Will NE Public Media Survive?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
President signed it just about two weeks ago, canceling approximately
one point one billion dollars that have been approved for
public broadcasting across the country. We've already heard from several
of the local radio and TV stations, of which there
are about fifteen hundred across America PBSNPR public media stations

(00:22):
who said, well, we're going to have to shut down
after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for
all this, announced this past week that they would have
to shut down after the government withdrew funding. We now
welcome here in Nebraska Public Media as general manager for
more on this and the impact your locally. Stacey Decker,

(00:43):
Welcome to eleven ten KFAB. Good morning, Thank you, Scott.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
I really appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Are you and Big Bird and everyone else doing a
bake sale or something like that here in Nebraska to
keep Nebraska public media on the air.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well, Scott, I love the idea, but you're getting to
a good point. We're having to get pretty creative here
in Nebraska on how we might fill the gap of
four million dollars or sixteen million dollars or I'm sorry,
four million or eight million dollars total sixteen percent of
our budget. But there's a lot of conversation about how
we might get creative here at Nebraska Public Media to
fill that gap.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
How did we get to the point where for years,
anytime someone would say, well, we got to strip some
of this money from public broadcasting, they shouldn't get any funds,
all the public broadcasters said no, no, it's it's barely
any of our budget. We don't get hardly any taxpayer money.
And now that that's been stripped away, suddenly so many
TV and radio stations say, well, I guess we're going

(01:39):
to have to shut down.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah. I think there's a significant difference in that narrative
from a national perspective or a local perspective. You know,
I'm having the responsibility of Nebraska Public Media here now
for the past nine months and having worked in public
media for close to twenty nine years. It does vary
from national to local. And obviously, as I mentioned, from
a local it's about sixteen percent of our budget. And

(02:02):
I don't care if you're a for profit or nonprofit.
If you know you cut that amount of money from
a budget, it requires you to get creative, do some
belt tightening, and really, you know, looking at the operation
overall to determine exactly what it is we do going
forward and what it is we no longer do unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, as I've been watching Nebraska public media over the years,
I've seen everything from local high school sports broadcast on
Nebraska Public Media to some great documentaries from Bill Kelly
and others. I think my favorite is where does the
Water Go?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Maybe?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Is what that was called. It was a fascinating here's
here's where the water starts and here's where it comes
through Nebraska. And I'm just it's like watching one bubble
in the water and following it as long as you can.
I was fascinated by a documentary like that. And then
you've got those who say, yeah, Nebraska public media and
other is just a it's just a tool for the

(02:59):
demoocratic party in this country. It's all a super political
biased and we've got to get rid of it. What
do you think about some of the accusations of politics
being involved in some of the public media across the country.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
You know, Scott, we hear it for sure, But I
will say you're pointing out exactly why Nebraska public media
is important to the state of Nebraska. And I would
say the same goes for a number of public media
organizations in different states across the country. It's because we
create content about the state, relevant content about this state.
The program you're talking about that Bill Kelly did about

(03:34):
water is a fantastic example. There's a new show recently
we did called State Science. You know, we're here to
help solve problems for Nebraska and to put Nebraska on
a pedestal. It's a special state. I strongly believe in
the reason I'm back here in Nebraska at Nebraska Public
Media is because Nebraska Public Media does such a wonderful

(03:55):
job in telling the stories of this state, whether it's
high school sports, our capital coverage, the news and journalism
that we do, and the emergency alarning services that we provide.
Even across your organization, you know, when your audience receives
an alert on KFAD that comes from Nebraska Public Media,
we do a.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Lot before we get a little further downstream, if you'll
pardon the pun. Based on the Bill Kelly documentary, there's
a new one coming up this week in a premiere
Sunday night, seven o'clock on Nebraska Public Media, The Last
Ride with John Cook. This is Nebraska's long time now
former volleyball coach, tell me about this.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
It's fantastic. Thank you for the opportunity to talk a
little bit about this program. You know, I'm sure, much
like a lot of people in Nebraska, when the announcement
book was made for you know, the John Cook was
stepping down. I personally felt that, and I'm sure a
lot of people across the state did. I can't say
enough about how we captured his life, the journey that

