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PBS News Hour West to go dark after ASU discontinues contract

154 pointsposted 2 months ago

85 Comments

mikeyouse

2 months ago

Of course it’s due to the federal funding cuts. At least DHS got 2,000x more than these cuts saved from PBS as our deficit continues to explode.

https://current.org/2025/11/weta-to-cut-staff-cancel-pbs-new...

ch2026

2 months ago

President Trump explicitly signed an Executive Order to defund public media: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/endi...

Okay, but do you actually know what monies changed hands under the now-ended agreement? Perhaps PBS was not paying ASU, as the person quoted said, it was a mutually beneficial relationship. ASU got to have a very cool internship opportunity right on site of its prominent J-school.

If PBS was not paying significant money to ASU, then it is unlikely to be related to federal politics.

trial3

2 months ago

what are the revised priorities? what revised the priorities? maybe consider doing just the teensiest bit of journalism of your own

codeddesign

2 months ago

That part is fairly easy to understand with a few google searches. Journalism programs are at a loss across the country and have been in decline for some time. When a university program is not profitable they close the program.

Low wages, less employment opportunity, and the decrease in interest of writing. Combine this with social media and the age of influencers - you suddenly have a huge decline across the board.

Journalism is not what you see on tv. Those are essentially actors and are the 1%. The rest are those writing in newspapers (in decline) and making barely livable wages with most on contract rather than salary. It’s an incredibly difficult line of work when it comes to wages and job security.

mmooss

2 months ago

> When a university program is not profitable they close the program.

That's moving the goalposts. Universities are not for-profit organizations (with a few exceptions).

By insisting on focusing on 'profit', the enemies of liberal education and liberalism can shut down much of it. Business school is of course profitable, and science has patents. What about the history department?

codeddesign

2 months ago

That would be up to the school. After all, it does have a $1.4 billion dollar endowment. (ASU is not struggling at all)

Every university has to decide what is profitable and what is a loss leader. You have to be well rounded to attract students, but also make money.

In this case, the school decided that this studio had less benefit to them than reward. If this studio attracted more students (tuition $$) then it would be a benefit.

People are getting mad at the White House, but in reality the school decided that this studio wasn’t worth keeping.

Just trying to be rational here.

mmooss

2 months ago

> make money

> the school decided that this studio had less benefit to them than reward

Again, you are assuming that is a goal of higher education. You're making a circular argument.

> reality the school decided that this studio wasn’t worth keeping.

That's obvious, and possibly because of political pressure.

bc3

2 months ago

This is inherently political. The "revised priorities" are clearly because of our current economic and political climate. Your comment is intentionally obtuse or malicious.

codeddesign

2 months ago

[flagged]

slantedview

2 months ago

It's no coincidence that at a time of eroding democracy, public journalism is being cut.

meltyness

2 months ago

As an avid and long term PBS viewer, donor, news hour west was 90% a waste of time anyway. Most evenings it is virtually the same broadcast, same segments. Media is more VOD-oriented anyway. They have been posting both broadcasts to YouTube for years, so you can assess this if you'd like.

The exception is if there's something notable to report on between 5PM and 8PM EST

hearsathought

2 months ago

Nothing erodes democracy more than government funded propaganda.

meowface

2 months ago

Most of your comments on this site are apologia for China's government.

hearsathought

a month ago

That's not true. I just point out obvious bullshit lies about china and others that I've heard over and over again. It's not my fault that people like you spout the same bullshit over and over again and mostly about china.

chasil

2 months ago

At the same time, even with the mayhem of the current executive, it is important to read the room.

The house of representatives controls the budget. Moderating perceived bias would be an obvious survival strategy.

Edit: Oh, drat, I've been ostracized. Whatever will I do?

Braxton1980

2 months ago

>Moderating perceived bias would be an obvious survival strategy.

>Oh, drat, I've been ostracized. Whatever will I do?

Because you seemed to think the issue was the lack of reason when it's actually the reason itself.

Also, the government acting on perception instead of evidence is horrible.

In my opinion the claims of bias at PBS were done to keep the core Republican voter base energized. They've been told to not trust the media while Trump appoints multiple Foxnews employees to high level positions in the government.

chasil

2 months ago

Right. Posted below, but this is clear as reported by their own.

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-tru...

wtcactus

2 months ago

One man’s public journalism is another man’s state sponsored propaganda.

