DENVER — Public broadcasting is circling the wagons after the latest attack by Congress.
House Republicans held a contentious hearing on Wednesday, grilling the heads of NPR and PBS and threatening to pull their federal funding over allegations that their news and programming leans left. That federal money funds local PBS and NPR stations.
Denver7 spoke with Stewart Vanderwilt, the president and CEO of Colorado Public Radio, about the current threat to public broadcasting. He said the threat is real but if federal funding is pulled, CPR and other public broadcasters would turn to their local communities.
"We will turn to our communities, and... our communities are responding in this moment, supporting what their station does, whatever it is. Whether it's CPR or the station in Alamosa or Grand Junction, we'll turn to those communities to bolster the support. But it would be a hard message to say that our country no longer believes in the importance of having free access to local information delivered by people in their communities where you live. I think that would be an un-American thing to do," he said.
Colorado has 15 public radio stations. The federal money makes up 5% of CPR's revenue, while the remaining 95% comes from individual listeners and corporate underwriting.
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act. Since then, every Republican administration except for former President Gerald Ford has threatened to cut funding for it. So far, funding has remained intact.
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