From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Raquel, Steven.

Today we're facing a pivotal moment for public media, both here at WXXI and nationwide.

Just days ago, Congress gave final approval to a Rescissions package that includes a full $1.1 billion cut in federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over the next two years.

The Senate passed it 5148, and the House followed suit with a 216 to 213 vote.

The package, now headed to President Trump for signature, also slashes nearly $8 billion in foreign aid.

This is the first time federal support for NPR, PBS and over 15 100 local public media stations has been eliminated since CPB was established in 1967.

Advocates warn that rule in smaller market stations are most at risk, and that millions could lose access to emergency alerts.

Local news and cultural programing.

What does that mean for you?

Our listeners here at 60.

We're entering a new phase in.

Our president and CEO says it'll be one.

It'll be one with no immediate service disruptions.

Promise.

Yeah, but maybe some changes behind the scenes.

Joining me in studio now is Chris Hastings, president and CEO of Sky.

Here to talk to us through what this means for our listeners, our staff and public media's future.

Thanks for joining me, Chris.

Thank you.

And as always, we invite our listeners to join the conversation.

You can call us at 1844295 talk.

That's 1-844-295-8255.

Or at (585) 263-9994 email us at connections.org or comment in the chat section on our YouTube challenge.

Here we are, the most anticipated show of the year, I'll say.

Chris.

Congress has now finalized the rescission, ending federal CPB funding entirely over the next two years.

What does this moment feel like for you as our leader?

I'm going to say I'm disappointed that, Congress and this administration decided to pull funding to claw back funding that was already allocated to public media, by the American people.

And I think that's sort of for me, I don't I don't I don't take disappointment lightly.

Yes.

But this wasn't unexpected.

No.

I started a week after, the election in November.

And I can tell you, when I was interviewing, this was always a possibility, and I still wanted the job.

This is a moment for us to really pay attention to what's going on, beyond just public media.

I think we're in a fight for public space.

This isn't the first cut from this administration where it directly affected, a service that's meant to help people and public media is here to be of service to our community.

So I'm disappointed.

But I will tell you that I'm resilient.

Yeah.

And I think to make I made the right decision to come to this city, to lead this station at this moment.

Because at the center of our strategic plan is community and this community.

They love the sky.

And then they see the value of public media in this community.

And so I feel I feel ready for the fight.

Yes.

And I'm talking about community.

You've consistently said there's still time for the public to make their voices heard while we're going through this fight.

Is that moment over?

Yes.

I mean, it's over for this part of the process, right?

On Friday, Congress club back $1.1 million.

But you, as citizens in this democracy, you should always be talking to your representatives and your senators and your president about what you think of their decisions.

You know, I think this is why public media is so important in this moment.

We're here with our product is information.

And what we're trying to do is inform you what government is doing.

You know, even though this this vote was on Friday and they made a decision.

The beauty of democracy is it was a legal decision.

I'm not going to get away in that.

But I can also tell you that as citizens in Rochester, in the Finger Lakes, you have the power to continue.

Continue.

Look at who voted and who didn't vote.

And look how they voted.

Give them a call.

You know my job.

Your job is to inform you what happened on Friday.

I can't tell you what to say when you reach out to them.

I know what that hope you say.

But I hope what we're doing in giving you information and talking with you today is that we're empowering you to make the decision that you think is right for you and your family.

And what what is your message?

For those who may be happy with this decision by the federal government?

That's a difficult one.

I mean, here's the thing.

If they're happy about this decision, then, great for them.

We we have a different opinion, but that doesn't mean that we're not all American.

You know, one of the biggest sort of problems I have with, this debate for this for many months.

Is this what I want to call a myth that public media is biased?

You know, I wrote something a couple weeks ago, maybe even last week.

While this has gone on that that's been the frustrating thing when I'm getting responses from people that says that we are biased.

Are we biased because we're doing journalism?

Are we biased because we're we're telling stories that we think need to be heard?

I think it's important that we engage on this topic with those folks who say we're bias, because journalism by definition, isn't meant to be bias.

The people who are journalists, they're human, and they may have an opinion, but if they're if they're good at their journalism, and I think we are, you know, hopefully they're not bias.

