Cristian Farias:
Welcome to The Bully’s Pulpit: Trump vs. The First Amendment. I’m your host legal journalist, Cristian Farias. A dear friend, who’s also a journalist in this space, wrote me a note about the show and said that my job during the second Trump administration is to be a translator, to help people understand the First Amendment’s role in our democracy. Why it’s essential for it to keep working and what people are doing to make it work. And to do all of that clearly with the most direct, concrete language possible. No pressure, Cristian.
On this week’s show, we’ll explore the President’s attacks on NPR and PBS and why this campaign to defund public media, it’s really a campaign to control the message, to control the news and programming we consume, to control the way we think. And in the end, to control our ability to govern ourselves.
Tami Graham:
We could not let this executive order go unanswered. As unconstitutional as we feel it is anyway, it couldn’t go unanswered.
Cristian Farias:
But before I speak to this week’s guest, let’s go over some of the big First Amendment news capturing the public’s attention. The fire hose just keeps gushing.
First up, Mahmoud Khalil remains in prison and separated from his wife and newborn son. In a few days, it’ll be three months since he was whisked away to a prison in Louisiana over his advocacy for Palestinian Freedom, Columbia University. His lawyers filed the letter brief that could be fairly described as a desperate plea to get the judge overseeing this case to release him immediately. They write, “Mr. Khalil is experiencing irreparable harm for his arrest and detention."
And there’s simply no stopping Donald Trump’s vendetta against Harvard. This week he issued a new proclamation that essentially branded university a national security threat, barring any new international students from entering the US. The order also places current Harvard students and researchers under review, empowering the State Department to revoke visas on a case-by-case basis. The old is new again. For this proclamation, the president is invoking the same authority he invoked for his first Muslim ban, which the Supreme Court upheld. In a statement the university said, “This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights."
This next update goes back to a case filed during the first Trump administration. United Institute won a unanimous ruling from the Fort Circuit that allows an immigration judges union to proceed with a legal challenge to a policy that basically muzzles them from speaking publicly about their work. What’s interesting and kind of wonky about this ruling is that the Fourth Circuit recognized that many federal workers these days have very few protections left. In part because Trump has dismantled the very agencies and mechanisms Congress has set up for this purpose.
And you may or may have not heard that Trump has sought to destroy a number of small media organizations funded by Congress that broadcast news around the world. They’re essential in providing news without fear or favor in places where press freedoms are under threat. Many of them, like Voice of America, are fighting for their lives or are a shell of what they used to be. But Radio Free Europe lives on. They recently won a court order telling the government to release millions in congressional funds to carry out its operations. And I checked the docket and it looks like the Trump administration is in the process of complying with this order.
And in news, closer to home, the Knight Institute filed a motion in its case, challenging the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining and deporting non-citizen students and faculty who participate in pro-Palestinian advocacy. The institute asked the court to enter a protective order. This would prevent the government from retaliating against non-citizens who testify as witnesses in the upcoming trial. The government has three business days to respond, so stay tuned.
And finally, the attacks on public media continue. The White House sent a rescission notice to Congress seeking to eliminate all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which includes NPR and PBS. Both organizations alongside local affiliates have already challenged the administration in court under the First Amendment, but the rescission request is a different animal. If approved by Congress, it would deal a devastating blow to public broadcasting writ large.
I’d like to pull on a thread from a news roundup and bring into our conversation Nadine Farid Johnson. She’s the policy director at the Knight First Amendment Institute and a person who has been tracking the executive and legislative actions against public broadcasting. Last month, Donald Trump sent an executive order to single out NPR and PBS for defunding. He called them biased. And as I just noted, there’s this new rescission request from the White House that’s not a bill, but something a little different. And Nadine can tell us all about it. Nadine, welcome to the show.
Nadine Farid Johnson:
Thanks so much, Cristian. It’s great to be here.
Cristian Farias:
Nadine, I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten this, but I think you have a great NPR name.
Nadine Farid Johnson:
That’s quite a compliment. Thank you.
Cristian Farias:
Do you have a favorite NPR or PBS show? Can be a local one or one from your childhood.
