Texas public media hopes to reinvent after federal budget cuts

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Public broadcasting executives in Texas insisted that they remain optimistic after losing millions of federal dollars that helped sustain their stations, arguing the deficit allows them to reinvent themselves.

Speaking to The Texas Tribune’s editor in chief, Matthew Watkins, executives in publicly-funded media organizations covering the news for rural and urban parts of the state said they would focus on rehabilitating their newsrooms' connections to their audiences.

“Obviously, this is not the outcome that we wanted, but it's the one that we have to deal with,” said Julie Grimes, general manager of Panhandle PBS, which broadcasts to 26 counties in western Texas, about 400,000 households. “I think this is a moment for us to grow and become stronger, because in the increasingly politically polarized environment that we live in, it's good for stations to be as independent as possible.”

In July, President Donald Trump made good on his word to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for public media organizations, a devastating blow for stations whose budgets relied on that money to pay employees and maintain equipment. Shockwaves followed. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ordinarily in charge of distributing that money among stations, announced in August that it would close.

Public media companies will need to scale back expenses even more than they're accustomed to, said Luis Patiño, president and chief executive officer of Austin PBS. Patiño said Austin PBS lost an expected $3 million in revenue, or 12% of its budget. Certain departments dedicated to educational services with funding from the federal education department lost $400,000. Patiño said he wouldn’t dwell on those losses.

“You'll hear from all of us that we will defend to the very bitter end our work in education, our work in community impact,” Patiño said. “Our mission and purpose work will be defended at the utmost, and that includes content and services, so I think you will see some scaling back on areas where we feel that it's not as consumer-forward.”

Corrie MacLaggan, executive editor for The Texas Newsroom and KUT News, said the cuts force her to fundraise in other ways, including hosting events and collaborating with other news organizations. The Texas Newsroom helps run stations across the state, from Austin and Houston to North Texas, San Antonio and Marfa. Still, she said, stations are bracing for the full effects of the cuts.

“There's a lot of unknown still,” MacLaggan said. “What is going to happen to the towers and the antennas and the receivers that get bombarded by the Texas sun and the wind and need maintenance to make sure that they can reach those rural communities? Are they going to have the money to do that?”

KUT News has been a financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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