And we have editors to make sure that we're we're fact checking, but also that we're checking our bias.

Even in this conversation right now.

There's a room of people over there that are watching.

Make sure I don't say something wrong.

You know, there's a room of people who wrote up questions for you to make sure that they're balanced.

Yes.

You know, journalism.

Journalism shouldn't be biased if it's done right.

Now, there are platforms that are intentionally biased, and I'm not going to call them by name.

You know, and because of the internet, there are lanes that have been created that's not journalism.

You know, when it's all the way over there.

Over there.

You know, I think what's important is I think and in defense of NPR and PBS and and the WXXI news, I'm in this game because I want truth.

I want true information.

I want it in a timely way.

If somebody is coming after me, I want you to tell you.

They tell me they're coming after me.

Yeah.

You know, I think it's important that as we move forward with people who are happy for this decision, that we engage them, and we continue to try to educate them of what journalism could be.

Yeah.

To educate them.

So they're educating their kids so they know what journalism looks like on TikTok.

Right.

And there is good journalism on TikTok.

There's good journalism on Instagram.

But it's all a little bit gray right now because everybody has access to make a story.

I can tell you the work that we're doing here in this room on the third floor and the first floor.

We are we're trying to be really balanced in our approach.

We're trying to tell the stories that are important for this community.

You know, progress is not a straight line.

I can't say we always get it right, but we always question ourselves to make sure.

Could we do it better?

We're always looking for the other point of view.

I know Evan has sat in his room many times saying, I really want to hear from people who don't agree with this point of view.

I hope that guy works safe place, a public square, for all opinions, even if you don't agree with them.

I hope we're building a platform and we're going to continue to build a platform for truth.

Yes.

Particularly in Rochester, because we need truth right now.

There's a lot, a lot of people with opinions all over the place.

And while opinions are a First Amendment right, we still need balance.

We still need to be able to, to to be, centered in our approach.

And I actually really do think we are.

And I'm happy to have that conversation with anybody, about what they feel.

Yeah.

Because I actually feel differently.

But I think we can have a really good discourse on what journalism can be.

In America today, I would say as, as a reporter, the WXXI brand, right when I, when I step into a room and I'm represent representing WXXI, there's a level of credibility.

There is a level of respect there that we get from the community because of our, our journalism and that we report the news.

So I would have to definitely agree that what we do here, is give that in-depth both sides in, in good journalism.

Great journalism.

But you know you said listeners won't see the immediate changes.

Can you walk us through what you're doing now to keep things running smoothly?

You know, the impact of this cut is an immediate, we get, a CPB grant every year.

And we were supposed to get a new grant in October.

Part of it.

Not all of it.

Timing is one of the things that is giving us a little cushion.

Yeah.

We had multiple pledge drives in the spring, and we kind of knew things were going that way.

And so we have a little bit of a cushion last year, like in the like when we talk fiscal year, June 30th of the fiscal year.

And we were pledging with the understanding that this might happen.

So we got a little bit of a cushion and give it a a couple of months on it on our cash flow.

I don't mean to use a bunch of business terms, but we zxi compared to other stations in the country.

We have, a little bit of a reserve.

I've talked to you about the community.

The community is in partner on site.

This is a community station.

Our largest source of revenue actually does not come from CVB.

It actually comes from you all.

Well thank you.

We we really appreciate you.

Because as we started raising an alarm, you stepped up and you gave us a little time that we don't have to make immediate changes.

We do have to make changes because as we think in the months ahead, we're not getting that CPB grant and primarily that CP grant when it comes in.

It allows us to pay for PBS content that allows us to pay for NPR content.

That content is important because it's the more, robust, high quality content that partner pairs with our local content.

It gives you Masterpiece Theater.

It gives you the kids content.

It gives you Nova.

It gives you those legacy programs that you count on.

It also gives you Morning Edition from from Washington, D.C. to give you national, international news.

And so that that content is is rather pricey.

And that's something that we have to sort of pay attention to that we want to keep PBS content and pure content coming in the Rochester's.

We have to figure out, okay, well, we're not going to get support from some CPB.

We got to figure out to pay for that.

Yeah.

So the changes might happen where we might need to, you know, tighten up behind the scenes so that we can keep paying for PBS and NPR content.