Nadine Farid Johnson:
My childhood favorite was 3-2-1 Contact on PBS. I think that was the best show of the ’80s hands down. Now my local station on NPR is WAMU here in Washington.
Cristian Farias:
That’s great. Now you’re a policy expert. What do you make of this moment in general and the president going after public broadcasting very openly?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
I think it’s important to look at these attacks on public broadcasting in the context of the administration’s broader approach to the media. We’ve now seen that White House exclude the associated press from the press pool. We’ve seen the long-standing practice of having an independent journalist association determined who has access to the president in the press pool usurped.
So now the White House decides who gets that access in Oval Office meetings and the like. The administration’s FCC has opened investigations into several media organizations including ABC, CBS, NBC, and of course NPR and PBS. And the president is involved in lawsuits against media outlets as well. And the commonality in each of these actions is an attempted thumb on the scale with respect to the media. It’s seeking to cow the press. And the salvos against public broadcasting are perhaps the most expansive example of that effort.
Cristian Farias:
Now you have a very cool resume. I mean, you have not just worked here in the US but also have a broader view of the world. And I’m curious if you can tell me how everything that you just listed off compares to what’s happened in other sliding democracies. Is it similar? Is it different?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
Yeah, so I think we have to think about this from the baseline. A free press exists to hold the government to account. And a government that is unwilling to be scrutinized is one that is more likely to want to control the media’s message and to limit the rights of the press as a result. So there are certainly degrees.
As you noted, I’ve worked all around the world and situations can range from the exertion of significant political pressure to the complete capture of the media. But that’s the kind of thing that we in the US tend to think of as happening somewhere else. We don’t think of it happening here because the First Amendment protections afforded the press in our country are so strong.
What’s key to all of this, Cristian, is how much support a government has for the media, for its role, for what it does in the public interest. And I’ve worked on global free expression issues for a long time, and there’s a very unfortunate trend in the increase of state affiliated media all around the world.
Cristian Farias:
Now, you don’t need to get too wonky with me, but are PBS and NPR engaged in government speech? And if so, why can’t the president just shape their programming however he wants?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
Well, let’s remember here that the Corporation of Public Broadcasting is not by law an agency or establishment of the United States government, and neither are NPR, PBS or the local affiliates. Their employees are not government employees, and the government is not using or relying upon NPR, PBS, local affiliates to relay a particular message. So no, they are not engaging in government speech and the president cannot shape their programming because they are enshrined by law as independent entities with editorial discretion.
Cristian Farias:
Now, not long after Elon Musk took over Twitter a couple of years ago, NPR left the platform very loudly and hasn’t been back since after being branded “state affiliated media.” Now I’m from Chile, and so I know what state-affiliated media is like, but that’s not what PBS and NPR are. Can you tell me how Congress set them up and why?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
Well, first you’re exactly right. PBS, NPR, their local affiliates, these are not state-affiliated media in the sense that you have experienced in Chile or what we see in countries like Egypt, Iran, China, Russia. Those are places where the state largely or fully controls the narrative and stifles editorial independence.
PBS and NPR are what is referred to as independent public media. And they were established via the Public Broadcasting Act, and that created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which we’ve all seen those little logos when we turn on PBS. That’s an independent nonprofit. And the Act wanted to establish that there’s a public interest in encouraging the development of public programming, including for instructional, educational and cultural purposes.
And so CBP establishes PBS in 1969. It’s a private nonprofit essentially made to interconnect public TV stations and distribute programming. And NPR is created the following year. But there are a couple of points I want to emphasize here. One, CBP has long been referred to as a kind of heat shield to protect public broadcasting from Congress’s or the president’s political whims. And the House report that accompanied the Public Broadcasting Act said that the federal government should not control the final product of educational broadcasting. And that having the CBP disperse funds would provide the most effective insulation from government controls or influence over those expenditures.
Two, since 1975, the CBP has actually had a two-year advance appropriation. That advanced funding is meant to further shield public broadcasting from the risk or appearance of government influence, so it’s always been this insulated, independent entity that’s funded in the public interest.