I don’t want my extorted taxes funding any of this. I hope other countries in Europe follow suit and shut down any state funded media and journalism networks.

P.S. Funnily enough, in my country, the hard left was very fond of the state media network - that they filled with their own talking heads - until recently when the present center right government started changing the seats to their own apparatchiks and the programs started to change from hard left propaganda to neo-liberal propaganda. Now, they don’t fancy all that money going to the state media channels anymore. Suits them right.

codeddesign

2 months ago

[flagged]

jjulius

2 months ago

This entire response is disingenuously obtuse.

codeddesign

2 months ago

Like it or not, the entire response is accurate.

zzrrt

2 months ago

Ok then, I look forward to my tax breaks and refunds enabled by cutting this program. I’m sure it’s in the mail with all the other dividends for citizens that Trump mentions every few months.

codeddesign

2 months ago

Again, this would be the Legislative branch. Your right to vote has not decreased, and you can absolutely contact your senator to introduce a bill for what you stated. I mean, you have a representative. Absolutely use them if you dislike something.

However, disagreeing with the Legislative or Executive branch in no way erodes your democratic rights.

thatcat

2 months ago

You're correct, the non existent democratic rights of the people have not been eroded. As you have you described, USA is a Republic not a Democracy.

codeddesign

a month ago

Well, your democratic right would be to vote. However, as you said we are in a democratic republic where we don’t vote to make the laws but rather vote for representatives.

zzrrt

2 months ago

My right to vote for a Congress member and tell them what I want to fund is nullified, if the president refuses to follow the budget laws they passed.

user

2 months ago

[deleted]

RickJWagner

2 months ago

I’m glad Walter Cronkite is remembered through that school. In my mind, he was one of the last great journalists from an era that wasn’t strongly politically biased.

lettergram

2 months ago

When I read that I'm always personally confused. He had a commanding voice and had an aurora of being above it all. But when you listened and watched what he actually did, he seemed very political in my mind, though perhaps more of a moderate(?).

He even advocated for world government, endorsed politicians, etc.

themafia

2 months ago

Uncritically accepted the Warren Report.

Braxton1980

2 months ago

Is it possible you think there's a stronger political bias in the media today than in the past because of proganda designed to make you think that?

junkypuppet

2 months ago

The article doesn’t mention it, but I wonder if this has anything to do with ASU’s President trying to cozy up with the Trump administration [0]. Trump has already at least tried to cut federal funding for PBS [1]. I’m not sure where that’s at now.

[0]: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/arizona-state-universi...

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/nx-s1-5384790/trump-orders-en...

slicedice

2 months ago

It got cut.

DrewADesign

2 months ago

People shouting about PBS news being horribly biased are just flat-out wrong. Obviously their viewership leans centrist liberal, but no other news program in recent times approached their level of nonpartisanship when dealing with national politics. Regardless of their affiliation, they’d ask most interviewees a couple of pointed questions but always let them explain themselves uninterrupted, and let them have the last word unless it was blatantly false. In the Obama era they regularly had top Republican leadership on from that era and years past— Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, and Mitch McConnell were on there all the time. I’ve seen Steve Bannon respectfully (actually rather warmly) interviewed within the past year, as well as people from the heritage foundation, Manhattan institute, Cato institute, and other people from across the right-wing spectrum.

David Brooks isn’t representative of the Republican mainstream at the moment, but they’ve started getting more representative Republican counterpoints on their panels over the past few months, even after the republicans cut their funding.

They present a more reasonable, tempered, and charitable perspective on both political parties than any other major news outlet.

Culture war bullshit.

every

2 months ago

PBS and NPR have long been my go-to sources for news. Very much in the classic "who, what, when and where" vein. Editorial content is small, segregated and usually includes advocates for both sides. Blissfully boring and informative...

wahern

2 months ago

NPR News veered sharply left over the past ~10 years, even more so local affiliate programming like that put out by KQED. In the past year or two there's been a moderate course correction, but their reporting is still clearly stuck in a liberal cognitive bubble.[1] I think a large part of it was the generational turnover that occurred, and their eagerness to "speak the truth", emboldened by the belief that any random sociology study that happened to support their view firmly established their beliefs as scientific fact, unchecked once Republicans disengaged from earnest empirical debate. But I agree about PBS, they managed to stay the course.