What that looks like at the moment, I don't know.

We have been having conversations for the past couple of months about how we reorg ourselves, and we have been in a reorg that started with or without that CP Lincoln coming in.

We need to optimize anyway because outside of public media, media consumption has changed.

You know, we need to be putting connections on TikTok.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You stressed this.

You've stressed.

I'm stressed it since I got here.

And so that doesn't change.

We still need to be a more digital first in addition to public radio.

Public TV and those things are just part of the evolution of how how people are consuming it.

Now this is a huge cut, and that means we're going to have to make some decisions and like, okay, well how many people do it?

Do we need to be on YouTube and TikTok?

Maybe just YouTube for a while.

You know, I can't give you a clear answer of what changes we're going to make because we're literally in the midst of sort of understanding and digesting this.

It's 48 hours old.

Yeah.

Yes.

But we were already on a on an evolution.

Yeah.

We already making those changes.

We're already making those changes.

And Rochester Finger Lakes region is is set to lose about $2 million.

And it's about it's about 1.9 million.

I know during the pledge drives you were saying 1.2 Z is is a is an interesting situation in that we operate, two stations in the Finger Lake that get individual grants and all those grants that and when you add it all up, along with, some other direct funding that we, that we used to get from CPB, like ready to learn, we used to get direct funding for our education content.

It added up to about $1.9 million.

So it's not just the money that we would have gotten for WXXI, it's w us, it's WITF.

Are ready to learn.

Grant went away in the spring.

This is it's it's it's it's hard to wrap your head around what has just happened.

And our station, I think, is in a better position than in some other stations in smaller markets.

It's it's, I want to use the word trance formative in that there's also a bit of an opportunity in this for us to rewrite the playbook.

And that playbook is okay the way it's in the book.

You get your CPB appropriations, you go buy PBS content, you buy NPR content, you do local content.

Well, we might need to do it a little bit differently.

You might need to do a little bit digital first.

It accelerate some things we probably needed to do anyway.

Yeah.

And I would say it's a, it's a hard to wrap our head around because I actually really do believe and I've seen polls that most Americans value this content.

I have not seen a poll that says that that, that there's, people want it to go away.

And I'm not convinced that as the administration builds its budget for the fall, they still have to do a budget that starts October 1st, that they don't build in some public media funding.

Yeah.

So I, I may be the most optimistic CEO in the system, and I'm, I'm not waiting for that to happen.

But we are pretty optimistic.

You know, I'm I'm a student of history and politics.

You know, in addition to making films over the years, I used to make a lot of history docs.

Compromises happen at any point when you have, different administrations and congresses that are trying to govern.

And at this moment, this administration and this Congress are governing, no matter what you feel about it, they've chosen to go this way.

But I go back to where I started in this conversation.

The American people still have the ability to make their voices heard.

You know, yes, there's an election, a midterm election, but there are local elections that are happening.

It's super important that people stay, participate in the process at every level, whether you vote, whether you write letters or you make phone calls.

It's super important that you let these people who are supposed to be representing us know what you really want and in just a spirit of being hopeful, I wanted to make a note that actually predates CPB.

Yeah, right.

And we started off in 1958 as, Rochester Area Education Television Association, and changed over to WXXI in 1966.

Right.

So we've we've done this for about ten years without the funding.

Does that make you hopeful for the future?

Yeah.

You know, when you think about this federal funding, that was, enabled because of, the 1967 Public Media Act, you know, Congress and at the time, the president, they enabled this funding because at the time, commercial media was was they covered a vast wasteland.

You know, like it's written, it's a vast wasteland.

And we need public media to be able to share underrepresented voices.

I'm probably not paraphrasing that.

Right.

But, educational television.

Educational radio was already in play.

Yeah.

You know, Z will be 60 next year.

Yeah.

In 2026, the same time America is going to be 250, exact AI is going to be 60.

And what I, what I, and there are some public media stations like WGBH, my former employer, there was 75.

What's important is we are also a small business.

Yeah, we're a media company.

You know, they're they're gonna they're going to take the money that was allocated to us by the American people, but they can't take our mission.

That mission predates the 1967 law.

