With “aye” votes from Wyoming’s two U.S. senators, a recissions bill scheduled to claw back around $1.1 billion from publicly funded media, impacting outlets like PBS and Wyoming Public Media, cleared a committee Tuesday evening and reached the Senate floor for debate.
Facing a Friday deadline to hit the president’s desk, the bill would strip the next two fiscal years’ funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and would remove about $8.3 billion allocated to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Senators tied 50-50 Tuesday on two procedural votes to start the debate on the spending cuts package, with Vice President JD Vance casting tiebreaking votes both times.
U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, both Republicans of Wyoming, cast aye votes Tuesday alongside all but three of their fellow Republicans.
Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) voted with all Senate Democrats against the measure.
If it clears the Senate, it will go back to the House — which approved it in June with an aye vote by Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming — for approvals on any changes.
Bias Machine
In statements and interviews with Cowboy State Daily, Lummis and Barrasso said the cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are warranted because of what they call a left-wing bias of its public media outlets.
“Because even (according to) … some of their former reporters, their news is far left of left-leaning,” said Lummis during a Wednesday interview on Cowboy State Daily’s Morning Show With Jake on Wednesday. “And taxpayer money should not be spent for a biased news service.”
Barrasso in a Wednesday statement shared a thought similar to Lummis’.
“The American people expect publicly funded television and radio programming to present straightforward, factual news and content that is free of political bias,” he wrote. “National PBS and NPR stations have failed to meet this standard. Taxpayers are right to want real value for their hard-earned money.”
There’s A Check
Ruby Calvert, board chairperson for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and former general manager of Wyoming Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), countered claims like these in a Cowboy State Daily guest column.
“Unlike commercial outlets, public media is held to the highest standards of transparency, accountability and responsiveness precisely because it is responsible to the American taxpayer,” Calvert wrote, adding that “civic trust is fraying, (and) public media provides Americans with reliable, local reporting and information that empowers citizens to participate in decisions that affect their lives.”
She went on to list public media offerings like severe weather alerts, local coverage and veterans’ issues.
“At around $1.60 per American annually, public media is one of the best returns on investment in the federal budget,” wrote Calvert.
She added in a follow-up text that CPB takes charges of bias very seriously and has developed several programs in recent years for stations and producers to ensure editorial integrity.
Could Do With More Humility, Though
Wyoming PBS receives a rough annual average of $1.4 million — about a third of its operating budget, General Manager Joanna Kail told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.
Losing that money would force significant restructuring within the outlet and other entities that receive that money as dues from stations, she said.
“Of course, it would mean some restructuring and new strategies with Wyoming PBS, but we feel strongly we will weather this storm, and the viewers, members and supporters of Wyoming storytelling will help us continue this vital mission for our state,” said Kail, adding that Wyoming PBS is already discussing other revenue-generating opportunities.
And yet, speaking of national public media outlets, Kail indicated that lawmakers’ claims of bias aren’t entirely off the mark.
“The national entities of PBS could have listened and acted with more humility (toward concerned consumers) for the past several years,” said Kail. “There were things that could have been put in motion much earlier on that could potentially have avoided this culmination.”
That doesn’t necessarily have to do with Wyoming PBS, she said.
“This has to do with a national public media (onus for) humility that was just never acted upon,” said Kail.
Eye Of The Beholder
Wyoming Public Media (WPM) draws about $400,000 annually in direct funding from the CPB, but receives about another $400,000 in services such as negotiating music rights, streaming rights and interconnection funding, WPM General Manager Christina Kuzmych told Cowboy State Daily in a Wednesday email.
The claim of left-wing bias is “understandable,” she said, yet there are several issues at play, such as varying interpretations across people groups, investigative journalists’ hunt for the “smoking gun” in stories they cover, and the “sheer volume of stories covered by news organizations like NPR and WPM.”
Mistakes are bound to surface in so many stories, and both outlets make a point of correcting those, she said.
“At times, though, a listener’s perception of bias is rooted in the fact that they don’t agree with the story,” wrote Kuzmych. “This is a human factor, and understandable.”
She pointed to WPM’s local and regional news, cultural programming and community service information as vital offerings for Wyoming.
“WPM is here to serve Wyoming, regardless of what political winds may bring. This is not our first rodeo,” she said. “Listeners were FANTASTIC in their support. They wrote letters to our congressional delegation in support of their public radio like never before. We’re truly humbled.”
NPR
Calvert specified in a Wednesday phone interview with Cowboy State Daily that the proposed cuts would claw back the CPB budget for the next two fiscal years, but aren’t aimed directly at PBS and National Public Radio (NPR).
But a lot of broadcast stations will accept federal grants from CPB, then pay that money toward PBS or NPR as membership dues, said Calvert.
“We’ve hardly paid anything to NPR over the past couple years,” she said, adding that CPB gave NPR money to embed a reporter in Ukraine and run security for that reporter when the Ukraine war started.
“We haven’t given them a lot of money for programming,” she said.
Hunter Biden’s Laptop
NPR during the 2020 election season defended its decision not to cover the leak of Hunter Biden’s laptop, from which evidence indicating corruption surfaced. The outlet called the story a “pure distraction.”
NPR CEO Katherine Maher conceded during a March congressional committee hearing that shunning the laptop story at that time was a “mistake.”
Appearing Wednesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” she countered claims of bias, however.
“Please show me a story that concerns you because we want to know and we want to bring that conversation back to our newsroom,” she said. “We believe that as a public broadcaster, we do have an obligation to serve all Americans, and we need to make sure that our coverage reflects the interest and perspective, and we hear from Americans across the political spectrum. That's important to us and we want to make sure we live up to that.”
All This Other Stuff
Lummis acknowledged Wednesday that the recissions package stems from President Donald Trump’s requests for federal budget cuts and findings of his Department of Governmental Efficiency.
“(I) believe we need even deeper cuts to rein in our nearly $37 trillion debt,” said Lummis. “The failed status quo that is bankrupting this country cannot be allowed to continue. This recissions package is just common sense.
“Wyoming taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for millions to bolster queer global movements, Palestinian media organizations or LGBTQI+ groups in the Western Balkans."
Those were references to findings that DOGE made regarding USAID spending. Yet Lummis and other lawmakers believed for years that USAID money was going toward food and shelter, not overseas culture wars, she told Cowboy State Daily’s Jake Nichols.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
