STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Congress is debating President Trump's request to take back two years' worth of federal money that it previously committed to public broadcasting. The Senate has to vote on that request by the end of the week, or it expires. People who work at NPR and PBS stations in rural areas are watching. They contend that local stations offer news, educational programming and emergency warnings and, in some cases, cannot do it without those taxpayer dollars. That includes stations in my home state, which is also a deep red state. We'll note that no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story, which is reported by NPR's David Folkenflik.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: In Evansville, Indiana, the news is less fast and furious than deliberate and neighborly. Over on WNIN, a recent news roundup hit on overcrowding at the animal control center, high school sports highlights and a sinkhole by the riverfront.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It'd probably be a couple of weeks before we even knew what we needed to do to fix it.
FOLKENFLIK: WNIN is also known as Tri-State Public Media. It holds licenses for NPR and PBS member stations that primarily serve Southwestern Indiana but also reach into Kentucky and Illinois. Its chief executive is Tim Black.
TIM BLACK: Evansville is the urban center. But once you get outside that center, it gets fairly rural pretty quickly.
FOLKENFLIK: Other outlets focus on crime and weather updates. Black points to WNIN's documentaries about local churches, the state of the family farm, the role of factories there in World War II and the histories of gays and lesbians in town. On a "Crossfire"-style political talk show, the hosts are a sitting judge and a prominent attorney, both sporting major mustaches.
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LES SHIVELY: Patrick, we're back for the show in July.
PAT SHOULDERS: It's the hot summertime, and we have a hot show for you tonight.
FOLKENFLIK: Indiana Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith was up for the give-and-take.
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MICAH BECKWITH: I think elected officials have a duty to get out, talk to their constituents, take the arrows, answer the questions and push back a little bit. Like, if you believe what you believe, then defend it, right?
FOLKENFLIK: Black has worked at the station for 10 years, after decades in local TV.
BLACK: We're very good at giving them 30 minutes about an issue, whereas if you tune into a local commercial media outlet, you're probably going to get 30 seconds of something. And I think that's what we're providing to the community.
FOLKENFLIK: All of that, Black says, is now in doubt. As part of sweeping budget cutbacks in Indiana, elected officials unexpectedly eliminated all state funding for 17 Hoosier public broadcasting stations. That's about $3.6 million. That means a team of eight journalists who cover Indiana politics and policy for those stations will soon be disbanded. Black says more cuts are in store.
BLACK: I'm in the process of doing budgeting right now, and what it means for me immediately is some programming losses.
FOLKENFLIK: Local donors have stepped up, conditioned no doubt by years of pledge drives and text appeals, but Black says he's trying to avoid layoffs in his staff of 26.
Now Congress is debating the cancellation of all funds for public broadcasting. Local stations receive the vast majority of money allocated by Congress for public media, though a chunk of that money comes back to the networks to pay for their programs. Republicans control both chambers. And they are aiming their heat not at the stations, but at NPR and, to a lesser degree, PBS.
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JIM BANKS: NPR, by the way, the mouthpiece of the Democrat Party - the taxpayer should never have to pay for that.
FOLKENFLIK: This is U.S. Senator Jim Banks, a Hoosier, in a post on Instagram last week.
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BANKS: Stay tuned and see who's really serious about doing what it takes to cut spending and waste. I can tell you that I'm serious about it.
FOLKENFLIK: Like other Indiana public officials, Banks declined to comment for this story, and his office did not respond to my questions about his position on the local stations.
U.S. Representative Mark Messmer represents Evansville. He has told constituents that funding for NPR and PBS is wasteful and that public broadcasting fails to be objective. Black says every now and then, he thinks a story falls short, too. But he says he values the networks, and so do his listeners and viewers. The loss of state and federal funds would wipe out close to half of Black's annual budget.
BLACK: If I truly lose federal funding and it gets added to the state funding loss, then, you know, I'm immediately taking about $1.5 million out of my pocket.
FOLKENFLIK: Donors can't make up that difference.
BLACK: That is pretty darn close to being catastrophic.
FOLKENFLIK: That would shred WNIN's financial reserves in a year or two, force the sale of his headquarters, and still it might go dark. If public media endures in Indiana, would it cover county school board meetings, the region's farms or sports teams or fudgemakers, its smaller triumphs, along with the trials and traumas? Black says he doesn't know who would report or tell those stories.
David Folkenflik, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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