WDA STANDS WITH PUBLIC MEDIA!

Writers for Democratic Action staunchly opposes the demolition of public media in the United States under the current rescission bills put forward by the House and Senate.   National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service have, for decades, provided an essential conversation for all of America on radio and television both.  The news divisions of both enterprises have set the standard against which all broadcast journalism is measured.

NPR provides a free-flow of trusted information for over 30 million Americans weekly at pennies to American taxpayers. Many of those listeners are from rural and underserved communities. For over 50 years, beginning with the inception of rural land-based and university-based stations, NPR has provided the structure of true commonwealth, giving voice to the voiceless, and supplying vital knowledge about health, weather, elections, agriculture, literature and art. NPR informs, entertains, educates, and even saves lives.

For half a century, PBS has formed the heart of television at its best. PBS programming redefined what broadcast media could be for children. It remade the documentary form to center history, culture, and worthy entertainment. A nation needs a common language, common stories, and common images, and PBS has provided them. Public Broadcasting has kept the public good––not commerce––at the center of its commitment. 

Without the trustworthy values advanced and protected by NPR and PBS, propaganda can replace critical thinking, and democracy itself can shrivel. Autocracy cannot tolerate the free-ranging inquiry and counter-narratives that publicly supported media make possible. The Republicans in the House and the Senate are attacking this pillar of civic virtue at just the worst time, as journalism itself undergoes a crisis of survivability, with the epidemic of newsroom layoffs, take-overs by profit-obsessed corporations, and the destruction of community newspapers everywhere. 

Writers for Democratic Action calls for the renewal - not the demolition – of public media. NPR and PBS must be protected. Take one example of the stakes: In 2001, PBS featured Bob Marley on American Masters, and in 2025 honored what would have been his 80th birthday with a concert featuring his great – and ever more relevant – lyric: “Get up, stand up! Stand up for your right! Get up stand up, Don’t give up the fight!”