The public broadcaster already reduced its budget by 21 percent last month
PBS is reportedly eliminating 100 positions, around 15 percent of its workforce, after President Donald Trump slashed $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS’s primary source of federal support, over left-wing bias.
The staff cuts “include 34 immediate layoffs, the closing of dozens of open positions and reductions made this summer in response to the elimination of federal funding for education programming,” the New York Times reported. PBS chief executive Paula Kerger announced the cuts in a Thursday email to station managers, saying, “These decisions, while difficult, position PBS to weather the current challenges facing public media.”
Just weeks earlier, PBS announced plans to cut its annual budget by 21 percent as a result of the federal funding loss. The public broadcaster has also paused hiring, restricted staff members’ travel, and suspended salary increases, according to the Times.
PBS and NPR, America’s two biggest public broadcasters, have long faced public scrutiny over left-wing political bias in their coverage, even as the networks have received federal funding for decades. In the current fiscal year alone, NPR and PBS received around $535 million from the federal government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
In July, Trump signed a bill to reduce the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s federal funding by $1.1 billion over the next two fiscal years. The corporation has since announced plans to lay off most of its employees by the end of September as part of an “orderly wind-down of its operations.” In May, Trump also signed an executive order instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end all direct and indirect federal funding to PBS and NPR.
NPR, which was already facing financial difficulties and has been cutting jobs for years, announced plans to reduce its budget by $8 million in July, shortly after Trump signed the legislation to cut funding.
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