Where have all the heroes gone?

Mister Rogers defending PBS to the US Senate
In 1969, Fred Rogers appeared before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications. His goal was to support funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in response to significant proposed cuts by President Nixon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEuEUQIP3Q&feature=player_embedded

That Was Then, This Is Now
From TPT: http://www.tpt.org/?a=advocates
House passes bill to defund NPR and Senate passes new short-term CR until April 8
Posted Thursday
March 17th
@ 4:06 pm

House passes bill to defund NPR
The U.S. House of Representatives just passed the H.R. 1076 bill to prohibit Federal funding of National Public Radio and the use of federal funds to acquire radio content by a 228-192 vote. Here’s how our Minnesota delegation voted:
YEA (voted in favor of defunding NPR)
* Rep. John Kline
* Rep. Erik Paulsen
* Rep. Michele Bachmann
* Rep. Chip Cravaack

NAY (voted against the defunding of NPR)
* Rep. Tim Walz
* Rep. Keith Ellison
* Rep. McCollum
* Rep. Collin Peterson

The bill will now be sent to the Senate for consideration. Supporters indicate that neither the Senate nor the Administration will support the bill.The Administration did make their position known today through a formal statement opposing H.R. 1076.

Senate Passes a new short-term (three-week) Continuing Resolution through April 8
On Tuesday, March 15th, the House approved H.J. Res 48, a new short-term continuing resolution (CR) funding the government through April 8. This afternoon, the Senate voted to approve the same bill.

We were pleased that Members of the House recognize the valuable services local public television and radio stations provide to their communities by preserving the FY11 funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) ($430 million), and providing level funding for CPB Digital ($36 million), Ready To Learn ($27.3 million) and RUS Digital ($4.5 million).

Unfortunately, the CR that the House and Senate passed eliminates funding for the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), which received $20 million in FY10. For TPT and many other stations, the elimination of PTFP is very unfortunate. PTFP has funded necessary equipment for TPT in the past.