The House on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected $100 million in proposed cuts for public television and radio stations. The cut would have been nearly a quarter of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget.
PBS - USA Today
Pat Mitchell PBS CEO
This not a total victory. $80 million will not be provided for upgrades to digital signal and other upgrades. Also, the Ready to Learn program, a preschool partnership with the Department of Education, remains unfunded. As the move to digital signal is goverment mandated this will put the public stations even further behind in the crossover which could be used against the CPB in the future to deny futher funding.
In related news, the CPB named Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, as its new president and CEO.
The appointment comes as political controversy churns around CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, who has said he considers PBS programs too liberal. A CPB inspector-general is investigating Tomlinson for hiring a researcher to monitor Now, which was hosted by Bill Moyers, for political bias. Democrats called for President Bush to fire Tomlinson; a White House spokesman said the president stands by him. - From USATODAY.com
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