(04:58):
he's taken to become the coach that that he became,
and the work and support that he put in for
women's volleyball across the state and really across the entire country.
And I'm proud that Nebraska Public Media has been involved
in that service to the state. Since around nineteen eighty,
we've been involved in volleyball and helped make volleyball a

(05:21):
national sport and get it the recognition it deserves for
quite a long time. But this program is a bit
of a tear jerker. There's some laughs in it as well.
We did premiere to a small group of people in
Lincoln last week, and I don't think there was a
dry eye in the room.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, Nebraska Publicmedia dot org slash Last Ride for all
the details on how you can see this. It premiere
is Sunday, seven pm Central Time on Nebraska Public Media. Again,
check the website Nebraska Publicmedia dot org slash Last Ride
for more details on the Last Ride with John Cook
that debuts ThisDay night. Stacy Decker is with us GM

(06:02):
of Nebraska Public Media. I think a lot of people
have said across the country they want to see more
stuff like that. There have been those who have looked
at some of the guests who have been on This
is mostly a criticism of radio, because that's the tapestry
I weave every day and mangle it badly. But there
have been a lot of public media types of looked

(06:25):
at this and said, well, they have nothing but politically
left leaning reports and guests and alleged journalists on there,
and you almost hear no voices from the other side
of the country. Do you think I should phrase it
this way? Have you heard any conversations in Nebraska Public

(06:47):
Media that, all right, we're creating something, let's make sure
that it benefits one party over another. Has that ever
been anything that has been part of what you've heard
with Nebraska Public Media.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Absolutely not, you know, I am. I couldn't be more
proud of the work that our journalism team does. There
is a firewall between even myself and the journalism team
to ensure that I'm not putting pressure on that group
of people. They know the director, they know the mission
of this organization. I am. I'm proud to say, you know,

(07:22):
at least in the time that I've been here, in
the past nine months, I don't know that we've received
one complaint about the local journalism we do through the
election process. A lot of the stories that you've seen
broken recently on Nebraska Public Media, the team down there
does a phenomenal job. They work the entire state. It's
a big state, and it's a rural state. And you
know as well as I do, having been in this industry,

(07:45):
the rural communities are the ones that are suffering the most.
You know, as for profit organizations look at rural communities,
they've downsized those services in the small communities so much.
It's really why Nebraska pub with Media and Public Media exists.
We're not a for profit institution. We're not here to
make profit, and the services we provide are really important

(08:08):
to rural communities. Unfortunately, this cut that you've referenced is
going to have the most impact on those communities. That's
the challenge here. It really didn't do I think what
was intended by the federal.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Delegation well as I'm sure you know, anytime you bring
up politics, you're going to have some people who have
a very black or white view of whether or not
something is left or right or whatever. What about the
accusation that it's just an unnecessary expense, Like we here
on KFAB radio, we have to have a commercial every
twelve minutes from a guy telling you to get rid

(08:43):
of your time share. Otherwise I think that we get
shut down. We sell our own advertising here. We have
a lot of advertising messages, and we'd like to think
that we have some quality programming that sponsors want to
attach themselves to. Certainly Nebraska Public Media all the things
that we mentioned, including this John Cook documentary. You guys

(09:04):
do a great job at PBS nationwide with Ken Burns
and other stuff there. It's quality stuff. Why not sell
ads and get away from any public taxpayer dollars?

Speaker 2 (09:16):
You know that this is a misnomer that comes up
a lot our licenses that we have received and are
so gracious to have via the FCC do not allow
us to sell commercials. We're a nonprofit, non commercial institution,
and so we just we don't. It's not legal for

(09:36):
us to. Actually, they they keep a very close eye
on what we call underwriting to ensure that those underwriters
and you know those those messages I'm sure you've heard
them over the years where this this program is brought
to you by X Y or Z. That's about as
much as we can do. We can't do what they
call call to action like commercial organizations can. So we

(09:58):
can't say that an organization is the ask to will
provide you with this sort of that service for a fee.
We can't. We can't do the same thing that commercial
organizations can, and we don't want to. You know, for
that matter, we're a much different media institution than commercial organizations.
And so you know, while those programs ken Burns, the

(10:19):
Last Ride with John Cook all are beautiful examples of
products that we provide the country, uh, there's there's just
not a lot of room for profitability in those and
we don't do them for profit, and I think that's
what makes them significantly different. Often you receive those programs
uninterrupted without commercial breaks. That's another difference that we that we,

