Some were afraid of being accused of avicide (for “killing Big Bird” of “Sesame Street”), while others appreciated their local public stations (& the airtime they personally received) —always stopping the party short of turning their threats against #PBS & #NPR into #law.

That they have finally been able to do it now, voting on Friday to claw back $1.1 billion in public broadcasting funds, on one level speaks to the power of #Trump.

#PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy

#Trump’s threat to support primary challenges against any #Republicans who might try to block the cuts all but guaranteed they would go through this time.

“Republicans who supported public #media for their entire careers are voting to kill it, & there is only one reason: Donald Trump,” said Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, who has been at the center of efforts to protect #PublicMedia for decades. “When Trump sets a loyalty test today, Republicans fall in line.”

#NPR #PBS #autocracy

Markey argued that #Trump’s moves against #PBS & #NPR were part of the admin’s larger campaign to undermine mainstream #journalism. It is in line, he said, with Trump’s lawsuits against the major broadcast #networks & suggestions that the #FCC might punish their stations over accusations of *liberal bias*.

“It’s all part of a plan to intimidate & control the #media & how they cover his presidency,” he said.

#PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy

But the willingness of congressional #Republicans to vote for a complete cutoff of federal money to #PublicBroadcasting also says a lot about sweeping changes in #media, & views of mainstream #journalism, since #Congress passed the 1967 #law that led to the creation of #PBS & #NPR.

The ascendant ideology of the #Trump era is the opposite of the one that spawned the modern public broadcasting system.

#censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy

Its creation was spurred along by the declaration of Newton N. Minow, chairman of the #FCC during the Kennedy admin, that the competition for ratings & ad dollars had turned TV into a “vast wasteland” of “game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood & thunder.” He beseeched broadcasters to “make a conscientious, good-faith effort to serve the #PublicInterest” with higher-quality fare.

#Trump #Republicans #PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy

His speech was followed by an influential study on “#EducationalTelevision” from the Carnegie Corporation. It concluded that the #FederalGovernment should finance a system of stations to produce programming that was “of human interest & importance” without regard for the free-market incentives of ratings or ad revenue. The Johnson admin then did just that, in line with its #GreatSociety program.

#Trump #Republicans #PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy

No sooner was the system established than the #Nixon White House attacked #PBS for being packed with correspondents & guests who were “anti-administration” or “Kennedy sycophants,” as a Nixon aide, Patrick Buchanan, put it at the time.

Nixon was so “disturbed” that PBS had started a new national #news show w/the hosts Robert MacNeil & Sander Vanocur — someone on his enemies list — that he requested “all funds for #PublicBroadcasting be cut immediately,” memos released years later showed.