Cristian Farias:
It’s interesting because it looks like Congress foresaw a lot of potential problems with an administration different from the one that instituted these policies-
Nadine Farid Johnson:
That’s exactly right.
Cristian Farias:
... from trying to exert control. And now we’re seeing precisely some of these mechanisms, these attempts to be dismantled. Now, the executive order targeting the funding for these public broadcasters was quite breathtaking, both the language, the tone, and also the substance. What are some of your big takeaways from it?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
I mean, there is a lot that is striking about the May 1st executive order, but at its core, as with so much of this, it seems to be about control, about who decides what is to quote from the EO “fair, accurate, or unbiased.” But honestly, Cristian, what’s almost more telling to me is the language of the EO that points to the existence of government funded news media as being both unnecessary in light of what it refers to as an abundant media landscape and then “corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence."
So let’s back up a little bit because under the Public Telecommunications Act of 1988, about 70% of CBP’s entire appropriation must go to local TV and radio stations. So today that funding goes to well over 1,200 radio stations that are public and 365 or so public TV stations. So those local stations are serving a significant swath of the population. I’m raising this because we are in an age of expanding news deserts around the country. Three-quarters of those are in rural communities, and these local stations are a lifeline for these communities.
Cristian Farias:
But these attacks on public broadcasting aren’t new. They’re just cranked to 11 these days. I remember back during one of the Obama campaigns that Mitt Romney went after Big Bird, and that was kind of a huge deal at the time. And I’m curious, is this more of that? What’s the history here?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
So from Nixon on, Republican presidents and members of Congress have targeted public broadcasting. Nixon proposed major cuts to PBS in 1969 right after its founding. Mr. Rogers actually came to the Senate. He testified against the cuts and he was successful.
Mr. Rogers:
We made 100 programs for EEN, the Eastern Educational Network. And then when the money ran out, people in Boston and Pittsburgh and Chicago all came to the fore and said, “We’ve got to have more of this neighborhood expression of care.” I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s wonderful. Looks like you just earned the $20 million.
Nadine Farid Johnson:
But interestingly, what really cemented public television in the minds of Americans was the airing of Watergate hearings. Actually really, it raised awareness of and support for public television.
So fast-forward a few years, Reagan also vetoed bills that would’ve increased public broadcasting funding. GOP lawmakers accused it of liberal bias in the early nineties. In ’94 then Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich threatened to defund CBP entirely, but that failed due to public outcry.
Fast-forward again under President George W. Bush, there were several attempts to cut funding for CBP. But then Clifford, the Big Red Dog showed up. They came to rallies and Congress did not go through with it. And then as you note, Mitt Romney also went after poor Big Bird.
Cristian Farias:
Naturally, NPR and PBS are fighting back against all these attacks. Each of them has filed lawsuits in federal court that raised the First Amendment as a defense. What are their main claims?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
So in terms of the First Amendment, the claim centers on retaliation, viewpoint based discrimination and infringement upon freedom of association. I’m generalizing here because as you note, these are separate lawsuits, but essentially NPR and PBS cite jurisprudence that reaffirms the government cannot use the power of the state to punish or suppress disfavored expression. And that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from retaliating against individuals for engaging in protected speech. They’re also saying that their order constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination and interferes with editorial discretion. They note the president’s dislike of the balance of viewpoints expressed in their programming and his claims of bias in that programming.
Cristian Farias:
Well, it sounds like a slam dunk. Let’s hope the courts agree. Now, as I mentioned during the news wrap-up, the White House in an even scarier attack sent a rescission request to Congress to pull all funding from public broadcasting. Nadine, putting on your policy hat, what’s the play now on Capitol Hill?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
Right now a lot of the current discussion is actually about the larger funding bill, but the outcry so far has been largely on the democratic side. But I want to point out that Senator Murkowski of Alaska actually last month penned an op-ed in support of funding in a local paper of her constituents. It’s a good reminder that the bulk of the impact will be local and that affects Americans of every stripe.
