#public-broadcasting — Public Fediverse posts

‘We will not give up’: protesters pack Vilnius square in defence of the public broadcaster.

Around 30000 people gathered in Cathedral Square in Vilnius on Saturday in defence of free speech.

Demonstrators turned their anger on both the ruling Social Democrats and President Nausėda over proposed changes to the law governing Lithuania’s public broadcaster LRT.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20260425-we-will-not-give-up-protesters-pack-vilnius-square-in-defence-of-the-public-broadcaster?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Vilnius #Protest #FreeSpeech #Media #Broadcasting #Journalism #Politics #Lithuania #LRT #PublicBroadcasting

The Station Across Town: A Lincoln Boyhood, the Federation I Did Not Watch, and the Second Half of a Television Diptych

When I was sixteen, I had a television show called Kidding Around on KOLN/KGIN-TV in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was 1981. I was a teenager hosting a teenager-aimed program on a commercial CBS affiliate, three blocks of which I have no doubt were paid for by advertising for Pepsi and Levi’s and the Lincoln car dealerships that kept American local television alive in the early Reagan years. The format was loose. The show featured kid interviews, viewer letters read on air, and unscripted segments of the kind that the FCC’s mandates for “ascertainment of community needs” were supposed to encourage and that the FCC’s 1981 decision to deregulate radio, followed by the parallel television deregulation of 1984, was designed to kill. Kidding Around did not survive into the late 1980s. It was a casualty of a specific federal policy decision documented in the book I published earlier this year, Selling Saturday Morning.

Selling Saturday Morning came out of the position of a sixteen-year-old who had a television show and then did not have one. That book is the institutional history of the commercial side of American television in the years when its regulatory floor was removed.

Today I am publishing the companion book.

Underwritten: The American Experiment in Public Broadcasting, 1967 to 2026 is the institutional history of the other American television. The non-commercial federation. The system that operated under a different statute, a different funding mechanism, a different mission, and a different relationship to its audience than the commercial system I worked inside as a teenager. Underwritten is the third volume in the Institutional Autopsy sequence after Carceral Nation and The Claimed Body. It is also, taken alongside Selling Saturday Morning, the second half of a diptych on the institutional history of American television in my lifetime.

I want to tell you something about Lincoln.

The Station Across Town

In 1981, while I was hosting Kidding Around at KOLN-TV in Lincoln, Nebraska, the University of Nebraska’s public broadcasting network, Nebraska Educational Television (NETV), was operating less than two miles from the commercial studio where I worked. NETV had been on the air since November 1, 1954, founded by Jack McBride. Under Ron Hull’s longtime production leadership, NETV produced programs that ran nationally on PBS across decades: the poetry anthology series Anyone for Tennyson?, directed by Marshall Jamison and aired in 1976, along with contributions to Great Performances and later to American Experience after that series premiered in 1988. The Nebraska press wrote about NETV regularly. State university officials cited it in legislative testimony. Few state-network production operations in the country were as ambitious.

I did not watch it. At sixteen, with my own commercial show in production, the public station’s programming felt to me, in 1981, like programming for adults who had patience I did not yet have.

I did not understand, at sixteen, what the public station across town actually was. The station was federated to a thousand other stations across the country through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service. That poetry anthology I would have rolled my eyes at if I had bothered to watch it was being shipped from Lincoln to a national distribution network and aired in Boston and Los Angeles and San Antonio. An entire architecture, from my Saturday morning show on the commercial channel to the Anyone for Tennyson? segments at NETV, was built by federal statute. And the architecture was about to be taken apart.

I have been writing my way back to that understanding for forty-five years. Selling Saturday Morning worked one half of the architecture. Underwritten works the other half. Both books are, in different registers, about how American television was a federally structured artifact of the period from the 1934 Communications Act through the deregulation cycles of the 1980s and the federal-funding rescissions of 2025. On the commercial side, the system was deregulated and reshaped around advertising sales to children. On the public side, the system was federated and protected and starved across five political campaigns before the sixth ended it on January 30 of this year, when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting filed its Articles of Dissolution with the District of Columbia.

