In the early hours of Thursday morning, the Senate narrowly passed President Trump’s rescission request package. It is now in front of the House of Representatives for final approval.
The proposal would claw back previously approved funding to the Department of State, the USAID, the United States Institute of Peace, as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Twenty-one percent of WSKG’s annual budget—or $1.3 million—comes from the CPB.
WSKG News Managing Editor Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo spoke with WSKG CEO Natasha Thompson about the potential impact of federal funding cuts.
*This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo: We spoke about this back in early June, when President Trump had just sent the rescission request to Congress.
As this vote has gotten more and more imminent, can you tell our listeners about what WSKG, as a station, has been doing to prepare for these changes?
Natasha Thompson: So there's the advocacy side of things and then there's just the budget side of things: really working to try to prepare the organization for a potential loss of 21 percent of our operating revenue, which is not insignificant.
PTV: The Trump administration has said that CPB funding should be cut because of what he says is left-leaning political bias on the part of National Public Radio (NPR).
In the scheme of all of this, NPR gets just about 2 percent of this CPB funding, and it's small, local member stations like WSKG that will be most impacted by this particular cut.
Can you explain the relationship and the difference between NPR and NPR member stations for people who maybe hear the headlines, but don't quite understand how all of this works?
NT: Ostensibly, the whole point of this rescission was, as you said, to kind of punish NPR and PBS—mostly NPR, I think—for being “left leaning.” But what's happening is that it's really stations like WSKG that are bearing the brunt of all this. And I think for the local stations, I mean, we pride ourselves on being objective and providing people with an objective source of local news, and it's just incredibly short sighted, I think, and unfair, really.
PTV: What can listeners do to support WSKG and other member stations who are going through this right now?
NT: Well, right now, we are pivoting to fundraising mode, and one of the things that we are looking to do is increase the number of sustaining members who are giving at a level of either $1 a day, so $365 a year, which seems very reasonable. If we are able to bring on 100 new members at 365, 250 is our goal, that would be huge for us.
And so I think right now, that's what I would ask from our listeners, from people who understand the value of public media and the importance particularly now in this fractured media landscape.
We are locally owned and operated. We answer to a board of trustees. We have a community advisory board. We're not-for-profit, we're not falling into a lot of the weird incentives that some commercial media entities fall into. We're not trying to ride the algorithm for clicks.
So I do think that that's worth protecting, that's worth saving, it's worth strengthening. And so, if folks are out there who believe the same way as I do on this, and they haven't yet become a member of WSKG. I do think now is the perfect time to join and make your voice heard and help us get through this next phase.
PTV: Natasha Thompson is the president and CEO of WSKG. Thank you so much for taking the time, Natasha.
NT: Thanks, Phoebe.