Public radio offers a refuge and resource at bargain rates

As has been acknowledged in these pages recently, there are larger fish to fry than public radio when it comes to the painful and necessary business of balancing the federal budget.

The total elimination of federal spending on public broadcasting — both radio and television — would reduce the national deficit by 0.03 percent. Every little helps, of course, and in a crisis everyone should do his or her bit. Public broadcasting should not be immune — and it isn’t.

Over the last two fiscal years alone, federal funding to public broadcasters has been cut by 13 percent, mainly by the elimination of hardware-related programs. If cuts of this magnitude had been applied across the board, it has been noted, the federal deficit would have been immediately reduced by a full third.

Public broadcasting, it could be said, has been doing its bit.

Here at Hawaii Public Radio, we’ve been doing it for years: pursuing policies of independence and prudence, while impressing upon our listeners the need for their responsible and regular support. Our reliance on federal support — less than 8 percent of our budget — is among the lowest in the nation. We have been nationally recognized and honored for the leanness and efficiency of our operation, and the fact that we are better prepared than most in our industry to weather federal cutbacks.

Just the same, we are much concerned about the inevitability of further cuts and their irreversible effects on our country’s well-being as a whole.

First off, let’s make it clear that this is not about NPR. Congress does not fund NPR, as was suggested in a recent headline in this section ("Should Congress pull the plug on funding National Public Radio?" Star-Advertiser, Aug. 27). Congress makes an annual appropriation to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — currently this appropriation stands at about $440 million — and the CPB then passes a quarter of this along to public radio in the form of grants to local stations (75 percent goes to public television stations).

Preference is given to stations in rural and "hardship" areas, so that stations less able to support themselves are more heavily subsidized. This grant money may be spent on programming, engineering, rent, support services — almost anything directly related to the expenses of broadcasting, except the salaries of core personnel. And, yes, many — though by no means all — CPB-qualified stations buy programming from NPR, among other sources. And that’s where the connection ends.

The CPB and its annual appropriations were brought into being more than 40 years ago to jump-start a national system of non-commercial broadcasters. Its creation was rooted in serious concerns over the potential hazards of an all-commercial broadcasting industry — a uniquely American phenomenon at that time.

Almost 800 public radio stations across the U.S. are the results of its efforts in radio, each of them serving their own communities, from small to super-sized, in their own unique way. And, yes, many of these stations — those of Hawaii Public Radio among them — are both proud and grateful to be a functioning part of the superb and internationally respected news organization that NPR has become.

In its own quiet, unassuming, mission-driven way, public radio has become one of the very few stable and reliable points in a turbulent media landscape. It pays its listeners the respect they deserve, assuming nothing but a healthy curiosity and an attention span of more than a few seconds. It is a refuge and a resource, invaluable both nationally and here in Hawaii.

Thirty cents per American per year is what public radio is costing us through federal support. Cutting it back more than we already have could be disastrous.

Let’s not.