The mission is to use media to educate the American people.

And we're going to keep doing that.

We just might have to do it a different way.

They can take our money, but they can't take our mission.

They can take the American people's money is not our money, but it's American people's money.

I want to touch on, the possibility of workforce reduction.

Right.

You didn't mention that.

And I know that's been that's been whispers in the in the in the network, in, in the building.

What factors are being weighed as you prepare those decisions?

First of all, I want to say that, to the staff, I love you guys.

I think you do really good work.

I think the moment is transformative in that we have to make some changes that we might not want to make.

But for the for the, for the health of the organization, we may have to do that.

Yeah.

And I say May because we also have the opportunity to fundraise our way to the point where we don't have to do that.

You know, I talked to Beth Ann Adams on Friday about it.

And and when I said it, I probably should just lead with we're going to try to fundraise first and there are multiple options we're going to have to get to before we get to that, but we can't take it off the table.

We want a healthy organization with a balanced budget and our largest expenditure at the moment is our people.

Right.

And so we're really taking a look at what kind of organization we want to be.

That's the work we're doing this month.

We're looking at our cash flow over the next three, the 6 to 12 months.

We're looking at other grants.

We want to try to get people unrestricted grants based on the project level.

We have so many projects that we're doing.

There may be grants where we might be able to save some jobs.

I would say that we're taking a holistic look at this as we look at the the organization we want to be in the future.

Digital first, we're looking at what the community needs.

They need news and they need children's content.

And so we're really going to be thoughtful about that and make sure that we're balancing out whatever changes we need to make with what the community needs.

Yeah.

And I'm going to be honest with you, we're going to be really thoughtful about how we manage our money.

Yeah.

So we're I, I want to ask I know digital first.

Right.

Where does layoffs come in in your hierarchy?

It's not even the top three.

Okay.

It's not because we are literally, working on what happened Friday and trying to figure out how can we at least start filling that gap?

You know, I actually I'm kind of optimistic from what I the way we ended the fiscal year at this community and being transparent with them that they're going to step up.

It's my community is at the center of our strategic plan.

Everything we do, the fundraising, the content, the platforms is because this community values WXXI.

So my first step is can we fundraise in chunks so that we don't have to make layoffs?

But I also know to build audiences.

We need to be more digital first.

And so those things have to happen at the same time is why we put connections on YouTube.

Because when I got here, yeah, I was just playing on a radio.

You know, it's why we're investing in podcasting in the next couple of months, because more people get their content on demand.

What's important for me is that we try to right the ship of sustainability.

Before we start talking about, oh, we're not sustainable, I start laying people off.

So I don't want to gaslight anybody.

But that's not my first thing that we're going to do.

The first thing we're going to do.

And if you got my letter this morning, I need to fill in $1.9 million gap.

Can you help me?

Yes.

You know, and we are been having lots of conversations with community leaders.

We've been having lots of conversation with funding partners.

I have some partnerships that I, you know, from organizations that I've worked with for years, and this is them that I'm hoping to bring to Rochester.

I think what's important is that we need to really use this as an opportunity to be a media company.

We're a public media company, but we're going to be a media company and to readership.

As we make content, we make money.

We sustain.

Yeah.

And I know we we do have a caller on the line already.

We have, is it Kevin from Victor?

He's on the line.

Hello?

Kevin.

Hi.

Hi, Kevin.

You hear me?

Okay.

Yes, we can hear you.

Great.

So I know you have some some comments for us.

You can go right ahead.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

Mr. Hastings, you sound like a really a really thoughtful person and a sincere person, and I really appreciate that.

And, I wish you success in this position, but I would just like to say, earlier you you said that you don't see any bias at all at NPR, and I just have to really respectfully disagree with that.

And NPR is wildly biased, and they have been for a long time.

And, and just to use something that every Berliner said recently, he said, you know, NPR really shot themselves in the foot because they allow themselves to be captured by the progressive French.

Said they're not liberal.

They're controlled by a progressive French.

And I absolutely believe that to be true.

And just to give you a couple examples.

In NPR, there's a woman named Odette Yousef.

She's like, there extremism person.

You know, the extremism desk, every every piece that she's done that I've heard there's been probably 25 pieces has been about conservative being extremist and dangerous.

