8 comments

  • mikeyouse 1 hour ago
    Of course it’s due to the federal funding cuts. At least DHS got 2,000x more than these cuts saved from PBS as our deficit continues to explode.

    https://current.org/2025/11/weta-to-cut-staff-cancel-pbs-new...

    • codeddesign 1 hour ago
      [flagged]
      • ch2026 54 minutes ago
        President Trump explicitly signed an Executive Order to defund public media: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/endi...
        • xp84 43 minutes ago
          Okay, but do you actually know what monies changed hands under the now-ended agreement? Perhaps PBS was not paying ASU, as the person quoted said, it was a mutually beneficial relationship. ASU got to have a very cool internship opportunity right on site of its prominent J-school.

          If PBS was not paying significant money to ASU, then it is unlikely to be related to federal politics.

      • bc3 1 hour ago
        This is inherently political. The "revised priorities" are clearly because of our current economic and political climate. Your comment is intentionally obtuse or malicious.
        • codeddesign 35 minutes ago
          Malicious? It’s clear that the journalism program at ASU is at a loss and the university is prioritizing profitable programs. You are making a lot of personal assumptions from minimal text to support your statement. The school certainly has the funds to keep it open but are choosing not to.

          What you are referring to is whether PBS as a network decided to not renew their contract with the University due to budget cuts. In which no statement has been made about this yet and would be nothing more than conjecture at this point.

          IF that is the case, there is a bigger question at play: “is it a public service if the public is required to pay but not allow to contribute?”. For example, not everyone is allowed to enroll in the University.

      • trial3 56 minutes ago
        what are the revised priorities? what revised the priorities? maybe consider doing just the teensiest bit of journalism of your own
        • codeddesign 23 minutes ago
          That part is fairly easy to understand with a few google searches. Journalism programs are at a loss across the country and have been in decline for some time. When a university program is not profitable they close the program.

          Low wages, less employment opportunity, and the decrease in interest of writing. Combine this with social media and the age of influencers - you suddenly have a huge decline across the board.

          Journalism is not what you see on tv. Those are essentially actors and are the 1%. The rest are those writing in newspapers (in decline) and making barely livable wages with most on contract rather than salary. It’s an incredibly difficult line of work when it comes to wages and job security.

  • slantedview 1 hour ago
    It's no coincidence that at a time of eroding democracy, public journalism is being cut.
    • meltyness 43 minutes ago
      As an avid and long term PBS viewer, donor, news hour west was 90% a waste of time anyway. Most evenings it is virtually the same broadcast, same segments. Media is more VOD-oriented anyway. They have been posting both broadcasts to YouTube for years, so you can assess this if you'd like.

      The exception is if there's something notable to report on between 5PM and 8PM EST

    • chasil 44 minutes ago
      At the same time, even with the mayhem of the current executive, it is important to read the room.

      The house of representatives controls the budget. Moderating perceived bias would be an obvious survival strategy.

      Edit: Oh, drat, I've been ostracized. Whatever will I do?

      • Braxton1980 29 minutes ago
        >Moderating perceived bias would be an obvious survival strategy.

        >Oh, drat, I've been ostracized. Whatever will I do?

        Because you seemed to think the issue was the lack of reason when it's actually the reason itself.

        Also, the government acting on perception instead of evidence is horrible.

        In my opinion the claims of bias at PBS were done to keep the core Republican voter base energized. They've been told to not trust the media while Trump appoints multiple Foxnews employees to high level positions in the government.

    • codeddesign 56 minutes ago
      [flagged]
      • jjulius 51 minutes ago
        This entire response is disingenuously obtuse.
        • codeddesign 20 minutes ago
          Like it or not, the entire response is accurate.
  • junkypuppet 2 hours ago
    The article doesn’t mention it, but I wonder if this has anything to do with ASU’s President trying to cozy up with the Trump administration [0]. Trump has already at least tried to cut federal funding for PBS [1]. I’m not sure where that’s at now.

    [0]: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/arizona-state-universi...

    [1]: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/nx-s1-5384790/trump-orders-en...

    • slicedice 2 hours ago
      It got cut.
      • DrewADesign 1 hour ago
        People shouting about PBS news being horribly biased are just flat-out wrong. Obviously their viewership leans centrist liberal, but no other news program in recent times approached their level of nonpartisanship when dealing with national politics. Regardless of their affiliation, they’d ask most interviewees a couple of pointed questions but always let them explain themselves uninterrupted, and let them have the last word unless it was blatantly false. In the Obama era they regularly had top Republican leadership on from that era and years past— Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, and Mitch McConnell were on there all the time. I’ve seen Steve Bannon respectfully (actually rather warmly) interviewed within the past year, as well as people from the heritage foundation, Manhattan institute, Cato institute, and other people from across the right-wing spectrum.

        David Brooks isn’t representative of the Republican mainstream at the moment, but they’ve started getting more representative Republican counterpoints on their panels over the past few months, even after the republicans cut their funding.

        They present a more reasonable, tempered, and charitable perspective on both political parties than any other major news outlet.

        Culture war bullshit.

