STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The House voted to claw back money that Congress had previously allocated for PBS, NPR and the public media system for the next two years.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Senate still has to approve the measure. This is the closest public media has come to losing its federal funding.
INSKEEP: All right, well, listen - NPR covers all stories as fairly as we can, and that includes this story that involves NPR itself and its hundreds of local stations. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik is on the line. And we will note that no NPR corporate leader or news executive has had a hand in the coverage you're about to hear. David, good morning.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK, so this is called rescission. This is a process where the president asks Congress to cut money it had previously appropriated, and Congress can agree by a simple majority vote. So what is in the bill that got through one of two houses yesterday?
FOLKENFLIK: So the larger part was that more than $8 billion was pulled back from foreign aid that had already been approved. But in this case, what we're looking at is $1.1 billion. Small change in the grand scheme of things, but that was to fund public broadcasting, all of it - mostly local public television and radio stations - for the next two years. This was something built on, in some ways, years of resentment but also hearings earlier this year. There are two objections about how much money is spent, but also what kind of news coverage and programming is put on the air. Let's hear from Ohio Republican Jim Jordan. He summed it up this way.
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JIM JORDAN: This bill's real simple. Don't spend money on stupid things, and don't subsidize biased media.
FOLKENFLIK: Now, here's the funny thing. You will hear from some public media officials, particularly NPR's representatives, the law passed by Congress at the outset decades ago explicitly protects public media against pressure from all federal officials over its content. Presumably, that includes Congress. This, of course, is a small cut towards reducing the deficit, but also clearly based on the fight over whether or not there's bias in its news coverage.
INSKEEP: All right, this has been a generations-old fight. Republicans have always pushed back against public media, even though we know from experience that a great number of them listen. But they've ultimately supported it. What's changed here?
FOLKENFLIK: I think that you've seen the culture wars. I used to cover Congress a generation ago. It used to be a Congress led by people like then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich wanted this as an issue, and now you're seeing the balance of power within the Republican conference in the House of Representatives, anyway, want this as a win. There are a few Republicans who hold off on that. There's Mark Amodei. He's a Republican from Nevada. He voted against this. He said, quote, "I agree we must make meaningful cuts to shrink our federal deficit. However, I'd be doing a disservice to thousands of rural constituents in my district if I did not fight to keep their access to the rest of the world and news on the air."
INSKEEP: Rural constituents because NPR covers the entire country. How important, though, is the public money to NPR and PBS? There are other sources of funding.
FOLKENFLIK: You know, on its face, it would seem to be not as important to NPR, a modest amount of money. But it could be huge for public radio and television stations. Our chief executive, Katherine Maher, warned about stations going dark and Americans being sort of in news deserts. And it would undermine the system. It could really hit the networks much harder than the amount of money they directly get from the feds would suggest.
INSKEEP: Now this goes to the Senate. What can we expect there?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, I think you have to look at particular moderates from purple states, especially those perhaps up for reelection next year. Think of Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Susan Collins, who's already expressed some concerns over the foreign aid measure part of the bill. Both of them are in states led by Democratic governors, and they're Republicans up for reelection next year. But so far, other than Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, you're seeing few Republicans come out of the woodworks to explicitly assert that she's there for public media. It may be another razor-thin vote in a closely divided institution.
INSKEEP: NPR's David Folkenflik. Thanks.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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