Remember too, that the presidential rescission request is a rarely used tool for a reason. It’s asking Congress to undo its previous determination of resource allocation and Congress isn’t always willing to agree. So Congress has 45 days to act on that request. That puts it in mid-July, which is right after the July 4th, the goal for the broader funding bill. So it’s going to be a very interesting and busy few weeks.
Cristian Farias:
And in a way, it’s almost a recognition that the executive orders were bunk. I mean, you’re admitting basically that you had no authority to try to pull funding in the first place, and now you’re going through the right process of the rescission request.
Nadine Farid Johnson:
Well, it’s interesting because their rescission proposal has actually been brought up now by NPR’s head, Katherine Maher. And she says that that proposal is explicitly viewpoint-based and aimed at controlling and punishing content, that it violates the Public Broadcasting Act, the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause. So she calls that rescission proposal the biggest threat ever to public broadcasting. So it doesn’t look as if NPR is going to back down.
Cristian Farias:
Now, I want you to think of yourself as an NPR host in one of those news deserts or perhaps at a local affiliate who truly depends on this funding. How would you appeal to your listeners so they can get involved and do something about this?
Nadine Farid Johnson:
Well, as someone who’s listened to many an NPR appeal, I can tell you it’s really, it’s about access to information. The First Amendment is at its foundation, our vehicle to self-governance. And access to information is an inherent part of that power. Ostensibly, and I think the relevant legislative history that we talked about indicates, in creating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and funding independent Public media Congress recognize this. And it understood and underscored in that act and in subsequent acts, the value in ensuring that every community has access to editorially independent, reliable news. And so that’s the appeal that I would make to listeners.
Cristian Farias:
Nadine Farid Johnson, she’s the policy director at the Knight First Amendment Institute. Nadine, it’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show.
Nadine Farid Johnson:
Pleasures all mine, Cristian. Thank you so much.
Cristian Farias:
And to give us a deeper sense of what these cuts would mean for communities all across the US, I wanted to talk with a representative of one of the plaintiffs and the NPR lawsuit against the administration. In addition to the National Network, three Colorado-based NPR member stations have signed on to the lawsuit, including KSUT, which serves rural and tribal communities in the southern part of the state. Tami Graham is the executive director for KSUT in Ignacio, Colorado. Tami, welcome.
Tami Graham:
It’s great to be here with you. Thanks, Cristian.
Cristian Farias:
You’re broadcasting in the four Corners region of the Southwest where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah meet. Now give us a sense of what the KSUT listener base is like and what’s the prototypical KSUT story?
Tami Graham:
Yeah, it’s interesting. KSUT is extremely unique. The SUT actually stands for Southern Ute Tribe. The Southern Ute Tribe founded KSUT in 1976, and it was originally intended as a means of communication to the tribal membership. And has expanded ever since, became an independent non-profit. We still operate out of the Southern Ute Tribal Campus, about half an hour south of Durango and Ignacio, Colorado. But we have expanded to include both our original tribal radio signal and now have Four Corners Public Radio.
The tribal radio signal serves four tribal nations with the terrestrial signal, the Southern Ute Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, a large portion of the Navajo Nation, which is huge, and the Hickory Apache Nation in northern New Mexico. And so the tribal station signal is really, is one of the oldest tribally founded stations in the country. We were one of the first. So there’s a very distinct and unique audience that that signal serves with contemporary and traditional Native American music, but also all kinds of other music and a lot of programming oriented to a Native American listening audience.
And then the Four Corners Public Radio Signal serves five counties in southwestern Colorado and Northwestern New Mexico and 14 distinct communities. So there’s not really a typical listener. I’m really proud that we serve as a bridge for the entire Four Corners region that’s pretty diverse in a lot of ways, geographically, demographically and politically certainly. And we collectively between the two signals really serve that entire region.
As far as a typical story, we really have, because we serve such a wide demographic area, had to make some choices as what kind of content to focus on with our reporting. And so the focus really has been on indigenous affairs and news and information coming out of the region. So that’s really been our focus.
Cristian Farias:
That’s wonderful. And we actually have a short clip to showcase what you guys do. Take a listen.
