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Earlier this year, under the Trump administration’s suggestion, Congress defunded America’s public broadcasting networks to the tune of $1.1 billion. Trump and his cronies insisted that the stations were “woke” garbage that needed to be eliminated. In particular, MAGA cast its hateful eye at NPR, with Trump acolytes like Marjorie Taylor Greene moronicly accusing the program of being “communist.”
Thanks to their donor networks, outlets like NPR and PBS are still chugging along, for now. But many of the hundreds of other public stations that have long relied on public funding are in crisis, as they search for new revenue streams and funding.
Now, a good Samaritan is pitching in to try to fill the funding gap. The organization behind iconic painter Bob Ross has announced a series of auctions of his works, and the proceeds will be distributed to public TV channels. Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc., described the painter as a man who had “dedicated his life to making art accessible to everyone.” She added: “This auction ensures his legacy continues to support the very medium that brought his joy and creativity into American homes for decades.”
The first auction, which will take place in Los Angeles next month, will involve three of Ross’s paintings, while additional auctions will follow in other cities around the world, the Associated Press reports. All of the profits from the auctions will then be distributed to public stations to help them pay for licensing fees, the outlet notes.
Ross was a longtime staple of public television. His program, The Joy of Painting, was produced and aired on public stations between 1983 and 1994. The show featured Ross teaching viewers how to paint in a charming, low-fi setting.
It’s unclear how far a few Bob Ross paintings will go towards filling the gaping financial hole left by the federal defunding effort, but I guess it’s better than nothing.
Public programs have long provided an important service to Americans (before it was privatized and migrated to HBO, Sesame Street spent four decades at PBS), and the rightwing attack on them is just another example of a conservatism that has fundamentally gone off the rails. Of course, Trump and his friends have an alternative vision for the future of American media. Yes, MAGA would prefer a future in which our nation’s children are educated by PragerU, a private media org funded by billionaires, whose founder, Dennis Prager, once complained that it is “idiotic you can’t say the N-word.”
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