What Underwritten Documents

The book runs fifteen chapters. It opens with the four-second PBS logo sequence and the sensory event that anchors institutional memory of public broadcasting for everyone who watched it. It traces the November 7, 1967 signing of the Public Broadcasting Act in the East Room of the Johnson White House and the political coalition Lyndon Johnson built to pass it. Middle chapters examine the federation’s architecture across the coastal flagships at WGBH and WNET, the regional and state networks (Nebraska ETV included as a dedicated case-study chapter titled “The Heartland Node”), the independent producers at Florentine Films and ITVS and Sesame Workshop, the canonical programs that defined American cultural memory, and the five political campaigns from Nixon through the second Trump term that tested the federation’s resilience. Later chapters work through the dissolution itself: the Rescissions Act of 2025, the dissolution vote, the post-dissolution landscape of archive preservation at WGBH and the Library of Congress, the rural and tribal communities whose emergency broadcasting went dark with the federation’s coordination, and what survives.

Underwritten is dedicated to my wife, Janna Sweenie, a Deaf ASL performer and educator and my collaborator across the publishing constellation. This book is one of many she has watched come together at our kitchen table in New York.

Where to Read It

Underwritten is available now in Kindle ebook on Amazon, in paperback on Amazon, and as a free PDF download from BolesBooks.com. Kindle edition pricing is $9.99 with the paperback at $19.99 (509 pages, 1.273-inch spine, cream paper). A free web-download PDF carries the same content with full color typography matching the cover.

Underwritten joins Carceral Nation and The Claimed Body in the Institutional Autopsy sequence, and it sits beside Selling Saturday Morning as the second half of the television diptych.

Coda

The federation that produced the four seconds I did not watch when I was sixteen is gone. Across town from KOLN sat a station I could have walked to in twenty minutes, the station that had originated Anyone for Tennyson? for national distribution five years before I arrived at the commercial channel and was still producing for PBS while I was hosting Kidding Around. It is now operating under post-dissolution funding arrangements that may or may not sustain it for another decade. The federation that made the broadcasting possible is not coming back.

The station across town is where the book always lived. I just did not know it.

My coffee roastery - Skeleton Brew Coffee (https://skeletonbrew.coffee/) - is run by two Pagans (myself included). We like to celebrate life and the #wheeloftheyear. To that end, we currently have two seasonal coffee and tea pairings inspired by Ostara and Beltane, with Litha on the horizon!

Come check us out. Not only will you support two regular people (we're not buying yachts - we're paying mortgages and utilities), but we also donate $1 for every item purchased to public broadcasting.

https://skeletonbrew.coffee/
https://skeletonbrew.coffee/collections/witches-brews

#coffee #pagan #wicca #publicbroadcasting

"Judges have cited attacks on the press by Mr. Trump and his appointees when ruling against the government in at least three court cases involving news organizations. The latest came on Tuesday, when a federal judge invoked Mr. Trump’s attacks on #NPR and #PBS while ruling that the president’s executive order to cut funding to the organizations was unconstitutional":
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/business/media/trump-media-courts.html
#FirstAmendment #PublicBroadcasting #justice #politics

US Federal judge: Defunding of #NPR
violated #FreedomOfSpeech

#PublicBroadcasting #PressFreedom #uspol
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/31/nx-s1-5768399

Judge blocks #Trump order to end #funding for #NPR & #PBS

A federal judge on Tuesday agreed to permanently block the Trump admin from implementing a presidential directive to end federal funding for National #PublicRadio & the #PublicBroadcasting Service.