Speaker 5:
This was the 14th year that the annual Native Resolution Youth concert took place at the Southern Ute Fair. At this concert, people in black T-shirts and black leather boots mashed around-
Cristian Farias:
Now, Tami, when President Trump announced his executive order targeting NPR, what went through your mind? Did you and your staff have a huddle at the time?
Tami Graham:
Yeah, we did. I mean, on the one hand it was like, “Well, okay, no shock there.” He’s way out of his jurisdiction on so many executive orders and including that one. And so we talked a little bit about, “Well, what’s the potential impact here?” In our minds, it was clearly unconstitutional and illegal.
Cristian Farias:
Now, one key complaint that the President makes and a complaint honestly, that we’ve heard about public radio and TV for a long time, going on three decades, is that NPR’s coverage is “biased.” Now, knowing what you know about your own station’s coverage, how do you respond to that?
Tami Graham:
It’s very clear to me that because of... And we all know NPR has really stands up as one of the most fact-based reliable news sources by many, many outside sources that have done various ratings on various media reporting. I think it’s really, he doesn’t like that the reporting is honest and fact-based, because that’s not the MO that many of us know this president operates on.
It is a personal vendetta and control the media. I mean, it’s very obvious, and his critiques of NPR is very targeted. And that’s mentioned in the complaint that was filed, is that this is clearly a vendetta and retaliatory because of him not appreciating the kind of reporting NPR does and PBS does because it’s not favorable necessarily to him.
Cristian Farias:
How does this executive order specifically affect the community you serve?
Tami Graham:
If the executive order were to go through it would be a huge affront to the First Amendment and to press freedom. So to that effect, the executive order among other things, calls for the limitation of affiliates of NPR such as ourselves, to where we can spend our federal dollars on programming. So in effect, it’s saying, “You can’t spend your federal dollars on NPR programming,” and that is just a total affront to editorial choice and freedom of the press.
And so as far as our listeners and the impact it would have if we had to pull NPR programming because the president told us he doesn’t like the kind of coverage he’s getting, that has a huge impact on our listeners. We live in a news desert. And we live in a literal desert in many ways, and a news desert. And the impact of coming down from the highest office in the land saying, “Sorry, folks of the Four Corners, you can’t hear NPR programming on your local station because someone in a position of power doesn’t like it.” So it would have a very direct effect on our listener base in the region.
Cristian Farias:
It has been said that the amount of funding that goes to public broadcasting vis-à-vis the general budget is a drop in the bucket, is very small. But for a station like yours, it’s a very big deal, isn’t it?
Tami Graham:
So for us, 19% of this year’s budget comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting federal funding that equals $333,000. And that’s significant. And one of, I think, the wonderful things about the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and the Directive to Congress via CPB was that if your station, whether it’s TV or radio, serves what they consider, and there’s criteria to serve a rural audience and, or a minority audience. In our case, the Native American Service, you get a higher percentage of funds based on your own fundraising. There’s a complicated criteria for how much money you get in the grants we write to CPB.
But we, because we’re rural and minority-serving 19% of our budget is significant. And so you have major market radio stations that have access to huge populations and folks with a lot of ability to support those stations in big ways. For us, that’s just not true. So it’s sort of a double whammy. By virtue of where we operate out of, we don’t have the same access to high-dollar donors potentially that could then backfill the loss of that support.
Cristian Farias:
That’s right. Now, it’s been a month since this executive order dropped that. Now KSUT naturally is one of the name plaintiffs in this lawsuit against the Trump administration. I imagine never in your wildest dreams, did you ever see yourself suing the President of the United States. How did this decision come about?
Tami Graham:
No, it’s not something that you think you’re ever going to contemplate. Well, you might contemplate it, but much less be enacted. How did it come about? So ironically, I was heading to DC for what’s called NPR network. And this was in early May, May 12th, which is a meeting that happens every year for the stations that can make it in the network to kind of come together and talk about business things for a couple of days.
I got a call from two of the vice presidents of NPR on the Friday before I left, asking if we would consider being a plaintiff with NPR. And I was kind of blown away, and it was like, “Well, yes.” My natural instinct was to say, “Yes.” Personally, yes, this gives me an opportunity for us to do something, to make a difference. And then I had to stop and think, “Wow.” The concerns around potential retaliation. We’re a small fish in a very large sea of media entities and would’ve put a target on our back and things like that.
