 |
| Jim and I and our friends at WSSB in Orangeburg, SC |
Since the November 2016 election,
people in public and community media have been speculating about the
future of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). This agency
provides funding for public and community stations throughout the
country through its Community Service Grant program and other special
funding initiatives for infrastructure and collaborative projects.
Now, the Trump administration has announced its first pass budget that, to little surprise, zeroes out
funding for the CPB, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the
National Endowment for the Humanities.
I could go on about the politics of the
elimination of funding. But not now. What I want to address is the
very real impact of this potential loss on small, rural and minority
stations.
First, an apology to my larger market
station colleagues. I respect you and what you are doing to provide
educational service to your communities. You invest local resources
in Ready to Learn programs. You have some of the largest, and most
under-resourced, teams of journalists in the country. You engage
community leaders in civil discussion about local issues as wide
ranging as racial profiling and restaurant reviews.
You will be fine.
CPB funding, for many large or medium
size market stations, has become an increasingly small portion of
their budgets. These stations may have survived elimination of other
funding sources, such as state funding. Some have even explored what
it might mean to withdraw from the Community Service Grant program.
And I can confidently say that larger market stations have rallied
their audiences to provide higher levels of voluntary support.
Some of my colleagues who have worked
with only major market stations agree that eliminating funding to the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a bad idea, but they are being
practical. We can consolidate. We can raise the difference.
That's why I'm not really worried about
you. I'm worried about the stations who can't do that.
 |
| The small but mighty KAWC team, 2016 (Steven Hennig is missing because he was taking the picture) |
We work and have worked with small,
rural and minority stations. We work with KAWC Colorado River Public Media, based in Yuma, Arizona, which provides two noncommercial
programming streams to rural Arizona, including local coverage of
real life on the
border from a four person news team, and the only news service to
some areas where cell phones still don't work.
We work with KGHR Navajo Public Radio,
based at Greyhills Academy High School in Tuba City, Arizona, on the
Navajo Nation, which serves as a community information board, sharing
news about health fairs, home maintenance, public safety and other
basic services that might otherwise go unnoticed.
We have worked in the past with KUYI Hopi Radio, licensed to The Hopi Foundation, one of the pioneers in
Native American public media, which provides programming in the Hopi
language and contributes to the protection and growth of the Hopi
culture.
For all three of these stations, their
CPB grant is a significant portion of their budget. It pays for
programming that connects these remote communities to the rest of the
world. It helps cover staff that keep the station running and provide
a local voice. These stations are running with the bare minimum of
staff to keep them going; the grant does not cover “fluff.”
In addition, these stations are not in
communities with high resources. The idea of having the local
audience bear the full cost is not realistic for these smaller
stations. For instance, in a project funded by the CPB through
Greater Public, we worked with four African-American licensed
stations to try to build their local capacity for fundraising. Could
we give these stations the tools to raise more money?
The answer, as you might expect, was
“yes and no.” The stations did, to varying degrees, increase the
amount of money raised, but not to the level of doubling or tripling
their revenue. The communities that they served simply did not have
the financial capacity to increase their giving dramatically. If
faced with the loss of their CPB grant, they might be able to cut
some expenses and generate a little more revenue, but not enough to
continue.
So that begs the question...why do we
need these small stations anyway? Wouldn't it be more efficient to
just merge them into another larger station? Doesn't the internet
provide the services these stations do? Couldn't we just have a
national feed of NPR and PBS and call it done?
What would we lose if these small,
rural and minority stations went away?
We lose the voices of these
communities in national discussion. It doesn't work to ask
people from these communities to go someplace else to share their
opinions: that automatically makes them an outsider and immediately
changes the nature of the conversation. We need to speak with people where they live to get their real perspectives.
We lose the connection within
rural and small communities. Stations help residents in their
communities stay connected. Particularly in radio, the station is
often the only way to communicate with the whole community,
not just about local events, but also about emergency situations. And
the suggestion that everyone can get what they need through the
internet? Well, internet access is not as universal as many in larger
communities think, and what happens during a crisis when local
internet might be down? In recent floods and hurricanes in the
southeast, often the public radio or television station was the only
source for updates.
We lose sight of issues that face
people who live outside of metro areas. Let's
face it: problems are different in major cities than they are in
small towns and rural areas. For example, we are still dealing with
getting cell phone service to some of these communities, when people
in big cities complain about not having free WiFi. Stations have the
ability to have issues moved to a larger stage that are simply foreign to metro audiences.
We lose the stories and rich
histories of diverse cultures. You can't simply send a
correspondent into a community for a day or two and expect them to
understand the culture and way of life. There are so many stories that can only be
crafted over time, and by someone who is a part of life there.
And we begin to ignore small,
rural and minority communities and the issues that are
important to them. By saying, “really, only large markets can have
this service,” you tell people that they are not worth having a
voice.
A colleague suggested that threats to
federal support to public broadcasting might be a good thing for us.
Like with the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, and others, perhaps this is an opportunity for the public
to rally and provide unprecedented levels of support. I worry that
stations that really need the funding will not have the ability to
access it.
 |
| Annie Lin (my mom), Mr. Rogers and me, circa 1971. I've been a public media supporter for a long time. |
There will be much more discussion
about this issue in the coming days, and, like in previous battles, I
expect that many people will voice their support for public media. If
you would like to do so, please visit Protect My Public Media to add
your story. Also, contact your Representative and Senators regarding
your position.
And find your local station and support
them. They need all the help they can get.
We have worked with so many stations that deserve your support, but a special shout out to KAWC Colorado River Public Media, KGHR Navajo Public Radio, KUYI Hopi Radio, KXCI Tucson, Arizona Public Media, Arizona PBS, WSSB Orangeburg, WSNC Winston-Salem, WUVS Muskegon, KBBG Waterloo, Mountain Lake PBS, WGVU Grand Rapids, KCOS El Paso, Houston Public Media, KPFA Berkeley, WBAI New York, KNPB Reno, KUAC Fairbanks, and Wisconsin Public Television.
We have worked with so many stations that deserve your support, but a special shout out to KAWC Colorado River Public Media, KGHR Navajo Public Radio, KUYI Hopi Radio, KXCI Tucson, Arizona Public Media, Arizona PBS, WSSB Orangeburg, WSNC Winston-Salem, WUVS Muskegon, KBBG Waterloo, Mountain Lake PBS, WGVU Grand Rapids, KCOS El Paso, Houston Public Media, KPFA Berkeley, WBAI New York, KNPB Reno, KUAC Fairbanks, and Wisconsin Public Television.
PROFILES vs PAGES There are many businesses, organizations, bands, etc. who have set up Facebook accounts as "people" or personal profiles. Contrary to the US Supreme Court and Mitt Romney's assertations, businesses aren't people and Facebook agrees. 
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Fan Pages are indexed by search engines. Profiles are not. If you want your Facebook page to improve your results in Google, Bing or Yahoo searches, do NOT set your business up as a personal profile. Create a fan page so "new" people can find you. 
This is great so that one person doesn't have to do all the work maintaining the page. It's also helpful if you're not available to monitor your page due to travel or illness. When an administrator posts, they do so as the page, not themselves personally. Although, I encourage signing your post when it's obviously a personal comment or a reference to someone else on your team. 
Consider your business fan page to represent your brand and your personal profile is a "sub-brand." You may also consider setting up two personal profiles. Use one openly and professionally taking care with the nature of the content to minimize offending customers or clients. Use the second as a "private" profile with your family and true friends. This is a good way to separate that crazy uncle or the person you dated in high school from your professional acquaintances. 