Not one about, let's say, Muslim extremists or Antifa or Black Lives Matter extremism.

None of that.

It's all conservative people.

Another another area.

Is the abortion issue.

Just a dab decision.

There's been over 150 pieces, related to abortion.

All of them have been with a pro-abortion slant.

I've never heard a pro-life piece on NPR.

Never.

Not even remotely.

Just those two things in themselves.

Tell me if something is planted at NPR and in a real big way.

Well, I respect your opinion and thank you for pointing out those examples.

I guess my question for you is have you ever written a letter to the public editor, NPR to express your concern about that?

Well, I've talked to Avon before locally because I think that you can do a lot of things locally.

Oh, totally.

And totally.

But I think one of the things that you can do, because NPR is a different desk than, than I is, I do really think it's important.

Just like you, you get to call your congressmen and your senators.

NPR has a public desk where you, as a listener, can challenge them if you feel like they have a bias.

And I'm not here to defend NPR.

I don't I don't I haven't really looked at the numbers or everything that you called out.

But I am sensitive to it as a leader of a public media organization, because I think all newsrooms have an obligation to be balanced in what they decide to cover or not cover.

And I think what's important for us locally is I know we are very trying to be conscious of that balance.

You know, I think one of the things we need to work on is, our regional, reach, like, we I just told you, we have two stations in the Finger Lakes, but we need more stories from those regions.

But I do challenge you to because we're going to continue to share in NPR content.

You know, when you when you see things like that, please, please call the public editor.

Please send the email about the things that you see.

Check them.

Okay.

I didn't know that was an option, actually.

But but let me just say this a rebel and you know who he is, right?

I do, I do.

Okay.

Okay.

Very.

Berliner said when he spoke up about things over and over again.

People just totally dismissed it and disregarded him.

He got nowhere with anyone.

So that's a guy who's worked this 25 years as an editor there.

So me a guy from Victor New York calling and.

I don't think I'm going to really have a big influence on on the piano although it is.

I'm glad there's that option.

I would just like to suggest to you that you do your best, because you seem to care about fairness and objectivity.

You do your best here, and I you exercise kind of to lead the way in objectivity and fairness.

That would be a great thing.

That is my call center.

Okay.

And I think that Evan tries to do a good job.

I mean, he's definitely a left leaning person, but he tries to be fair, and I appreciate that.

I think Rockwell Kyle, you're doing a great job.

I'm really impressed with your abilities.

Thank you.

Oh, I would like to see WXXI become really something good.

You know better from my perspective and people who, you know, who think like I do, just want to see their opinions represented somewhat.

Well, our doors are open.

So thank you for sharing your opinion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Along those lines, we have a comment from Charles on YouTube and in, Charles said people who are happy with this situation, I believe, are scared of the truth.

They want to be told what to believe.

You know, I you know, I don't know.

You know, I do think there's oh, in 2025, we're in a, in a very, divided country.

Yes.

And I do think we need to pull people with different points of view to the public square so that we can talk this out.

Yeah.

You know, our history.

We're going to be 250 years as a country, next year and very time we've had a lot of division.

Right.

But we have also had times we had to come together and really talk it all through.

This is one of those times when we really need to talk about truth.

And, I'm here for the conversation.

I hope, you know, as we sort of move forward, we can have more conversations here at the little, so WXXI Town Hall, I think we need to have more of those so that people from Victor and people from from Rochester can get together.

And just like this, this is this is what it is.

But what can we do together?

Because this is we share this space.

This is shared space, right?

And it's important that people who are feeling alienated, you know, not at least they're heard, right?

Carefully, without hurting people.

And it just it just I just think we're in a in a moment right now where division is tearing us apart, and and we need to use this public space in the way to bring us together.

Yeah.

As our CEO of sexy new CEO and president Chris Hastings, we are talking about the rescission funding here.

We'll take a quick break.

When we get back, we'll talk more about the future of WXXI.

Go.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Coming up in our second hour, we bring you back a recent conversation about Parkinson's disease and the FDA approving a treatment called adaptive brain stimulation.

That is getting a lot of buzz.

What is it?

What do we know about treatment?

