What was Behind the Cut to Georgia Public Broadcasting?
For GPB, March Came in Like a Lamb, Went Out Like a Lion
Just days after Georgia Public Broadcasting President Bert Wesley Huffman made a friendly appearance before an Appropriations Subcommittee, the Senate cut its proposed state funding by 26%.
March 9, 2023, GPB President Bert Wesley Huffman testified to the Appropriations Higher Ed subcommittee. There was no mention of any cuts and Senators expressed gratitude for their own appearances on GPB’s Lawmakers the night before.
GPB’s longtime CEO described the cut as a “shock” and the period of the legislative session as “the last few very stressful weeks” in an email to the network’s board. The email was obtained by this blog through an Open Records Request.
Adding to the mystery was the smooth confirmation of six of the board’s nine members during the same legislative session.
Huffman’s March 9th testimony before the Appropriations Higher Ed subcommittee yielded no warning of a forthcoming cut. Instead, Republican Chair Sen. Billy Hickman, who is new to that role this session, and Democrat Nan Orrock expressed gratitude for their appearances on GPB’s Lawmakers and complemented the professionalism of the makeup artists.
Lawmakers, a nightly recap of highlights of that day’s legislative session and interviews with legislators and other state officials, has been a staple of GPB Television since the 1990s. It predates the controversial agreement with Georgia State University in 2014 that gave GPB daytime control of college station WRAS in direct competition with Atlanta’s longtime NPR affiliate WABE.
WABE is licensed to the Atlanta Public Schools and is independent of the state network.
However, Huffman’s brief testimony was noteworthy in that he appeared before the subcommittee for the first time rather than CEO Teya Ryan.
Ryan had been President and CEO since 2009 but relinquished the role of President to Huffman in 2021. She remains CEO.
The 2021 legislative session also saw a cut to GPB’s state funding proposed by the Senate but quickly restored in conference committee with the House. No speeches or news coverage, other than this blog, mentioned the 2021 cut until this year.
The much larger cut this session was reduced in conference, but not fully restored and news of it did go public.
The only publicly stated reasons for this year’s cut came from the full Senate Appropriations chair Blake Tillery in response to a question from Democratic Senator Josh McLaurin.
Senator Josh McLaurin, 14th District, Democrat — Sandy Springs
“I want to raise an issue, I think’s been covered a little bit by media already, which is a 25% cut to Georgia Public Broadcasting. Obviously on its face, there are many members of the public who would have a concern about something like that. I mean the importance of public education via TV and radio can’t be [overstated] and so I just wanted to at least raise that question for you Mr. Chairman today to see if you could address the record on why the Senate version of the budget includes that cut.”
Senator Blake Tillery, 19th District, Republican — Vidalia, Appropriations Chairman
“Well, thank you Senator. Yeah. Happy to do so. It’s actually 26%. But that’s, thank you for that number. It takes the funding level from fourteen million to roughly ten million, I believe.
The reason behind it, if they look, if folks have questions in the media about it, they can look back at FY21 budget. They’ll see this is not the first time this has been addressed.
Over the years, other stations who are, I guess, would be viewed as competitors in the same space as GPB have brought a very valid argument to our body.
They said, ‘Hey why are you funding one and not the other.” Let’s be honest, what they’re really saying is why are you funding my competition. But I think that’s actually a very valid point. Why are we picking winners and losers? I don’t think that’s … the, space we want to be in.
So, the dollar value was reduced, I believe, in the FY21 budget one time already. We were able to come back and work things out. There’s not a hatred of GPB in this building. If you look back at our amended budget, there’s a six hundred thousand dollar add for lighting for their studios.
I think you’ll also see in this budget there’s a bond add for radio towers and other equipment necessary.I think the GPB education budget, if you look at our audits that were performed, I believe last in FY, it’d be FY20 because it was 2019–2020, Chairman Hill argued or pushed for that audit last, where the education program was a hit and it scored off the charts with the content it was being able to provide and I know it was multiplied during the pandemic.
So that we would love for the continued focus on educational programming. I think they have, maybe some of the competitors have struck a chord with members of this body and others who brought up the fact that, why are we picking winners and losers?
And we don’t want to be in that market and right now that argument is winning the day at least in this body.”
McClaurin seemed satisfied with the response and the budget passed in a near-unanimous vote. The lone Nay was by a Republican.
In response to press inquiries, including from this blog, WABE released a statement denying lobbying for a cut to GPB.
“WABE has no knowledge of any complaints being made about our sister public-media station’s funding. In our view, the more independent, unbiased news organizations serving the Greater Atlanta region, the better.”
WABE did complain in 2014, issuing a public open letter calling GPB’s takeover of WRAS a “waste of Georgia’s tax dollars.” Student, alumni, and public opposition was also vocal and #SaveWRAS protests continued into 2015 but were mostly ignored by state and city officials. The #SaveWRAS protests were a precursor of sorts to anti-elitist and populist backlashes of 2016 and beyond.
In response to this blog’s press inquiry seeking more information on the motivation for the cut, and an update on the negotiations, Senator Tillery issued a statement through the Senate Press Office at 5:30 p.m. on March 28th:
“…The proposed cut comes as a result of the conversation that started several years ago, as you know, with the cut originally proposed in 2021. That conversation has reached a crescendo among many Senate members, and the Senate budget reflects that. Given that continued crescendo around the state’s presence in this space, we proposed what we thought was best. As far as the status of the GPB section of the budget, there is nothing to report yet as we are still in conference at this time.”