#law #MafiaState #AbuseOfPower #authoritarianism #autocracy #despotism #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
https://apnews.com/article/trump-npr-pbs-funding-executive-order-fbd9500e5f7400deab84ead188c35694

I just finished watching the new Masterpiece version of The Count Of Monte Cristo and I feel hollowed out. That's another way of saying, the acting was spectacular. I was stunned. At the end I thought, "that's it?" But it ended perfectly. It ended as it should. #Masterpiece #PBS #PublicBroadcasting #DonateNow

#PublicBroadcasting accounts to follow:

🇨🇦 CANADA
@cbcnews - CBC
@TVOntario - Public TV in Ontario

🇫🇷 FRANCE
@France3Regions - France 3 national news distributed to regions

🇩🇪 GERMANY
@ZDF - ZDF official account
@tagesschau - Tagesschau news programme from ARD
@dw_innovation - Research account of Deutsche Welle

🇬🇧 UK
@BBCNews - BBC News

🇺🇸 USA
@npr - NPR
@index - Streaming platform for PBS stations
@philmeyer - Head of Southern Oregon PBS
@gbhnews - Boston, Massachusetts PBS & NPR news

🧵 1/2

#RedLake Passes Resolution Prohibiting #ICE From Entering Without Court Order

Jan 27, 2026 | By: Lakeland News

"The Red Lake Tribal Council has passed a resolution prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from entering the Red Lake Nation unless they have a specific court order signed by a judge with jurisdiction to sign such an order.

"The resolution, which passed on a 10-0 vote, says the Tribal Council has been watching ICE actions in Minnesota and is 'ashamed and disgusted at the obvious violations of constitutional rights directed at United States citizens by ICE officers.'

"They add that, with Tribal Council members being made aware of a Leech Lake band member being apprehended in the Walker area, they suspect that it is just a matter of time before ICE officers attempt to enter the Red Lake Nation.

"The resolution says no ICE officer or federal officer may be present on the Red Lake Nation without the presence of a Red Lake officer, and that the federal officers may only be present for as long as it takes to serve the order. In addition, it says no ICE officer or federal officer in the service of ICE shall be permitted to engage in a fishing expedition in search of any person, and that such officers are prohibited from approaching any individual, home, or vehicle outside the presence of a Red Lake officer."

Read more / watch:
https://lptv.org/red-lake-passes-resolution-prohibiting-ice-from-entering-without-court-order/

#LakelandPBS #PublicBroadcasting #RedLakeAnishinaabe #Minnesota #ICEOut #ICEOutMinnesota #FirstNations #ResistICE #NativeAmericanNews

How #PublicBroadcasting is surviving despite Trump having ended government financial support:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/business/media/npr-pbs-stations-funding.html
#media #politics #information #entertainment

"When government funding disappeared from public media last year, experts predicted dire consequences for scores of stations. According to one estimate, 78 public radio stations and 37 TV stations were at risk of going dark as a result of the cuts. President Trump recently said NPR and PBS had “closed up.”

But six months after the funding cuts, few public TV or radio stations have closed their doors. Many have scraped together a patchwork of funding from concerned donors, philanthropies or government grants. Others, facing insurmountable budget issues, have resorted to mergers with bigger stations to stay online. NPR and PBS have not gone anywhere.

In fact, the country’s public media system — more than 1,000 radio and TV stations, serving millions of people — remains largely intact, despite the disappearance of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

But there is not a lot of celebrating among public media executives and supporters. Much of the angst about the long-term future remains. They point out that much of the money making up for the loss in federal funding has come from one-off donations and grants — short-term fixes — that may have managed only to defer the true financial pain.

“We’re not out of the woods at all,” said Tim Isgitt, chief executive of Public Media Company, a nonprofit that has stepped in to provide $30 million in emergency funding to rescue public TV and radio stations."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/business/media/npr-pbs-stations-funding.html

#USA #Trump #NPR #PBS #PublicMedia #Radio #TV #PublicBroadcasting

Rightly Writing the Right American History

My review on the PBS documentary "The American Revolution"

https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=21&id=551

#tiereddemocraticgovernance
#pbs #publicbroadcasting #americanrevolution

Now, can you start arresting these #ICESucks a-holes? Puh-lease?!!!

