The Trump administration is expected to ask Congress in the upcoming week to eliminate almost all federal funding to public media, including WPSU, which gets about $1.8 million or 20% of its funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
WPSU Executive Director and General Manager Isabel Reinert said she is concerned about the possibility that funding could be cut.
“The threat looks more severe and likely to happen than any other time during at least my tenure here, and from what I'm understanding, probably since Fred Rogers appealed to the joint Senate hearing to keep our funding back then," Reinert said.
The station uses its federal money to pay for national programming on radio and TV, bringing programs like All Things Considered and News Hour to listeners and viewers across central and northern Pennsylvania. That funding in turn, lets WPSU direct other resources to local programming and community outreach.
"Because we get that money, it allows us to pay programming fees with those monies, and we can use other monies and other resources to hold those community engagement activities, the events, the children's family nights, where we have STEM education that is shared, where we do a lot of our local programming, our Keystone Stories, our Local Groove Presents, our Culinary Connections, our radio reporting," Reinert said.
But without federal support, Reinert said cuts or reductions would have to be made in a number of areas.
Congress had already approved providing a total of $1.1 billion in funding to CPB over the next two years. If the Trump administration does ask Congress to claw back the funding, Congress will have 45 days to take action on the request.
Go to WPSU to find out more about how CPB funding works and what cuts would mean for WPSU.