What works, and how promising are some of the newest ideas and treating Parkinson's?

That story next hour.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson, Auto Group.

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And welcome back.

You're listening to connections from WXXI.

I'm Raquel Stephen and today we're talking about the rescission with our guest, Chris Hastings, the president and CEO of WXXI.

And if you'd like to join in on our conversation, you can call us at 1844295 talk.

That's 1-844-295-8255.

Or at (585) 263-9994 email us at connections at WXXI morgue.

Or you can just leave a comment in our YouTube above chat.

And Chris, PBS and NPR leaders are pledging to keep fighting, even suing.

All right.

But what do you see as a realistic odds of funding being restored?

I think PBS is loved, by the vast majority of Americans.

I think this president and this Congress, I think they're listening.

You know, I don't have like, I think I was reading somewhere that 100,000, phone calls went into Congress last week.

You know, I hate to be that secretary.

So.

So, you know, I'm not a betting man.

I don't play the numbers.

But but I do think there's a good chance in the next few weeks, because they do have to do a budget, a full budget for FY 26, starting October 1st.

There's a chance.

Am I am I waiting for that to happen?

No.

And I, I applaud PBS and NPR for continuing the fight.

I am I'm saddened that if if no funding does come into the system that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, you know, we'll shut down after October.

Yeah.

And there are some really good people there doing really good work.

And I, you know, I think everybody should keep fighting this, whatever the battle was.

And Friday we lost.

That was a battle.

And there is a virtual war for public space that's underway.

And I know you've you stressed digital first, right?

I know digital is where we're going.

You got the smile on your face is beaming when you hear the word digital.

Whenever you're upset with me, I'm just going to say digital.

And you're going to be fine.

Because when you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you do?

You pick up your phone and you go to digital.

Yes.

You know, I think it's important and that is a media organization.

You know, not to say that TV and radio aren't important.

We're going to always do TV and radio because it's free and over there.

But the vast majority of the audiences, the potential audiences are on YouTube.

They're on Instagram.

They're on TikTok.

You know, they're in text messages.

Yeah.

You know, and I think we need to be able to perform on those platforms with the content that is just as important, you know, than anything else, you know.

And we keep that balance with the digital and staying true to our mission here.

Our mission doesn't karate and mission doesn't change.

And our core audience, we're going to serve them.

We're going to serve that audience, on the places that they're used to and comfortable with.

Yeah.

But we're also going to really think through them like connections as a linear radio show.

First, what did we do?

We added a YouTube layer.

What do we do?

We make shorts from that.

We need to do that with everything that we do classical music, the trip away music.

You know, events at the little should be also in zoom.

You know, we have to really think digital first when we think about a show, podcasting, you know, all this reporting that we're doing, it needs to be ready on demand as an audio file, because that's how people are used to getting it on their iPhones and on their androids.

And so we have to really think about a strategy that's audience first and digital first.

Yeah, I know we have a few callers, a lot of callers.

A lot of engagement here.

I know our audience are, you know, concerned and they love us and they're passionate about this topic.

And I have, David from Auburn, I believe is on, the line here is, is David.

Yes it is.

Hi, David.

Yes.

You want to make a comment or you have any questions for our president, senior CEO?

I do, because I think communications have the most important topic.

Space and civilization is really important.

I mean, we obviously have the nuclear threat that's been hanging around for a long time, and now we've got awareness that global warming is coming our way.

Creep, creep, creep creeping our way.

And most people don't begin to understand how significant that is.

And that's why it's so important to overemphasize these over.

And you conservative conservatives are denying many are denying that there's any change in global climate.

All.

It's absolutely insane.

It's a big lie.

And to oppose that, you have to say the truth over and over and over and over again and explain it.

For many positions of many people who've had experiences, I don't know if you've ever experienced a 111 degree temperatures, but I did with in Arizona in dry heat.

It's unbelievable how hot 110 is, and I can't imagine 115 or 120, which is some.

And so this that would make people real believers.

And if you had concerns about this and presented this climate, civilization changing, issues, that's what's really important.

Thanks.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Dave, I guess David is attesting to the fact that public media, right?

Keeps us, keeps us, keeps us informed, informed, alerted and aware.