Cumberland County Sheriff #KevinJoyce denounces actions by #ICE agents in #Maine

Maine Public | By Patty Wight
Published January 22, 2026

"Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce says ICE officials are telling one story about their operation to arrest 'the worst of the worst' in Maine, but the reality on the ground is entirely different.

"During a press conference Thursday, Joyce confirmed that ICE agents arrested a corrections officer recruit who he described as 'squeaky clean.'

"Joyce declined to name the officer, but he said he underwent a rigorous vetting process, including a background check, before he was hired last year. He said he had no criminal record, was following the rules, and had permission to work in Maine through the spring of 2029.

" 'I guess if you're not a card carrying US citizen, then you must be illegal,' Joyce said. 'Because that's what they told me, is he's illegal. And he's definitely not a criminal. So what part of him is illegal? I don't know.'

"Joyce said roughly a half dozen ICE agents arrested the officer Wednesday night and left his running car unattended on a city street in Portland. He described the arrest as 'bush league' and said law enforcement officers would first need probable cause to make an arrest and would never abandon a vehicle in that way."

https://www.mainepublic.org/courts-and-crime/2026-01-22/cumberland-county-sheriff-kevin-joyce-denounces-actions-by-ice-agents-in-maine

#USPol #MainePol #MPBN #PublicBroadcasting #KeystoneCops #ICEOut #ICEOutMaine #ICEOutForGood #ImmigrantsWelcome #NewAmericans #ICESucks

#StPaul mayor responds to unrest triggered by federal immigration raids

Jan 21, 2026

"The Trump Administration’s surge of ICE agents has arrived in the state of Maine, where at least 50 people have been detained. In Minnesota, the surge is now in its third week, and state and local officials are continuing to push back against the federal presence in the Twin Cities. Geoff Bennett discussed more with St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her."

Read transcript / watch:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/st-paul-mayor-responds-to-unrest-triggered-by-federal-immigration-raids

#PBSNewshour #PBS #PublicBroadcasting #USPol #SaintPaulMN #Twincities #Fascism #Authoritarianism #StormTroopers #ICESucks #ICEOutForGood

After 58 years of operation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down. The CPB was created by Congress to support the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting.

“CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks.” https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-shuts-down-trump-1236623793/ #uspol #journalism #publicbroadcasting

"Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Shut Down After 58 Years Due to Trump Eliminating Funding"

