Central Valley PBS, NPR react to funding cut threats

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) -- Local nationalist broadcasting has flooded Central Valley airwaves for astir 50 years.

“Our ngo is to archer stories astir our community, archer stories astir the radical successful our community, the places successful our community, what makes it special,” Valley PBS President and CEO Robert Mollison said.

A caller enforcement bid could alteration that, though.

The Trump Administration announced past week that it volition chopped backing to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is simply a backstage nonprofit that funds NPR and PBS.

“We don’t person a batch of other that we tin conscionable cut. If we mislaid the national backing that we receive, section programs and services would decidedly suffer,” KVPR President and General Manager Joe Moore said.

Every year, astir fractional a cardinal dollars of the national government’s fund goes to the CPB.

Moore says they request that money. CPB contributes 7% of KVPR’s yearly budget.

“Our enactment receives a assistance of typically astir $175,000 a year. It's a important sum, but it's a tiny wide portion of our funding,” Moore said.

Across the city, Valley PBS is adjacent much reliant connected the assistance dollars.

“We get astir 20% of our backing from CPB. And truthful 80% comes from our community. But with that 20%, which is astir $900,000, each of that goes not lone to the children's programming, but it besides goes to the section programming,” Mollison said.

The Trump Administration says the backing cuts volition assistance to trim national spending, but Mollison thinks it’s wealth good spent.

“PBS is the lone spot that you tin enactment your kids successful beforehand of a tv and cognize and person that information and information to cognize that they're being educated. The programming is clean. It's not commercial. They're not being sold toys. They’re conscionable being educated,” Mollison said.

CPB is present warring that enforcement order.

In a statement, they said, “CPB is not a national enforcement bureau taxable to the President’s authority. Congress straight authorized and funded CPB to beryllium a backstage nonprofit corp wholly autarkic of the national government.”

“In creating CPB, Congress expressly forbade ‘any department, agency, officer, oregon worker of the United States to workout immoderate direction, supervision, oregon power implicit acquisition tv oregon vigor broadcasting, oregon implicit [CPB] oregon immoderate of its grantees oregon contractors…’ 47 U.S.C. § 398(c).”