Public media connects Kansas City. Tell Congress not to let it be gutted | Opinion
It’s time to protect public media, Kansas City.
Public media is the only free, universally accessible service connecting Americans to information, news and educational content without commercial influence. This treasured and dependable service is now under threat. We anticipate that the White House will soon move to rescind already approved federal funding for public media, and we need your support in urging Congress to oppose any attempts to dismantle this vital service.
Some may question the role of public media in their community or daily lives, but I assure you that strong public media keeps us all connected. Through sharing national conversations at a local level, providing emergency alerts, and even helping young children manage their emotions through shows such as “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” public media remains essential.
Locally, at Kansas City PBS, we take public service a step further by hosting community town hall discussions, producing local documentaries such as “Nichols’ Folly,” “The Potato King” and “Womontown,” and sharing weekly broadcasts of “Week in Review” that highlight Kansas City news and public affairs. Kansas City PBS offers professional development for local teachers, distributes free voter guides in collaboration with the Kansas City Media Collective, and serves as a regional hub for local music discovery as the home of 90.9 The Bridge.
We measure the success of these efforts by looking at local impact rather than revenue. Most important, we are community-owned and operated, meaning everything we do is with our local community in mind.
Upon signing the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared that the law, which would lead to the formation of PBS and NPR, was a declaration to the world that Americans “have an appetite for excellence. “
“While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man’s spirit,” he said. “That is the purpose of this act.”
At Kansas City PBS and across the country, public media stations remain committed to this purpose. While the free market does many things well, internet-delivered subscription services will not convene us around critical local issues or connect us to resources that help us thrive as Kansas Citians.
This is the beauty of an efficient public-private partnership between the federal government and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a nonprofit created by the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act to steward federal funding reserved for public broadcasting. It allows stations like Kansas City PBS to harness the power of media to create free resources that teach our children how to read, alert our rural neighbors of natural disasters and deliver more than 40,000 hours of free content over the air annually. The best part is that this partnership costs taxpayers only $1.60 a year.
Defunding this public-private partnership wouldn’t just disrupt services offered by Kansas City PBS, Flatland and 90.9 The Bridge — it could force our fellow stations in more rural areas to shut down entirely.
We expect that the White House will submit a rescission package to Congress that would eliminate already approved federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes these funds to more than 1,500 stations nationwide, including Kansas City PBS. If this package is formally submitted, Congress will decide, in 45 days or less, whether to implement these cuts. If Congress approves the rescission package proposed by the Trump administration, local stations will start to see those cuts beginning this October, according to reporting from “PBS News Hour.”
To prepare for this unprecedented moment, we are encouraging supporters of public media to take preemptive action by utilizing resources found at protectmypublicmedia.org — a national network of Americans dedicated to protecting local public television and radio stations. Your voice will be crucial if the situation progresses as we believe it will.
So, if you grew up watching “Sesame Street,” tune in nightly to “PBS News Hour” or enjoy a sense of local pride every time you see our hometown hero Lidia Bastianich on the air, I encourage you to send a strong message to Congress that the American people broadly support public broadcasting and want to protect the funding that makes this essential work possible.