The Hill News

Every month, more than 170 million Americans have their lives enriched by tuning in or logging online to public radio and television stations. These local stations serve every major city and many small towns in America.  In many rural areas, they are the only source of free and high-quality local, national and international news, children’s shows, music and cultural programming.  Public broadcasters employ more than 17,000 people, providing family-wage jobs in every state.

Once broadcast and print journalism was local, but today that era is over.  A few giant, private companies dominate.  Public broadcasting is one of the few remaining journalistic institutions organized around and rooted in local communities.   There are over 9,000 local board members to assure community interests are reflected in programming. 

Local newspapers are shuttering their doors at an unprecedented rate, and national broadcasting networks are cutting back, making feder! al funding for public broadcasting more important than ever.  As most news sources are downsizing â€" if not closing â€" their foreign bureaus, leaving one person to cover all of Russia, public broadcasting is one of a handful of sources able to provide original content and news from abroad.

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