The final budget was agreed to the next morning and included a reduced cut of 10% to GPB. It passed both legislative bodies that evening.
If GPB’s competition with WABE was the reason for the cut, a defiant GPB said in response to emailed questions that it had no intention of ending its presence on WRAS in Atlanta.
Q. Does GPB have any statement on the legislature’s budget cut?
A. GPB is grateful for the support we’ve received from the state, and we’re not the only organization to receive cuts. This is a process, and we will continue to serve our audiences and look to our other funding sources, including our donors, sponsorships and the CPB.
Q. Comments from Chairman Tillery suggest it was related to GPB’s competition with WABE. Will GPB consider ending its presence on WRAS?
A. No.
Q. Has it had any discussions with WABE about the cut? Perhaps altering the direct competition between the two public broadcasters including WABE’s status as a first-run PBS affiliate.
A. We’ve had no conversations with WABE about the cut.
Q. Or will GPB continue as is and try to make up the cut elsewhere?
A. We will continue to serve our audiences across all of our platforms with radio, tv, digital and education content and community engagement initiatives and look at our other sources of funding, including donor contributions, sponsorships and funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Thank you,
Mandy Wilson
Director of Communications
Georgia Public Broadcasting
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If there were other reasons behind the cut, fleshing them out will be tricky. Normally that’s the realm of political reporting, but since GPB is a regular platform for pundits and journalists, a full picture can’t emerge without implicating its regulars and the access relationships they benefit from.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s reporting on the cut ignored its own extensive ties with GPB, which began with the WRAS takeover and continued during the budget negotiations.
Not a Complete Shock
The 2021 budget battle wasn’t the first sign of dissatisfaction with GPB’s leadership.
A performance audit of GPB’s educational resources, alluded to in Sen. Tillery’s budget presentation this session, was conducted in 2019 at the request of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
It preceded mandated state budget cuts in 2020. To avoid more layoffs, GPB had cut content staff in Atlanta and its presence in Augusta, Ryan sought to end GPB’s million dollar contract with Discovery Education for streaming course materials. GPB argued PBS and its own original materials duplicated some of the same areas.
But the Discovery Education contract remained a priority for many state leaders and Ryan’s proposal to end the contract was rejected by the Governor’s office in that year’s first round of cuts and faced resistance in the second round from then Senate Appropriations Higher Education Subcommittee Chair Lindsey Tippins.
Sen. Lindsey Tippins: “The only comment I’d make, and I’m not saying this as a criticism, but I’m not, I’m not sure if it’s the function of government to preserve jobs. I think public service is the primary function of government and delivering services to the, to the people of the state of Georgia.”
Ryan expressed agreement with that attitude.
“Mr. Chairman, I completely agree with you and where are you used to doing that? We are a business that takes on a project and hires people for that project, not as full-time.”
Tippins ended Ryan’s segment by saying “Look forward to a final budget.”
But GPB did end the contract.
For GPB to continue clinging to its money-losing radio competition with WABE while cutting Discovery Education may have been an affront to some legislators’ priorities, even if the funds involved are separate.
The 2021 legislative session saw the brief cut of $477,000 to GPB described in its line-item as “Reduce funds to reflect realignment of focus on K-12 educational programming during COVID-19 pandemic.”
But if the budget disputes were about prioritizing education, they were complicated by news coverage of Georgia at the time and attacks on the press.
Emails obtained through an Open Records Request in 2021 showed Ryan believed the cut was a “swipe” for a perceived liberal bias in its radio content.
2021 saw extensive NPR coverage of efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results including by Republican members of the legislature.
GPB’s own political reporter was regularly criticized by MAGA supporters and barred from state Republican events.
In that context, and amid continued criticism of the media, it’s hard to view this year’s cut to GPB as a mere budget dispute.
It may be, but more transparency from all involved, lawmakers and media leaders alike, would help.
As a longtime critic of the takeover of WRAS, as much for the sleazy backroom nature that tainted GPB Atlanta from the start, a rebuke from the legislature may be appropriate.
Also in 2021, two members of GPB’s board resigned because they were ineligible to serve. It wasn’t a huge scandal, it was a technicality of GPB’s governing statute, but a sign of lax oversight by all concerned. Even the auditors missed it.
But if this year’s cut is part of a larger struggle between centers of power in state government, the House vs. the Senate or legislature vs. the Board of Regents, it doesn’t bode well for GPB’s independence as a news organization.
A Postponed Meeting.
In her email to the board Ryan said they would discuss what the cut means for GPB at its April meeting.
The meeting had long been scheduled for April 12th.
On the Monday before, this blog emailed to confirm the time and location and asked if Board members would be available for questions.
That evening a response came that both the Chair and Vice-Chair had conflicts and the meeting would be rescheduled for two weeks later.
No public notice was posted until the day of the meeting, after I inquired again.
By the 14th, agendas to GPB’s January meetings had been added. They had not been posted before the meetings.
We may learn more about the cut and GPB’s future at the meeting. Hopefully without trying to rewrite its past.
