PBS 'Republican' Asks Liberal GOP Senator: 'Hope for Those Who Support Public Media?' #Political
As a vote on rescissions (clawing back already approved funding) in the Senate looms that may decide the fate of federal funding for PBS and NPR, the public-media lobby has depended heavily on pushing Alaska as their first talking point. So of course, PBS's Firing Line invited a timely guest onto Friday’s show: liberal Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a self-described “unabashed supporter of public broadcasting in my state” and author of a new autobiography Far From Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C.
PBS host Margaret Hoover commiserated with Murkowski about the need for continued funding of PBS (on PBS!) especially for Alaska, which has received more than its share of attention in the media debate over PBS as a vast, rural, rugged state in particular need of emergency warnings that apparently only public broadcasting can provide.
Hoover: As a Republican on PBS to a Republican senator who supports PBS, I want to ask you about this rescission package that has been sent up to the Hill. This, of course, is a bill that would, if passed, take back over $9 billion, about one billion approximately, which has been allocated, already allocated to public broadcasting. I find that when I talk to people about PBS, many don't realize that of those federal dollars, about 70% go to local stations, including rural stations like in your state, to pay for emergency broadcasting and childhood education. Especially important in a state like Alaska where 60% of three- and four-year-olds don't go to preschool, and that early childhood education comes from public broadcasting. Do you find that other Republicans are sympathetic to this message or even understand it?
How insulting. The first thing Republicans understand is that Hoover's husband John Avlon just ran (and lost) as a Democrat candidate for Congress in New York. Hoover is pretending that PBS isn't funding vicious anti-Republican news and documentaries. No, it's all Sesame Street and emergency alerts -- that's the propaganda push.
Murkowski broke out their local needs: "Down in Bethel that broadcast out to 50 some odd, little river villages every morning at 8:40 during the spring, they give the ice breakup forecast so that people know where the ice may be breaking up and how it's going to push down the river and whether or not it's going to flood my community. These are things that, for Alaskans, are not nice-to-haves, but really vital to have."
So nobody said the state of Alaska can't fund it. Why does the whole country need to fund it?
Hoover held out hope that the 45-day deadline for President Trump's rescission request would elapse:
Hoover: The rescission package has a deadline in terms of when it has to be voted on.
Murkowski: Right, right.
Hoover: But there's a lot of other business before the Senate by then. Is it possible that the Senate will run out of time before it can consider it?
Murkowski: Yes.
Hoover: Is it likely?
Murkowski: It is possible that we could run out of time.
Hoover: Does that create some hope or some- -
Murkowski: I think it- -
Hoover: --some hope for those who support public media?
Murkowski: I think it does, I think it does. And I am encouraging people to, again, weigh in, let us know. I'm coming at it from not only a supporter of public broadcasting, but from the more institutional perspective….
Hoover: Is this a place where Congress could really assert their authority, their constitutional authority against an encroaching power executive branch?
Murkowski: I think they should. And I think we have in the past.
Hoover of course has a clear personal interest when it comes to taxpayer support for funding PBS. Is this PBS’s idea of fair and balanced? When do the conservatives advocating for defunding get equal time? Let's guess never. They tout Hoover as hosting "a smart, civil, and engaging contest of ideas," but there can't be a contest when PBS has money on the line.
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