The order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to eliminate all federal funding for NPR and PBS, citing claims of political bias.
CPB distributes about a half-billion dollars a year in public funding to public broadcasters. Roughly 70% of that goes directly to local PBS and NPR stations.
Paul Westhelle, Jefferson Public Radio executive director, said the loss of federal money would hit JPR and other rural broadcasters especially hard.
“We’ve got the Mountain West, which makes broadcasting way more expensive from an infrastructure standpoint,” Westhelle said Tuesday on The Jefferson Exchange. “Loss of federal funding is going to have the greatest impact on stations like ours.”
Listen to the full interview.
Westhelle said a proposed rollback of already-approved CPB funds could create a $525,000 budget gap at JPR as soon as July. He also emphasized the station’s role in providing emergency information during wildfires and other disasters.
Southern Oregon PBS faces similar challenges. CEO Phil Meyer said federal money accounts for more than a third of the station’s annual budget.
“We take those dollars and we maintain rural transmitters, and we do local productions and things like that,” Meyer said. “So any organization that loses a third of its funding is going to change.”
Meyer said he is preparing two budgets for the coming year — one that includes CPB funding and one that does not.
According to JPR's editorial policy, this story was not reviewed by anyone outside the newsroom prior to publication.