So immediately, of course, I consulted my board and also the Southern Ute tribe. We’re independent of the tribe, even though they did found us 50 years ago almost. But it’s important to... We have a very strong relationship with the tribe. And so we, over a period of days received their strong support of moving forward. And so, we did it with eyes wide open knowing fortunately as you know, but we have pro bono legal support, all three Colorado stations that are the co-plaintiffs, which made it feasible for us to even contemplate.
There’s no way we could afford the legal fees associated with something at this level. So as it turns out, NPR had made kind of a strategic choice, I think for sure, to ask three Colorado stations. So simplicity’s sake, all from one state. And then also because we represent kind of a microcosm between the three stations of the macrocosm of the kind of NPR stations that are out there throughout the country, so very small rural, like KSUT and including our service to tribal nations.
Then Aspen Public Radio was also involved as very much a mountain community, serving the mountain communities. And then a large statewide network, Colorado Public Radio. So that was the explanation to us from NPR when we all asked that same question, “Well, why us?” And so NPR, we understood, wanted to move fairly fast on this, and for those reasons we were selected. It was, of course, a great honor to be asked.
Cristian Farias:
Now, naturally, as you just explained, you got buy-in from the tribes for this action, for this lawsuit. But then in effect, as you noted, means that you’re sticking your neck out. You said that this lawsuit, in a way, puts a target on your back, and I’m curious how this action has affected your staff, if at all. How have they felt this decision?
Tami Graham:
And I just came out of a staff meeting. And I know in talking to my counterpart co-plaintiffs at CPR and at Aspen Public Radio, that there’s been a whole range of response from our collective staff. Pretty much everybody is, on the one hand when they’ve really thought about it on the principal of it, very supportive. But also there’s a chilling effect where there’s concerns.
Folks that might have a child in the military or a child attending an out-of-state college that’s in a more conservative state and about people being concerned about personal safety for their loved ones or for themselves or it’s real. And it just really speaks to the kind of environment that we are in right now. As we all know, retaliation is real, and we’ve seen it happen, and we’ve seen media, we’ve seen journalists attacked in this country, killed. I mean, it’s a real concern.
It was not a decision that we made lightly by any means, knowing that this has a ripple impact throughout the organization. And throughout the state of Colorado, honestly, we’ve had other stations reach out and say, “We support you. We’re so glad. But what if Colorado public radio stations have a target on their back now for other things, FCC investigations or who knows?” And these are all very real and valid concerns. And at the same time, we could not let this executive order go unanswered. As unconstitutional as we feel it is anyway, it couldn’t go unanswered.
Cristian Farias:
Yeah. And also, to your point, none of this is normal. You shouldn’t have to be doing this to contest this unconstitutional order. And the fact that you are, it speaks to how different unprecedented this moment is. But with that, and with the fact that you are taking the stand, I imagine you’re also hearing from other people in your orbit besides other stations. I’m curious, have you heard from listeners and supporters about your action?
Tami Graham:
It’s been incredible. 99% of the feedback we’ve gotten has been incredibly positive. I have a list of comments I could send you from when people make a donation. And a lot of the response we’re getting are people that have heard the story say on NPR somewhere in their community, far-flung community from us, and they’re sending us a donation and saying, “Thanks for fighting the good fight. Thanks for taking this up. Thanks for your courage,” comments like that. And it’s really been encouraging to get that kind of feedback, not only from, of course, our own listeners, but from folks all over the country. And I mean, maybe we’ve had one negative comment, but it’s really felt good to have that kind of response.
Cristian Farias:
That’s great to hear. Tami, just this week, we heard from the White House that they’ve sent a rescission request to Congress to pull all funding for public broadcasting. Now, this is the real thing. This is almost like a law that, if passed, it would truly be how things are supposed to work back through executive orders, not through just messaging or complaints from the White House podium. How do you feel about this latest move?