#USA #US #trump #PublicBroadcasting #media
~~~

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-shuts-down-trump-1236623793/

Corporation for #PublicBroadcasting, a private agency that has steered federal #funding to #PBS, #NPR & hundreds of #public #television & #radio stations across the country, voted Monday to dissolve the organization that was created in 1967.
#CPB had been winding down since #Congress acted last summer to defund its operations under orders from #Trump. Its board of directors chose to shutter CPB completely instead of keeping it as a shell.

#media #FourthEstate #journalism
https://apnews.com/article/public-broadcasting-pbs-npr-b68f441c227ec7e076c038821b4a5931?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2026-01-05-CPB%27s+final+act

Corporation for Public Broadcasting is officially shutting down months after GOP funding cuts

#CPB #PublicBroadcasting
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/corporation-public-broadcasting-officially-shutting-months-gop-funding-rcna252443

The U.S. Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a nonprofit that helped fund NPR, PBS and local radio and TV stations, is officially shutting down due to spending cuts authorized by President Donald Trump last summer. The board of directors voted to dissolve the organization after 58 years of service after it was stripped of more than $1 billion in funding. Here's more from NBC.

https://flip.it/Ub7f.C

#Media #Journalism #TrumpAdministration #NPR #PBS #PublicBroadcasting

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Formally Dissolves After Loss of Federal Funding
#Business #BusinessNews #NPR #PBS #Publicbroadcasting

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-formally-shuts-down-1236464653/

How I ~enjoyed listening to 'The Year in Rebuke' wrought by Harry Shearer.

Check it out for --
'Truth Social Audio'
The Stephen Miller Band
and much more!

Find it at
https://harryshearer.com/le-show/

#harryshearer #satire #publicmedia #publicbroadcasting

Getting Real News in 2025: How to Stay Informed Without Getting Overwhelmed – A DWD Report

Getting Real News in 2025: How to Stay Informed Without Getting Overwhelmed

The modern news environment can feel very exhausting. Outrage cycles, partisan labeling, AI-generated misinformation, and collapsing trust in institutions have made it harder than ever to know what is real. But reliable, fact-based journalism does still exist — and with the right approach, anyone can build a healthy “news diet” that keeps them informed without being overwhelmed.

1. Why the News Feels So Chaotic Today

• Polarization distorts everything. Even high-quality outlets get pushed into “left” or “right” boxes, making trust harder to establish. Social media is terrible to monitor for “news,”, so much garbage. Treat social media information as suspect for any truth.
• AI slop is everywhere. Fake quotes, auto-written articles, and manipulated images now circulate faster than fact-checkers can respond. It will come, note the content, and delete.
• Cable news thrives on drama. Much of it is emotional commentary, not reporting. Reliable channels like MSNOW, CNN, and few others do mix sensational with real news. Some will be on point. Use discretion in their over-the-top calls, crisis time, etc.
• Opinion is often mistaken for journalism. Lines blur, and audiences are left to sort fact from spin on their own. Sadly, the truth today. You must be your own filter, as best you can.

2. A Better Way: Build a Balanced “News Diet”

No single outlet is perfect. A mix of professional, edited, fact-checked sources offers the best clarity. Here’s one recommended way to stay with solid sources. Choose free when you can to follow sources. Limit any “paid” sources to a few trustworthy sources.

Reliable Baseline Reporting (Calm, Fact-Based)

• Associated Press (AP News)
• Reuters
• The Christian Science Monitor

Depth, Context & Investigations

• The Washington Post
• The Wall Street Journal (News Division)
• USA Today

Public Broadcasting (High-Trust Journalism)

• NPR
• PBS NewsHour

3. Smart Habits for Navigating Today’s News

1. Choose 1–2 daily “anchor” sources. AP, Reuters, or NPR offer a stable foundation.
2. Add a couple of depth or investigation sources. WaPo, WSJ, PBS provide analysis without sensationalism.
3. Follow at least one local or regional outlet. Local journalism keeps you connected to lived reality. Your local news tv stations, newspapers, local journals or sites for your area.
4. Treat social media as unverified. Screenshots and viral posts are the most common vectors of misinformation. Major point. Much of social media is clearly unreliable, and tons of it. Very little general posts have much “news,” or value. Treat as suspect, until verified elsewhere.
5. Double-check anything shocking. If AP or Reuters has not reported it, pause before believing or sharing. Pause, reflect, does this sound wonky? 🙂

4. Avoiding AI-Generated Misinformation

AI tools have dramatically increased low-quality, misleading content. Protect yourself by:

• Favoring outlets with real editors and named journalists.
• Verifying quotes, sources, and documents independently.
• Avoiding screenshot-based “news” as primary evidence.
• Subscribing to human-curated newsletters, including:
  • NPR Newsletters
  • Washington Post “The 7”
  • Reuters World News Newsletter

