President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease funding for NPR and PBS. Chicago Public Media CEO Melissa Bell joined WBEZ to discuss the role of public media and WBEZ’s membership model.
Melba Lara is the longtime Chicago host of NPR’s All Things Considered on WBEZ. This interview was lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
Melba Lara: President Donald Trump has signed an executive order instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease funding for NPR and PBS. Here now to talk about what this means for WBEZ and our parent company, Chicago Public Media is our CEO, Melissa Bell. Thanks for coming in.
Melissa Bell: Thanks so much for having me.
Lara: You probably have been anticipating a move like this. What does this mean, and are you worried?
Bell: Well, we don’t know what it means yet. There’s a lot of possible paths forward, but we do know that public media is under threat and this is not something that is a surprise. I knew before I took this job. I was lucky enough to join here seven months ago [and knew] that potential change in the presidential administration could happen, and part of the motivation for me coming here was that I deeply believe in the mission of public media across the country, and I wanted to be a participant in helping secure our future. So I do worry, but I also feel really optimistic and deeply know our value, and I believe that our members’ support is a sign that people do, too. So while I worry a little bit, I’m mostly hopeful.
Lara: Let’s talk about the language in the executive order. The president called public media, “biased and partisan.” What’s your response to the president?
Bell: Public media is not partisan. It is for the good of the public. That is the beauty of what this system across our country provides. And the public in this country is very diverse. We are an experiment centuries in the making. Can we live in a melting pot of different backgrounds, different opinions, different ideas? What I believe public media does is uplift the many voices of a community, provide thorough reporting, provide accurate information to communities desperately in need of good information and reporting. We play a huge role in that, and we are not in any way trying to be partisan. If you look at this, we are based in a city that leans very heavily Democratic. We are in a state that leans Democratic. We are in a country right now with a Republican president. We are going to be as thorough in our reporting about our city and our state as we are about the country. So this is not a partisan issue.
Lara: I wanted to ask you about the executive order and the impact it will have on WBEZ programming. Executive orders obviously are not law; it doesn’t happen tomorrow. But what do you say will be the impact?
Bell: It’s hard to tell what the long-term impact will be. You know, I do believe that one of the things that we’re really trying to focus on is finding the sustainable future that is really tied to our membership support. The people of Chicago provide most of our support, and that is incredible. That is a gift to us. It means that we are creating something of value to them, and we want to continue to push on that, so that we can have the flexibility, no matter what may come from other external pressures, to continue our work. That being said, I do feel in this moment that even the attention and the noise and the uncertainty is not just impacting us, but impacting the entire network of public media. This is time spent on understanding the shifting possibilities of what may happen if there’s an executive order that goes through a rescission effort in Congress, or something entirely different. You know that that’s not an effort or time spent on our journalism, our relationship with our audiences, our relationship with one another, and that’s already, we’re already seeing the impact of that.
Lara: I get asked a lot: How much money do you actually get from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Can you address that?
Bell: Sure, it fluctuates every year, and overall, for us, it’s about 6% of our budget, almost about $2 million for the prior year. And that helps, and it really does matter. That’s a lot of great reporting that supports a ton of journalists across our organization that promotes community engagement and so many things. But we’re in a good position with our with our support from our members. It will hurt us, but it won’t destroy us. What I really worry about is the entire system. There’s 12 other public stations across the state. There are many, many more across this country. We already see 20% of the U.S. live in news deserts, where they don’t have strong local reporting. And what I worry about is the impact that it will have on those smaller public stations that sometimes get up to 60% of their budget provided for them by the federal funding. That’s really frightening to me.
Lara: We, of course, have not escaped financial turmoil here at Chicago Public Media as well. A little over a year ago, 14 employees, predominantly from WBEZ, were laid off. A couple of months ago, 35 employees, predominantly from the Sun-Times, accepted voluntary buyouts. Will this federal funding cut impact the potential of another reduction in staff?
Bell: We still don’t know the outcome to this executive order. What we are trying to do with the stabilization of our business is ensure the longevity of our company. The buyouts, while very difficult and very hard, and the layoffs the previous year, were incredibly impactful because any loss of any journalist is a real tragedy in my opinion, but we are trying to stabilize our business. We’re trying to make sure that we can have the future of Chicago Public Media be available to everyone in the city for years and years to come. Will the federal funding cuts impact us? Yes, it will. It will be hard, but we are trying very diligently to find other revenue sources, whether that’s an increase in our membership drive, whether that’s an increase in figuring out how to partner better with community businesses, whether that’s any number of various experiments we have happening. I believe we have a path to building a sustainable and strong Chicago Public Media. It matters, though, because it puts more pressure on us in a tumultuous time. More importantly, it puts a pressure on the entire system. And while Chicago Public Media can hopefully thrive in the years to come, we can’t thrive if the entire system struggles as well.
Lara: Melissa Bell, thanks for coming in. Thank you at Chicago Public Media, CEO Melissa Bell, responding to news of the executive order by the president eliminating federal funding for NPR and PBS. This is WBEZ.