily Wire is biased as fuck but they’re not getting tax dollars.

    • Soup@lemmy.world
      321·
      12 days ago

      This isn’t going to be a win. You can prance around on your high horse all you want, but this is going to be a bad thing for everyone.

      • doingthestuff@lemy.lolEnglish
        337·
        12 days ago

        No, I couldn’t disagree more but cool. Nobody is being well informed by government media. I’ll agree media is the wild west right now but taking out one bad actor won’t make it worse. Free dialog is a better answer but speech is being controlled everywhere.

        • Soup@lemmy.world
          181·
          12 days ago

          This isn’t going to be the last thing they do. The entire thing would set a precedent that they’re ok to destroy things that even might disagree with them. And because their reason is based in hating anything not far-right they’re not going to anything about the fact that any vacuum left will taken over by more and more far-right media.

          I also don’t have many nice things to say when media outlets go soft at times when they should just do their damn jobs but this isn’t the time. This is your government trying to censure any ideas that disagree with them. Here in Canada the Conservatives are equally trying to defund the CBC, and not terribly left-leaning outlet but one that isn’t terribly right-leaning either, just kinda frustratingly neutral when bad people do shitty things.

          This isn’t going to be a win. This isn’t a rare moment where values are aligning.

          • doingthestuff@lemy.lolEnglish
            16·
            12 days ago

            I see the same thing except I think it happened years ago and maybe you didn’t realize.