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War on PBS is an attack on the First Amendment

By Rob Miraldi
Your Turn
Guest columnist

..... My backyard in New York's Hudson Valley has been a bit like the jungle this spring. [2025] Rabbits and woodchucks have feasted on my garden lettuce. A mama deer has been nursing her baby right outside my porch. And a bear tried to get to the window bird feeder, leaving claw-marks on my house siding.
..... When a charming turkey waddled by. I turned to my blue-eyed 9-year-old grandson Oliver Miraldi, to determine whether it was male or female. he described in exquisite detail how to tell.
..... "How," I asked him. "could you possibly know that?"
..... Easy, he replied.
.... "I learned it on 'Wild Kratts,'" he explained, referring to his favorite afternoon, 30-minute Public Broadcasting Service program that combines video and animation for a sprightly ride though the world's animal habitats.
..... A ritual has grown in my household: home from school, Oliver plops in the easy chair with juice and snack and watches the Kratt brothers, Martin and Chris, as the explore the animal kingdom and cleverly transform into animal heroes.
..... Shier programs - 41 of which are now stored on my DVR, from lemurs to owls -are educational and emphasize conservation.
..... There is no "PAW Patrol: mayhem because, after all, this is nonprofit public broadcasting, not commercial TV. The funding comes from taxpayers, donors, grants and philanthropists.

How can I tell Oliver that Donald Trump wants to kill PBS?

..... I don't have the heart to tell Oliver that the president of the United States - between chasing immigrants - s trying to kill both PBS and National Public Radio with budget cuts hat will cripple a sprawling network of public broadcast new and entertainment. Both PBS and NPR, American institutions since their founding in 1967, have sued the president to save both Big Bird and news.
..... NPR declared in its court filing that the president's executive order "threatens the existences of a public radio system" that 45 million Americans nationwide listen to on 1,216 radio stations. Added PBS: this "unprecedented presidential directive will upend" 365 public TV stations now followed by 130 million people annually.
..... Lawyers for PBS and NPR have hit the nail on the head. The president doesn't have the authority to defund public broadcasting; only congress does. The legislation that created public broadcasting in 1967 was meant to insulate news from governmental interference in the same way the BBC does in the United Kingdom.
..... Moreover, his reason for interfering is that he doesn't like the content, which he calls on social media "A TOTAL SCAM! A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE" for "spreading radical, woke propaganda, disguised as news.'" This is called "viewpoint discrimination," and the First Amendment forbids it.
..... The president does not got it: he;s not editor-in-chief of The New York Times, The washing Post, Gannett publicans - or public broadcasting. As authoritarians will do, eh wants revenge on what he perceives as his enemies who might not support his agenda - form Gavin Newsom to Elon Musk.
..... the First Amendment forbids this retaliatory assault on public broadcasting. And the presidential order "is textbook retaliation," said Miguel Estrada, an NPR attorney
..... Trump is so worried about who is "woke" that he cannot understand that the very nature of news, expose and basic reporting is attacking, critical, a constant blast at government. That's its purpose -a fourth branch of government, check the other three, peeking into places authorities do not want.
..... And that is why the founded protected the press form the hand of central authorities. So they could be adversarial.
..... But what's most irksome is Trump's belief that PBS and NPR are left-wing vehicle, out to get him.

Conjuring Nixon's war on PBS

..... It's reminiscent of President Richard Nixon, who in 1969 wanted to get rid of PBS because it was broadcasting those awful documentaries about the Vietnam War.
..... That is actually the beginning of the Media-as-libral mantra. Nixon's Vice President Spiro Agnew waltzed across the country warning of the "liberal Eastern establishment " press.
..... Fast-forward, to 2025, and Donald Trump is trying it again. I don't mean to blame just the president: Republicans have been trying unsuccessfully for decades to cut public broadcasting's budget. It might be ideological. Why, in a country of private ownership, should the taxpayer subsidize news and entertainment?
..... Well, why shouldn't the public contribute to providing funds for a broadcast network that gives us high-quality news and entertainment? Radio and TV stations are mostly commercial. They exist to entertain, if it makes money.
.... Even though, the lifeblood of democracy is reliable news and information, they're not obligated to inform you. And most don't. But the public deserves thoughtful news beyond short clips; documentaries that explore a perilous world; and they deserve "Wild Kratts," not just violence-glorified cartoons.
..... The PBS and NPR saga begs the question of priorities in using taxpayer money. should it go for butter or guns? NPR and PBS receive about 4440 million a year. If we eliminate, for example, the S-400 Air Defense System at 4500 million, we could save public broadcasting!
..... Trump insist pubic broadcasting is biased, but it debunks the notion that he just wants a neutral media. He wants to kill facts. he wants propaganda. "Woke; a neutral adversary - will challenge his narrative.
..... Criticism and disloyalty are not tolerable.
..... Just look only at what he has tired to do to the Voice of America, a longtime taxpayer-funded but independent source f of news for the rest of the world. Its goal has been, for example, to tell the Russian people what was really happening in Ukraine, and how the Russian war effort was struggling.
..... A fair, recessional and balanced press is still vital, but most important is a pres that is independent of government, political parties and big business. This is actually an old story in America. The press was not born into neutrality. In the early 1800s, in what a historian calls the "dark ages," the press was scurrilous, partisan and aligned with political parties. By the practices of objectivity had emerged.
..... But, still, both sides always suspected that the pres was hiding behind the ideal - and was really partisan. The left accuses the press of being in the thrall and influence of right-wing corporations. The right thinks a liberal cabal, a "work" mentality, dominates the press, even though there is much of the press that still tires its best to take news down the middle - favoring neither side.
..... The debate will go on as long as we have political differences, but the real point: No president, no government official, has the right to silence the pres or punish any speaker because they don't like their point of view.
..... Someone needs to tell the president. And read him the 45 words of the First amendment. Of course, he won't listen. The MAGA hat is covering his ears. I can explain it if he wants to come over and watch a "Wild Kratts" with Oliver and me.

..... Rob Miraldi's First Amendment writing has won numerous awards. he taught journalism at the State University of New York for many years. Email: rob-mirakdiu@gmail.com.

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