An urgent update from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB):
"Despite the events surrounding NPR this week, our challenge remains the same: protecting federal funding for local public broadcasting stations. It is critical that we use the coming 48 hours to remind Members of Congress of the important role local public broadcasting stations play in their communities. The House and Senate must take action to avoid a government shutdown before the current Continuing Resolution (CR) expires on March 18th. Next week Congress is likely to pass another short-term CR while they continue negotiating the final funding bill for FY11. However, even the short-term CR will have additional funding cuts and public broadcasting programs could be targeted.
We need to use the next 48 hours to send a clear message to the every member of the U.S. House and Senate: Federal funding for public broadcasting is about 1,300 local stations, 21,000 local jobs and the 170 million Americans who rely on public media monthly. Public broadcasting is too important to eliminate.
What can you do?
- Take action to protect public broadcasting at 170MillionAmericans.org.
- Contact Your Members of Congress (find 'em all). Make a round of calls to your Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senators and their district and Washington, DC staff.
- Spread this message to other public radio / TV supporters.