Harris — I'm re-sending this urgent email from last week to make sure you didn't miss it. — Robert Reich
Dear Harris,
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are coming after NPR and PBS.
As co-chair of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk says he wants to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding for public broadcasting, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has already endorsed the idea.
At a time when corporate news outlets like The Washington Post and ABC News are lining up to curry favor with Trump and disinformation is running wild on social media, losing NPR and PBS would be a crushing blow to democracy.
So we're sounding the alarm to help save NPR and PBS, but with Trump's inauguration just days away, we don't have much time to alert the public and mobilize grassroots support.
Will you make a monthly donation to help alert the public, get out the truth, and stop Elon Musk's plan to defund NPR and PBS?
NPR and PBS are among the few remaining reliable news outlets that we have left in America, with award-winning programs like All Things Considered, Morning Edition, PBS NewsHour, and Frontline, and their local stations are increasingly essential sources of local news as more and more local newspapers shrink or shut down.
In addition, PBS's early-childhood education programs, like Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, have enriched the lives of generations, and their cultural programming expands access to arts programming that would otherwise be unavailable to tens of millions of Americans.
But Donald Trump has long wanted to defund NPR and PBS as part of his broader assault on the free press. Last April, he wrote on Truth Social, "NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!"
Now DOGE co-chairs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have joined the attack, listing NPR and PBS among their top targets for cuts in order to further weaken the free press and fund tax breaks for themselves.
To fight back, we're mobilizing grassroots support to oppose these cuts — while we also are working every day to keep building our own platforms to educate the public about issues that few outlets other than NPR and PBS cover.
This isn't the first time that Republicans have tried to defund public broadcasting. In fact, during the Nixon administration, Fred Rogers testified before Congress to help beat the attacks. But NPR and PBS leaders say this time could be different, and we need to step up to make our voices heard.
So I'm asking you today: Will you make a monthly donation to help alert the public and stop Elon Musk's plan to defund NPR and PBS?
Thank you,
Robert Reich
Inequality Media
No comments:
Post a Comment