I mean I it's one of those things you can take climate change and use as an example.

Yeah.

Things are changing and we need to talk about it.

Yeah.

Where do you talk about it.

Working.

Have extended conversations about your fear for what's happening to the climate.

I think only in public media.

You know, you might get a two minute story on the commercial news.

If there's, like, a hurricane or a tornado here, we can we can really start talking.

Okay, well, what are the changes we can do?

Yeah.

In the short term.

Long term.

Yeah.

And we have a Joann on online to hear.

Joanne, hi.

You were live on WXXI.

Any comments or questions for our president, CEO?

Yes.

Hi.

I'm a monthly sustainer, so thank you.

I listen frequently, listen and watch frequently.

But I wanted to just comment on the one caller who was talking about the, the slant.

He feels, that is, obvious on NPR.

And he did.

I agree with him.

But he said he thinks that Avon and, the cast or the the staff of connections is trying really hard to present a lot of, different opinions.

And I want I wanted to give him an example that I've noticed.

As far as local programing, Evan and his staff have invited a lot of, different politicians, candidates running for office to the show.

And I've noticed, as an example of conservative, how should I say, opinions bias that they've reached out to many.

And, I can think of one example in particular and who have not responded or have said that they don't have the time to be on your program.

So, it starts at the local level, but I think it also, trans transplant sends to the national level too, that, you may not always be able to get, opinions from the other side for at both levels.

So that's all I needed to say.

You do a great job.

And, that's that's my $0.02 for the day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Joanne.

Well, I can tell you we're going to keep trying.

Yeah.

You know, there there's, there's two, and two representatives that are in our, in our viewing and listening area.

We'd love to have on.

I'm not going to mention their names, but it's one of those things that I think, we, we need to keep reaching out.

And one of the things we, we might need to do, we might need to take the show on the road to get a little bit closer to that, to their base.

I don't know, but, journalism is, is is one of those things where we, we don't stop asking questions because you don't want to hear the question.

We're going to keep asking the hard questions and then hopefully, you know, we can give you a fair shot to respond to it.

Yeah.

And I think, what we need to sort of continue to get past like, the one caller talked about the, the NPR, editor story, you know, that was like 2 or 3 years ago.

We're still dealing with something that, to me still was a little bit confusing, but that was a really long time ago.

And, you know, I we're not in NPR news room, and we work with them, but I can tell you that we're all very much looking at balance, and we're going to continue to try to talk to people about this, because at the fabric of this, this is tearing us apart, that we can't have a decent conversation with people from different sides of the conversation.

I'll, this is this is something that I think as we think about the future and I think this is where we can be a help.

Yeah.

So I've been talking to other stations in New York about us maybe doing some, some statewide connections.

And I don't know where that's going to go, but it's important that we continue to be the publics where we can sort of work through this issue, where you have people on the right and people on the left not really talking.

All right.

So and since we're talking about other stations here, she'll be barring anything from our international public broadcasters like the BBC's and the CBC's and the ABC.

When you say borrow because you know, that wasn't they faced a similar they faced similar funding loss.

So yeah.

What what can we learn from from those stations, that the government should invest in public media, you know, and my, my old job at GBH, my job was to go around the world and to work with public broadcasters in Europe and Asia.

And the one thing that was, consistent is that most European countries are putting money into their public broadcasters.

And they do it because they have a history of war where division is decided from, from the extreme and, and, and, you know, we just got to keep fighting this out, that educating people is something that government should invest and, you know, a, education is a right.

And what's important to me is that we remind people that the red herring out here is that because the journalism is unbiased, we're not going to fund this.

Public media does more than just journalism to there is a lot of kids programing.

I tell my story.

I grew up dyslexic and I was, kid of a single parent.

And when I came home, I had public media, you know, cooking shows, but also kids programing.

But it was also the way that I could comprehend the world.

And when I was having trouble to read.

Right.

And it's important that we remind people that proper media isn't just about journalism.

You know, we need to fight that out.

But let's also know that this money that they cut and they cut the journalism, but they also cut the children's programing and they cut the, the programing for people who love masterpiece.

And there's a lot of y'all, you know, and it just it's it's the arts.

The arts is so, so important to having a healthy democracy.

