President Donald Trump's federal budget proposal has the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting lamenting "fake news," and criticizing attitudes towards rural viewers in testimony before Congress Tuesday.
"People in this country yearned for content they could trust. And where are we right now — we're living in this environment of 'fake news,'" CEO Patricia de Stacy Harrison told a House Appropriations subcommittee, according to the Washington Examiner.
"Eight of 10 Americans trust PBS at a time when the Trump administration delegitimizes any reporting it doesn't like as fake news. It's a transparent attempt to keep Americans in the dark about their failures and ethical improprieties," New York Democrat Nita Lowey said, according to Bloomberg.
Harrison added that there might be a "soft bigotry of low expectations," as former President George W. Bush once said, towards rural viewers who depend on public broadcasting.
"There are people who can afford to get on a plane and go to Broadway and get that — what is it now, I don't know — $1,000 ticket to Hamilton, go to the opera," she said. "And there seems to be this feeling that because maybe you live in a rural area, you're not interested in those things."
The subcommittee chair, Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole, implied some support for Harrison's cause.
"This is an agency we all admire," he said. Cole previously worked as chief of staff for the Republican National Committee when Harrison served as co-chair.
"The corporation represents a unique public-private partnership with each radio and television station leveraging five non-federal dollars for each dollar made through federal investment."
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