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What you may not know is that when you contribute to WBAI you are helping to maintain an essential network of community informed and locally controlled public radio stations in over 40 states at a time when such independence is more critical than ever.
When we hear those diverse voices over our airwaves in New York, we are all edified, as is our democracy.
This is an era of increasing corporate news media consolidation, where federal regulators are actually requiring loyalty to the Trump administration as a prerequisite for approvals for mergers.
As I write this email, the Center for American Rights, that's aligned with FCC's Chair Brendan Carr, is pressing the regulator to take the broadcast licenses away from local NPR and PBS stations that were reliant on funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the GOP controlled Congress had defunded.
"If PBS and NPR cannot prove viable long-term business model as national networks--and if their individual affiliates cannot show long-term business models in each market-then this Commission needs to consider whether those channels (i.e., that spectrum) will become available in the near future for other potential licenses or uses," wrote the Center for American Rights.
That's right, they defund public broadcasting and then use that as their argument for taking away local broadcast licenses that don't pass their ideological muster.
While WBAI and our four sister stations, WPFW, KPFT, KPFK and KPFA have not received CPB funding in over ten years, for dozens of our affiliates CPB funding is a lifeline. For 18 months, WBAI has been partnering with the affiliates to deliver coverage of the RNC and DNC national conventions and broadcasting the Oct. 18 No Kings Day national day of protest across six time zones from Maine to Hawaii, from Florida to Alaska.
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