[1] NPR generally has always had a liberal bias, but their professionalism was sufficient to keep them straight shooting. Even Justice Scalia used to listen to NPR News, at least as late as the aughts.

DrewADesign

2 months ago

I do agree that NPR is less neutral than PBS but if you want to hear what harder left political commentary sounds like, listen to an episode of Chapo Trap House. NPR isn’t sharply left— they’re very on the very mainstream end of liberal centrist with an occasional smattering of “I was a socialist for a semester in college” liberal in their editorial content— they’re just not shy about it.

PBS on the other hand— while obviously coming from an institution that exists because of things liberals value— clearly puts a lot of effort into representing most mainstream views charitably. It’s almost like if Reuters had a daily news hour.

meltyness

2 months ago

The first half is usually solid, the back half is, well, usually more opinionated/softer. Lots of interviews with professors who seek to have their opinions represented as facts or members of the public have their plight elevated as serious national policy concerns.

DrewADesign

2 months ago

Sure there’s definitely a change in content but I don’t think it’s quite that bad. Tonight was capehart and brooks— who has never supported Trump even though he’s a conservative, so not a great foil for capehart… Pretty soft/polite analysis that always feels very late-aughts. Yesterday was someone who worked in the state department for 25 years giving a pretty dry breakdown on Venezuela. the night before that was a professor from Tulane criticizing trump’s strategy on Venezuela. The night before that was an interview with Bill Cassidy explaining the GOP health care proposal he co-authored, and a report from someone embedded with the Lebanese army. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s like a rehash of the conversation at the campus coffee shop over there.

Braxton1980

2 months ago

>professors who seek to have their opinions represented as facts

How do they do that and how do you know it's their intent?

meltyness

2 months ago

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqr95elV5io&t=2108s

Probably best to dissect a specimen. I guess really the guy's just hocking his book here, but it's vacuous and packed with opinions and pessimism, and really not particularly high quality journalism.

For example, I disagree with the opinion that LLMs can't be a free lunch, or at least can't be CAPEX instead of OPEX, which Reich doesn't realize in the stated opinion.

I had to go back pretty far to find a professor, specifically, the first few were social outreach or labor organizers.

Braxton1980

2 months ago

Your claim was professors want their opinions to be considered fact.

Promoting a book doesn't do that. Having opinions is normal and what we are talking about. Whether the person is pessimistic has no relevance here and I would like to know why you presented that as evidence.

meltyness

2 months ago

It's a national federally funded organization and they want to chat on about justice and fairness, literally asking in order "how does this effect diversity? oh. How about equity? oh. how about inclusion?", and it's such a surprise that it costs a trillion dollars to not plop a choo-choo from LA to SF when everyone "feels like it"? It's gross, it's gross to me. Stick to the news.

Braxton1980

2 months ago

I assume by your rant you don't have the evidence I requested and your claims a more likely based on your political views and not reality.

What's disturbing is that you're probably an engineer, like you know how to open PRs but also think the 2020 election was stolen. Maybe that explains why software has bugs

meltyness

2 months ago

Yeah, we're opining on a segment that I opined is excessively opinionated (i.e., opinions are confidently stated so as to be represented as facts, "half of teachers are using LLMs") but when you look, the "study" is just a bunch of opinion polls. So yeah it is, in the literal sense, the professor's opinion being represented as facts, thank you have a nice day.

Braxton1980

2 months ago

"confidently stated"

How? Because they stated their opinion and they think they're right?

As opposed to having an opinion you think is wrong?

>half of teachers are using LLM

This is their opinion based on a study that polled teachers? How is this unreasonable?

Determining popularity by polling makes complete sense.

You're just anti intellectual for political reasons. Also supporting Trump while not liking people who are opinionated and overly confident makes you a hypocrite

meltyness

2 months ago

I mean this is just one case, I didn't cherry pick this, I peeked at a few previous episodes to find an episode where there was indeed a professor for the feature interview.

It's uninteresting because it's basically become a platform for regulatory capture. It's a wellspring of obviously non-universal ideas like, "there is no right way to integrate AI and primary education", "the federal government should subsidize ai access", or "only safe ai platforms should be permitted". I mean it's obviously their right to blather incessantly about it, I just think it's boring, and that's all I've said.

