The Senate has voted to claw-back already congressionally appropriated funding for The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For WMRA, this represents $170,000, which is about 11% of our annual budget.
This moves the bill H.R. 4, which eliminates CPB funding, back to the House of Representatives for a final vote. It is expected that this final vote in the house will occur this evening at 7pm.
If you would like to contact your lawmakers and share your thoughts about federal funding for public broadcasting, Protect My Public Media can help you get in touch.
The permanent loss of 11% of our budget will certainly be a difficult hurdle to overcome, but our mission to serve this region of Virginia stays the same. While we're potentially moving into an uncharted future, our commitment to you will never waver.
The majority of funding for our service comes from listeners like you, who have allowed us to build our local news department to one of stature, recently collecting three more Virginia and National Awards. Local support has provided us the ability to reach out to our communities, with the WMRA Listening Tour underway this summer. It’s listener support that powers our independent and unbiased programming.
WMRA, NPR and a remarkable network of local stations will fight to continue to bring you rigorous journalism, courageous storytelling, inspired music discovery, and the kind of reporting that democracy depends on — every day, without fear or favor. That is the promise of a free press in a democracy. It's in the First Amendment. It is core to the mission of WMRA and to all of public media.
Matt Bingay
General Manager, WMRA & WEMC