Tami Graham:
Well, one, it’s we’re all exhausted from fighting these fights in the public media realm. The executive order, yes, it’s on principle, right? This is, if Congress, after 50 years of bipartisan support were to eliminate federal funding for public media, it would be a terrible day in America, honestly. And it would be terrible for all of the communities that are served by these funds. A dollar 60 annually is what the cost is to the American individual for the incredible support of hundreds, 1,000 stations, TV and radio and the work they do.
So this, it’s a very real moment. It’s absolutely our focus right now. We know the vote is coming right up potentially next week in the House. We have a representative here in CD3 in Colorado that has the potential to flip and be one of the four or five that peels off. And so we’re putting all of our efforts into advocacy and asking our listeners to do their part and make that quick call to their representatives, because this is a huge moment for public media.
Cristian Farias:
And yet, Tami, I mean, I’m not a Pollyanna, but I do think the fact that there are news deserts in Colorado and in many other places in the US, conservative states, liberal states, red states, blue states, I imagine this is something that a lot of people can rally behind and it’s not a partisan issue.
Tami Graham:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. When it comes to emergency information, it’s like cutting FEMA. It makes no sense, right? Politically, how does that make sense? Right. Hurricanes happen everywhere. So yeah, I mean, public media has had bipartisan support for many years for very good reasons, and from conservative legislators, from Alaska to Wyoming, Idaho over 50 years, it always stand up and say, “Oh, no, no, don’t you touch public media funding because my constituents, it’s a lifeline for them.” And I sure hope that’s still the case, and that these folks, some of these legislators are willing to stand up and draw a line.
Cristian Farias:
And I guess to close this out, this has been a wonderful conversation, but I want you to reflect a little bit, now that you’ve told us what KSUT stands for and the kind of programming that you carry. What role do you think public media and a community’s access to this hyper-local content play in helping people to govern themselves?
Tami Graham:
Oh, it’s absolutely essential. I mean, freedom of the press underscores everything in a democracy. Without that, we see multitudes of examples of authoritarian governments shutting down free and independent media because of the information, the knowledge of individuals and citizens to know what’s happening and to be able to trust what they’re hearing.
So this is a hugely impactful moment. And the kinds of work that we do here at KSUT, I’m just going to go ahead and toot our horn a little bit. I mean, we have what’s called a Tribal media center. We do storytelling and content production and training for indigenous youth and young adults so they can go and tell their own stories in their own words and go become media professionals.
And there’s concerns like, “We’re going to have a target on our back now for doing that kind of work?” Which is already happening long before the executive order, right? Because it’s considered whatever, DEI. And so we’re unwavering in the work that we’re doing, and that won’t change whether or not we’re successful in this lawsuit, whether or not we lose public funding, we will move forward unwavered, because our community counts on us. We hear it every single day from our region, how important we are and what a lifeline we are to them. And so we stand on solid, principled ground, we feel, and it’s not a moment to cower.
Cristian Farias:
Tami Graham, we are rooting for you. Tami Graham is the executive director of KSUT in Ignacio, Colorado. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.
Tami Graham:
Thank you so much, Cristian, for all the good work you’re doing.
Cristian Farias:
That was Tami Graham, executive director of KSUT in Ignacio, Colorado. KSUT Aspen Public Radio and Colorado Public Radio are plaintiffs alongside NPR in a lawsuit against the administration. This is a case that we’ll keep watching as well as a separate lawsuit by PBS. And that’s a wrap for today’s episode. See you next week.
The Bully’s Pulpit is a production of The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. I’m your host, Cristian Farias. This episode was written by me and co-produced by Anne-Marie Awad and Candice White. Our associate producer for this episode is Kushal Dev. Fact checking by Kushal Dev, Ellie Fivas and Ella Sohn. Our sound engineer is Patrick McNameeking. Candice White is our executive producer. Our music comes from Epidemic Sound. The art for our show was designed by Astrid de Silva. Thanks to Nadine Farid Johnson and Tami Graham who joined us for this episode.
The Bully’s Pulpit is available on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Please subscribe and leave a review. We’d love to know what you think. To learn more about the Knight Institute, visit our website, Knightcolumbia.org. That’s Knight with a K. And follow us on social media.