Editor’s Note: This is one-way to set up your news and sources for less noise, more value. Keep your eye on problem posts, social media, even your vetted sources. Stuff slips through, watch and act to dismiss or ignore those with “warning signs.” Looks like made-up, garbage, reposted a ton, and so on. Use your smarts now, and stay in the know. –DrWeb. Leave me your questions or responses in the comments, and good news in your future.

5. Podcasts Worth Following

• NPR Up First
• PBS NewsHour (Audio)
• Reuters World News Podcast
• The Journal (WSJ)

MLA-Style Bibliography

Associated Press. AP News, https://apnews.com.

Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, https://www.csmonitor.com.

National Public Radio. NPR, https://www.npr.org.

PBS NewsHour. PBS NewsHour, https://www.pbs.org/newshour.

Reuters. Reuters, https://www.reuters.com.

USA Today. USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com.

The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com.

The Washington Post. The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com.

“Up First.” NPR Podcasts, https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510318/up-first.

“The Journal.” The Wall Street Journal Podcasts, https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal.

Reuters World News Podcast. Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/world/world-news-podcast-2023-05-22/.

#AISlop #Baseline #CableNews #DonTGetOverwhelmed #DrWebSDomain #Investigations #Journalism #Journalists #Left #LocalMedia #NewsDiet #NPR #OpinionNotJournalism #PBSNewsHour #PublicBroadcasting #RealNews #Report #Right #StayInformed #TrueFacts

More of this, please!!!

#RockportME - #Midcoast nonprofits team up to preserve historic #farmland — and build new #housing

Maine Public | By Nicole Ogrysko
Published November 29, 2025 at 8:31 AM EST

"Two midcoast nonprofits are teaming up to preserve a historic dairy farm in Rockport — and build new affordable housing on site.

#MaineCoastHeritageTrust has owned more than 160 acres south of Route 90 for the last 15 years. The #EricksonFieldsPreserve has #WalkingTrails and a #CommunityGarden, where students have learned to grow produce for nearby #FoodBanks.

Recently, the Heritage Trust secured the farm's remaining six acres across the street, where the old farmhouse and dairy barn are located.

When a family member living in the farmhouse passed away a few years ago, Aaron Englander with the Maine Coast Heritage Trust said the nonprofit began to think about how the property could be preserved for community benefit.

Housing, Englander said, emerged as a clear need. The Heritage Trust acquired the six-acre property and plans to preserve five of them. It has donated the remaining acre to the #MidCoastRegionalHousingTrust, which plans to develop one and two-bedroom apartments.

The housing shortage is being felt throughout the region, said Jonathan Goss, president of the housing trust. Knox County needs nearly 1,300 new homes by the end of the decade.

'Services are being cut back or being lost because of a lack of employees,' he said. 'Everybody knows someone who either grew up here or had been living here who is not able to live here any longer.'

The housing trust plans to renovate the old farmhouse on site for rental housing first, and then construct eight new apartments for working families there later on. Goss said these are families with teachers, public safety officers, nurses and others who earn too much to qualify for subsidized housing, but not enough to afford a median-priced home in the region, which now surpasses $450,000.

Housing development is sometimes pitted against land and environmental conservation efforts. But Englander with the Maine Coast Heritage Trust said this project could serve as a statewide model for balancing those interests.

'[This can] show people that yes, you can conserve wildlife habitat, you can conserve farmland, soils and agricultural know-how, and you can create access to public lands and outdoor educational spaces all in one property,' he said."

Read more:
https://www.mainepublic.org/business-and-economy/2025-11-29/midcoast-nonprofits-team-up-to-preserve-historic-farmland-and-build-new-housing

#SolarPunkSunday #LandPreservation #AffordableHousing #PreservingWildlifeHabitats #Farmland #Conservation #Maine #MainePublic #PublicBroadcasting

John Oliver Auction Raises $1.5 Million For Public Broadcasting

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/05/john-oliver-auction-raises-1-5-million-for-public-broadcasting/

John Oliver raised $1.5 million for public media by auctioning off the wildest TV props

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/john-oliver-auction-public-media

“You Can’t Defund The Truth”: Stephen Colbert and David Remnick Champion Public Media Amid Funding Cuts at Gala
#Business #BusinessNews #NPR #Publicbroadcasting #StephenColbert

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/stephen-colbert-honored-npr-wnyc-public-media-gala-1236431276/

How Trump's cuts to public media threaten the first Native American station : Code Switch : NPR

#PublicRadio #PublicBroadcasting #NativeAlaskans #NativeAmericans #Alaska #KYUK
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/15/nx-s1-5520762/how-trumps-cuts-to-public-media-threaten-the-first-native-american-station