And if we forget that and, I'm not gonna say the market is in trouble because I just start to hold our conversation.

But I think it's important for healthy democracy is to support the arts.

And I love how the caller said they are helping me.

Host this show.

We have a Lisa from Rochester here.

Like to make a comment.

Hi, Lisa.

Hi.

You know, I've actually I got a question, but, but I guess the comment would be, I've been supporting, this the the original stations, in the Rochester area since the 70s.

And the thing that, of the many factors that caused me to support it, that they do a more extensive discussion of issues, is, is the primary value because it helps people think out considerations for their community and for, for this nation.

And, you know, all the although the an earlier caller, you know, choose the organization of bias.

Well, they were pointing to the national organization.

I think the national organization has done a very good job of presenting multiple perspectives on many issues, and it's not their responsibility to present all perspectives as though they're equally valid, because objectively, that isn't the case, independent of what the political, representatives may feel at a certain time.

That's part of why the longevity of, civic organizations is important, so that we remember, some lessons we've learned from, you know, 50, 50 ago and 40 years ago.

But I, I wonder when you talk about going to digital because so much of digital, media is, is, is framed on a short term, attention span.

How will you balance continuing the incredible work that locally has been done on on longform journalism and opportunities for discussion of multiple perspectives, not splitting things into left and right.

When you go digital, when much of that is is kind of clickbait ish, in how people, connect with it and, what they look for when they consume it.

Here's what we gotta get good at it.

Yeah.

Because I think what's important is that everything that we're doing in this linear platform can be done on the digital platform.

Everything that's on the digital platform actually gives us a little bit more flexibility on how we present different points of view, everything from carousels to Instagram shorts.

You can do multiple, and we have one project where we are doing, job jobs.

Explain where we're having somebody go out and interview people about different career choices.

And we're doing 150 videos in a year.

I think what's important is right now and if I can go back to what they said in the 60s about commercial television, about it being a vast wasteland, on a digital thing right now, it's a vast wasteland.

But my hope and my big vision is that we can make digital not such a vast wasteland of opinions and really use digital in the same way, transform digital in the same way.

We changed film, television and radio put things out there that people really need to have.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and there's a way to draw people back to our website, which gives us in-depth reporting.

Totally.

I want to get to our last caller here, before we run out of time.

Hello, caller, you're live on WXXI.

Virginia.

Hi, Virginia.

Yes, hi.

I'm really enjoying watching and listening to your show, and actually, I like that it's digital copy so that I can, see you.

It's just so nice to see the people that I'm listening to.

And I think that if you avoid being clickbait people who want to do you.

Well, they'll tune in either on the radio or on, another format.

But I wanted to say and it is as far as, the issue of balance, I, I was recalling when the gentleman, said, well, I guess he was talking about NPR, but one exact site, I remember an occasion not long ago when I called in to a program just now, I can't say that it was it wasn't pro-abortion, but it was supportive of, people making their own choice, which would be where I land.

I'm not like, oh, hippie, everybody go out and get an abortion.

But certain people who are in situations where that is a solution for them, it is their choice, their values, and they should be allowed to make that choice.

Nobody's hopefully making anybody get an abortion.

But I've noticed another thing about NPR, and that is, while they may frequently be more, the host, they are not snide, sarcastic, derogatory, insulting as very many of any right leaning show that I've ever had occasion to listen to.

At a certain point I have to turn it off because it it is an insult.

Yeah.

You know, with their rejoicing and getting even with somebody or, you know, knocking somebody down.

Yeah.

And I don't see that in, I don't see that in NPR.

So.

Okay.

Thank you.

Virginia, thank you so much for your comment.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

I want to say this as we wrap up, I want to ask you, what does a thriving public media system look like to you in 5 to 10 years where will we be?

Digital.

First?

Representing a sure.

It's made digital first representative of your local communities.

You know, every station has a unique footprint.

And I think if we are a mirror to people who want to stay informed, then we're doing the best job we can.

Yeah.

All right, well, thank you so much.

Chris Hastings, our president, CEO of Sky news.

Thank you to our listeners for tuning in.

And we'll have more on the discussion as the weeks and months pass.

Right.

Thank you.

Toby.

And.

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