(10:41):
you know, provide as a service to the country.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
I think we've all been flipping around channels and happened
upon a concert. We're like, oh, wow, this is super cool.
They're showing this concert. In fact, last week we lost
Tom Lerrer, who a lot of people never heard of,
and I was laughing thinking about how I just saw
on Nebraska public media in the last couple of years
a Tom Larror concert in its entirety from Germany, I believe,

(11:07):
from nineteen fifty or sixty whatever. And of course these
concerts are often interrupted by bill We're here standing by,
and we've got operators here to take your phone calls,
your pledges to keep quality broadcasting like this on the air.
In fact, I've done some of that for public television
in my career and it's fun. And the phones rang

(11:28):
all night long since the President signed the bill, And
now the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Friday announced that
they're shutting down after the government withdrew funding and they're
going to be done here. Have the phones been ringing
from supporters of public media saying how much do you need?
Will sign the check.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
It's not been quite that easy. I'm very happy to
say that we heard loudly from our supporters that they
appreciate what we do, and there has been an uptick,
but it won't cover the four million annually and the
eight million overall that we've that we've lost. And then,
you know, going forward, it's not just about the clawback
that had taken place. It's about the future. Right we

(12:12):
no longer currently have any federal money coming to public media,
so I just don't I don't see it possible that
we can make up the difference through fundraising. We're going
to try, but definitely we're gonna have a challenge. You know,
you mentioned the cost and how people say that they
don't feel like some people, I should say, may not

(12:34):
feel like public media is worth the tax dollar. You know,
it comes down to a dollar sixty per person in
this country per year. You know, when you raise comments
like you did about Bill Kelly's water program or about
the last writer with John Cooks, I just asked people
to think about that. You know that at a dollar sixty,
you know the cost of the less less than a

(12:54):
cost of cost of a cup of coffee. We're providing
some really really interesting and good programming to people across
the country, and then you know, we can get into
conversation about kids and other things that we do. I
think that have inspired a generation of people over the
decades that we've been around that we're proud of, and
I think that that have data that shows it's had

(13:15):
an impact on children and their success in this country.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Unfortunately, politics being what they are, you'll have people that
point out that the PBS News Hour use the term
far right one hundred and sixty two times recently in
a six month period, but the term far left was
only used six times. And if we're going to have
this kind of political weaponization of public media, however we're

(13:40):
demonizing things these days, then it shouldn't be something that
should get pax payer dollars. It should be able to
stand on its own. We can all agree or disagree
on whether or not various forms of public media should
get or not get taxpayer dollars. The reality is stacy.
As you know, you've got a funding gap that you
need to make up. What now? And if people are

(14:01):
interested in keeping Nebraska public media on the air, what
can they do?

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, I really do appreciate, as I mentioned, the great
support we've received over the decades we've been around. This
organization's seventy years old. It's a conservative organization when it
comes to the way we've managed our funds. Because of that,
I think we do have the ability to make some
adjustments and have time to work through these changes. But

(14:27):
you know, having people lean into the fundraising efforts that
we have and they can find out where they might
be able to donate on our website, as you mentioned earlier,
it was www dot Nebraska Public Media dot org. They
can find out information there on how they can support
Nebraska Public Media. But while there, I would encourage them.
You know, I know a lot of your listeners are
big music fans. There's a program we do called Jam

(14:50):
as you've mentioned, and we've talked about the premiere of
The Last Ride with John Cook on August tenth at
seven pm. Well, there's a promo there for that program.
There's a lot of really good stuff on our website,
and you're pointing to the change in media and how
we will look to go into some digital platforms a
little more effectively. I think as we assess where we

(15:12):
need to go to be relevant, into the future. We've
been here for seventy years, and I have every intent
for us to be here for seventy more.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
The website is Nebraska Publicmedia dot org, so you can
learn more about this organization and get details about this
Sunday night's premiere of The Last Ride with John Cook,
an incredible profile of the longtime Nebraska and very successful
volleyball coach at Big Red. Stacey Decker GM of Nebraska
Public Media, I appreciate all the time today and thank

(15:41):
you very much for your perspective on this ongoing story.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Thank you, Scott, really appreciate the time