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Washington, D.C. - In an important victory for the American public, Congressman Maurice Hinchey and the majority of his colleagues in Congress restored funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides a significant source of funding for public television and radio stations across the country. Hinchey and his colleagues approved an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2006 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill that provides $400 million to CPB instead of the $300 million allocation that Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee previously approved.
"The American public has long depended upon public broadcasting as a source of solid, objective journalism dealing with topics of great importance to them. To take away funding from the CPB, which funds public broadcasting stations across the nation, would have been to deny the right to good, quality news and information for American of all ages," said Hinchey, who is chairman of the Future of American (FAM) Media Caucus. "I am delighted that my colleagues agreed to restore this 25 percent funding cut for public broadcasting. I will remain vigilant in my efforts to safeguard those funds as this bill goes through additional legislative steps."
According to the nonpartisan Roper polling firm, Americans consider the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) the nation’s “most trusted” among nationally-known organizations. They also believe that PBS is the second “most valuable” service taxpayers receive, outranked only by national defense. The same poll also found that a majority of Americans believes the system receives too little funding.
Hinchey and Congresswoman Diane Watson (D-CA) plan to offer an additional amendment regarding the CPB tomorrow. That amendment will focus on putting an end to CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson's efforts to politically influence the content of public broadcasts across the nation. The Hinchey-Watson amendment would reinforce the existing statutory prohibition against Mr. Tomlinson, who also serves as Chairman of the Broadcasting Board Governors, from exercising any direction, supervision, or control over the content or distribution of public broadcasting. It would also reaffirm the long-standing policy that public broadcasting must be free from outside interference.
"At the same time we are fighting to ensure that the CPB is fully funded, we must also ensure that those funds will go to support unbiased programming," Hinchey said. "Our amendment will ensure that Americans continue to get unbiased reporting from their public broadcast stations."
The FAM Caucus is composed of House Members who believe in an accountable, diverse, fair, and independent media. The Caucus, which currently has 20 Members, is open to Members of both parties and it neither supports nor opposes any particular industry stakeholder. The FAM Caucus' goal is to educate Members and staff about media issues before Congress and to ensure that all parties - especially the American public - have a chance to participate in the vital debate over media policy.
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