Dear NPT Supporters,
In light of Governor Mitt Romney’s call in the October 3 presidential debate to end the subsidy for PBS, I felt it important to share with you this statement from PBS. Please take some time to click over and read it, as it does an excellent job of detailing how the small investment in public broadcasting of about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget creates enormous value to the communities and children in the nation that it serves.
While Big Bird and Sesame Street are iconic symbols of that value, public television supporters in Nashville know that the children’s programming that public broadcasting supplies the community is only a small part of what we do. In Nashville, federal and community support makes it possible for us to create valuable original programs like Next Door Neighbors and NPT Reports: Children’s Health Crisis; American Graduate: Teacher Town Halland Translating the Dream; and then present those documentaries both on the air and in the community, with numerous screenings, panel discussions and outreach events. We work with children every month on reading and health literacy skills, and parents on reinforcing those skills. We offer free advance screenings of nationally acclaimed documentaries at the Nashville Public Library each month, followed by engaging panel discussions. We dedicated four hours of primetime air this past Monday and Tuesday to Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, an alternately gut-wrenching and inspiring documentary of issues facing women throughout the world.
And when we’re not tackling the important issues with our documentaries and public affairs programs, and the nightly PBS NewsHour, we are entertaining you with trips around the state on Tennessee Crossroads, forays in the garden on Volunteer Gardener and journeys of the mind on A Word on Words.
NPT has been on the air in the Middle Tennessee community for 50 years, as have many community-licensed public television stations in the nation. We share our content and mission through PBS, and provide what we believe, and the community has told us, is the most valuable, trusted resource on television.
A cut in the federal seed money provided to NPT and stations throughout the country would be devastating to the entire public broadcasting system.
Thank you.
Beth Curley
President and CEO
NPT
Show your support for NPT now by visiting wnpt.org/support.
Learn more about the value PBS provides the nation at valuePBS.org.
Join the 170 Million Americans who use public broadcasting at 170MillionAmericans.org.