President Trump's backing of a rescission of more than $1 billion in advance funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is freaking out the leftist media. On Saturday night, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter smeared the effort as "right out of the autocratic playbook." The Left will be the heroes if "there are pro-democracy coalitions that are stronger than the wannabe autocrat."
On CNN Newsroom in the 7 pm hour, anchor Jessica Dean first asked about the Trump White House taking the wire services out of the daily press-pool rotation, so AP and Reuters have less daily access. Stelter claimed "the bigger picture is very clear. The Trump White House wants fewer skeptical reporters and more sycophants. They want a lot fewer hardballs." But the "good news" is that CNN and ABC and NBC are "still asking the tough questions."
Left unsaid: did CNN and the rest ask the "hardballs" when Obama and Biden were in the White House? Or were they "sycophants"?
Our own Curtis Houck would remind him that under Biden, CNN's MJ Lee threw hardballs....at allowing the Republicans any political space. Lee twice asked KJP if conservative Catholic Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker was welcome at the White House after their Super Bowl win. And she asked if former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel should be allowed any room "in the national political discourse."
Then Dean asked about "this funding threat to PBS and NPR." Stelter said usually their funding is contained in "some big fat budget will that maybe even nobody reads," even though Republicans "like to complain" about them. "The difference this year is that the Trump White House wants to have a fight over public media."
STELTER: They want Congress to claw back the money that was already approved for PBS and NPR stations around the country. I think we should view the PBS and NPR funding fight in a broader prism. All of these Trump moves against the media, they're right out of the autocratic playbook.
Try to defund the media, try to ban pesky reporters like the Associated Press, investigate media companies, pressure their owners, block access to government records, intimidate critics. It's all related. It's all about putting pressure on the media. But those pressure points fail when there are pro-democracy coalitions that are stronger than the wannabe autocrat.
So, that's what public media is hoping for. They're hoping for lots of people to come out and support them and try to get this funding to stay in place.
It is NOT autocratic to advocate for defunding that sound like State-Run Radio and State-Run TV (when Democrats rule). It is autocratic to take our money and smear us with it. And CNN's MJ Lee sounded autocratic in her demands to run the conservatives out of the national discourse.
Stelter's filler in this argument was the lame PBS-NPR spin that little stations in red states will suffer the most from cuts. In reality, the largest CPB grants go to the big stations in the big cities, so maybe they should forego their funding. If Alaskans really loved their public broadcasting, the state legislature could fund it. But they use Alaska as the crux of their national pitch.
PS: Stelter's pal Margaret Sullivan looked like she copied off his notes in her column in the socialist newspaper The Guardian: "Trump’s anti-media diatribes are part of the authoritarian playbook. Congress must reject his planned cuts."
