Public Media Defunding No Longer Likely, Legislators Say

Funding for public broadcasting is no longer “a hot-button issue” on Capitol Hill, said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, R-Ore., on a virtual panel for America’s Public Television Stations Public Media Summit Tuesday. “I don’t think it has the heft it once had.” It's extremely unlikely the House would vote to defund NPR as it did in 2011, said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. “The overwhelming majority of people in Congress would come out against any type of move like that.” Blumenauer said the profile of local public broadcasters has been enhanced by commercial broadcast consolidation. “There’s a lot of attention” on local stations “getting gobbled up” by large companies, he said. Both lawmakers conceded that the funding process had, in general, become more complicated and affected by partisan rancor. Appropriations “get muddied up a lot,” said Fitzpatrick. With Congress gridlocked and divided, a bright spot is that it has encouraged individual citizens to get more involved in government, Blumenauer said.