        • every 23 minutes ago
          PBS and NPR have long been my go-to sources for news. Very much in the classic "who, what, when and where" vein. Editorial content is small, segregated and usually includes advocates for both sides. Blissfully boring and informative...
        • meltyness 38 minutes ago
          The first half is usually solid, the back half is, well, usually more opinionated/softer. Lots of interviews with professors who seek to have their opinions represented as facts or members of the public have their plight elevated as serious national policy concerns.
          • Braxton1980 28 minutes ago
            >professors who seek to have their opinions represented as facts

            How do they do that and how do you know it's their intent?

            • meltyness 11 minutes ago
              https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqr95elV5io&t=2108s

              Probably best to dissect a specimen. I guess really the guy's just hocking his book here, but it's vacuous and packed with opinions and pessimism, and really not particularly high quality journalism.

              For example, I disagree with the opinion that LLMs can't be a free lunch, or at least can't be CAPEX instead of OPEX, which Reich doesn't realize in the stated opinion.

              I had to go back pretty far to find a professor, specifically, the first few were social outreach or labor organizers.

              • Braxton1980 3 minutes ago
                Your claim was professors want their opinions to be considered fact.

                Promoting a book doesn't do that. Having opinions is normal and what we are talking about. Whether the person is pessimistic has no relevance here and I would like to know why you presented that as evidence.

        • chasil 26 minutes ago
        • wyldfire 1 hour ago
          > People shouting about PBS news being horribly biased are just flat-out wrong.

          "Truth is treason in an empire of lies" - George Orwell

        • Forgeties79 1 hour ago
          After I heard someone call McConnell a RINO I knew that no amount of concessions would make them feel coverage was “fair.” It’s Trump’s way or the highway.
  • user3939382 56 minutes ago
    ASU accepted $20M in criminal gains IMHO AFAICT. I have receipts
  • RickJWagner 2 hours ago
    I’m glad Walter Cronkite is remembered through that school. In my mind, he was one of the last great journalists from an era that wasn’t strongly politically biased.
    • Braxton1980 12 minutes ago
      Is it possible you think there's a stronger political bias in the media today than in the past because of proganda designed to make you think that?
    • lettergram 1 hour ago
      When I read that I'm always personally confused. He had a commanding voice and had an aurora of being above it all. But when you listened and watched what he actually did, he seemed very political in my mind, though perhaps more of a moderate(?).

      He even advocated for world government, endorsed politicians, etc.

      • themafia 1 hour ago
        Uncritically accepted the Warren Report.
  • zzzeek 42 minutes ago
    Paging MacKenzie Scott....
  • askh4 2 hours ago
    [dead]
  • djaouen 3 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • JoshTriplett 2 hours ago
      The article has ads in it?

      (uBlock Origin successfully blocks all of them.)

    • t0lo 1 hour ago
      Sign of the times
    • alephnerd 2 hours ago
      Are you going to spend a couple hundred dollars a year on a subscription?

      Good, freely accessible, and ad-free press. You can only choose 2.

      The economics of journalism are tough.

      • SoftTalker 2 hours ago
        Strangely we used to think nothing of paying for a daily newspaper (which also contained ads) and many people subscribed to news magazines as well.
        • ipaddr 1 hour ago
          Have you tried going back 80% ap articles, some opinion columns, classifieds and sports with a lifestyle section.

          We are living in an era of more news, different formats more in depth. I think our expectations are misaligned we expect everything to be one click away and social media to present it to us in a doom scroll. The articles shared just here on hn you would never find in a newspaper. If you are lucky you discover a zine like phrack or 2600 and wait months for the next issue.

          • xp84 35 minutes ago
            I read the newspaper, just like you described, in the 90s and 2000s as a kid. It was really interesting and valuable. Honestly, yeah, that sounds amazing.
        • DrewADesign 1 hour ago
          Yeah. This is the tech world making everything better. Sure the news is biased, poorly-written garbage, but you can have a lot of it, instantly, for like no money!
          • xp84 37 minutes ago
            The Internet is not devoid of good quality media. Yes, some of it you have to pay for. The free papers we had before the Internet were never bastions of great journalism (though I'll admit that national TV news once was once pretty decent, and free).

            And all news is biased. The only thing is, you can only see the bias towards your ideological enemies. When it's your bias, it's called "the truth."

      • golem14 1 hour ago
        I wonder if https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events is actually a good media diet. I mean, I wonder if I will be OK just reading this (and maybe HN) and not suffer irreparable harm :)
      • Wowfunhappy 2 hours ago
        PBS News Hour is all three.

        :(

        • dingnuts 1 hour ago
          the reason they got defunded is because many people do not agree
      • lynndotpy 2 hours ago
        The economics are rough, but there are many which offer all three. E.g.: NPR's text site: https://text.npr.org/
      • djaouen 2 hours ago
        > Are you going to spend a couple hundred dollars a year on a subscription?

        I would have, if this planet didn't f*ck me over yet again with crippling poverty lol

        • mystraline 2 hours ago
          > I would have, if this planet didn't f*ck me over yet again with crippling poverty lol

          You misspelled capitalists. They are the ones who are fucking you, me, and anyone with money.