{"id":86653,"date":"2025-07-23T18:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T18:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/86653\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T18:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T18:58:10","slug":"alabama-public-television-execs-blame-npr-pbs-bias-for-funding-cuts-theyre-in-their-echo-chamber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/86653\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama Public Television execs blame NPR, PBS \u2018bias\u2019 for funding cuts: \u2018They\u2019re in their echo chamber\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many Americans were shocked at Congress\u2019 recent approval of a Trump-backed bill that will cut $1.1 billion for public broadcasting<\/a>, but Alabama Public Television leadership said they were able to predict the move due to \u201cbias problems\u201d at NPR and PBS.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview with Capital Journal<\/a>, APTV Executive Director Wayne Reid and Network Director of External Affairs Jack Williams said that they had been on a \u201ccrusade\u201d to fix what they alleged was biased coverage from the two nationally funded networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I came on and we would go to national meetings, one of the things we took to the leadership at NPR and at PBS at every meeting that we went to is we have biased issues and we have bias problems,\u201d Reid told host Todd Stacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s whether they\u2019re in their echo chamber up in New York or Washington, and they kind of listen to each other and say, \u2018no, we\u2019re not.\u2019 But the problem is, there was a lot of states that would say there\u2019s problems that we need to get fixed.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we have pushed that from the state level of Alabama and a lot of other states for several years now, since I\u2019ve been here,\u201d Reid continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Jack started that crusade even before I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams added that the two had \u201ccobbled together at least eight, and I think it grew to 12 or 14 state networks that have expressed deep dissatisfaction with how NewsHour programming has been done in Washington Week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought this up directly to the CEO of PBS and CEO of NPR in a panel discussion in February, in Washington, D.C.,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had conversations with the chairman of the Board for NPR and the chairman of the board for PBS. And I\u2019ve seen both CEOs this week say, \u2018there\u2019s no bias.<\/a>\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Reid told AL.com that APT will lose just over $2.8 million in restricted and unrestricted grant funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is about 13% of the total annual budget.<\/p>\n

The cuts are expected to hit several public radio stations in Alabama, with Huntsville\u2019s WLRH anticipating losing $155,000 of their annual budget, or 13% of operating costs,<\/a> as AL.com\u2019s Scott Turner recently reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this presents a challenge to WLRH and hundreds of stations nationwide, smaller and more rural stations could go dark\u2026permanently,\u201d the official WLRH account posted to LinkedIn<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

While Williams claimed that APT\u2019s programming is more state focused and less biased than NPR or PBS, he said that state programming will continue to be impacted until NPR and PBS leadership address their \u201cbias problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think as long as they double down on that [arguing that the stations are unbiased], it\u2019s going to make it more difficult for us to work with the federal government in the future,\u201d he told Stacy.<\/p>\n

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many Americans were shocked at Congress\u2019 recent approval of a Trump-backed bill that will cut $1.1 billion for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":86654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[30936,69,171,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-86653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-alabama-news","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114904085580252203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}