Maybe it's because I'm not a politician or a philanthropist, and I'm not required to tailor my actions to appease a large number of people subject to my will, but there's obviously better ways to approach that, like delegating and talking to people, who are local to the concern.

It's a nuanced and long term discussion and I think lots of the stuff that winds up in these interviews is really a local issue that's going into the wrong channel by well-meaning folks who don't understand government, or worse folks who are seeking to exploit government for profit.

And concretely, the interview doesn't focus on the book or the study, it's literally just an authoritative "intersectional" quiz about how AI/Education crosses with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,... a dumb question.

Braxton1980

2 months ago

> it's literally just an authoritative "intersectional" quiz about how AI/Education crosses with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,... a dumb question.

What's an "authoritative intersectional quiz"?

>Maybe it's because I'm not a politician or a philanthropist..

Your accusations were about professors so why are you bringing up politicians. Also a philanthropist doesn't have people under his control.

>...delegating and talking to people, who are local to the concern.... lots of the stuff that winds up in these interviews is really a local issue that's going into the wrong channel

What's a local issue that shouldn't be discussed on PBS? You were just discussing AI which isn't a local issue.

>because it's basically become a platform for regulatory capture

How? You used so many buzz words I believe you either used chatgpt to generate the response or you're a bot

meltyness

2 months ago

Did you watch the YouTube timestamp? Do you know the difference between audience and subject? Do you know that we don't all live in primary school? Can you list any 7 buzz words I've raised that didn't come immediately from the YouTube timestamp?

mdhb

2 months ago

What you are describing here is very clearly a you problem and you’ve somehow convinced yourself that it’s someone else’s problem.

meltyness

2 months ago

You are optimistic about my ability to get things done, and I appreciate that.

Braxton1980

2 months ago

This user must be a bot check the comment he replied to be me higher in the thread. It almost looks like a valid response but actually jumps around to different issues right wing people have about the news.

The last section is the most telling.

wtfwhateven

2 months ago

Yeah I agree. Utterly bizarre replies. Wonder who is paying for it. They should be in prison honestly.

wyldfire

2 months ago

> People shouting about PBS news being horribly biased are just flat-out wrong.

"Truth is treason in an empire of lies" - George Orwell

Forgeties79

2 months ago

After I heard someone call McConnell a RINO I knew that no amount of concessions would make them feel coverage was “fair.” It’s Trump’s way or the highway.

chasil

2 months ago

What?

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-tru...

DrewADesign

2 months ago

What? NPR≠PBS. The content and style are completely different.

chasil

2 months ago

Pretty much, I don't care.

I will be very pleased to see the back of all of you in my expatriate retirement.

As long as my social security checks arrive, you can trash this place as much as you like. Have at it.

DrewADesign

2 months ago

Enjoy your vibes-based version of reality where objective truth doesn’t actually matter. That’s definitely not one of the primary criticisms conservatives have wielded against the post-modern left. You won’t bother to check, so I’m sure you’ll feel that expat community will be happy to have you!

chasil

2 months ago

Who said that I wanted community?

As was recently revived, a pox on both your houses. May the intellectual rot of both parties hasten.

I'll prefer to see this at a distance.

DrewADesign

2 months ago

You sure do talk a lot for someone that doesn’t care what anybody else thinks.

user3939382

2 months ago

ASU accepted $20M in criminal gains IMHO AFAICT. I have receipts

zzzeek

2 months ago

Paging MacKenzie Scott....

askh4

2 months ago

[dead]

djaouen

2 months ago

[flagged]

JoshTriplett

2 months ago

The article has ads in it?

(uBlock Origin successfully blocks all of them.)

t0lo

2 months ago

Sign of the times

alephnerd

2 months ago

Are you going to spend a couple hundred dollars a year on a subscription?

Good, freely accessible, and ad-free press. You can only choose 2.

The economics of journalism are tough.

SoftTalker

2 months ago

Strangely we used to think nothing of paying for a daily newspaper (which also contained ads) and many people subscribed to news magazines as well.

ipaddr

2 months ago

Have you tried going back 80% ap articles, some opinion columns, classifieds and sports with a lifestyle section.

We are living in an era of more news, different formats more in depth. I think our expectations are misaligned we expect everything to be one click away and social media to present it to us in a doom scroll. The articles shared just here on hn you would never find in a newspaper. If you are lucky you discover a zine like phrack or 2600 and wait months for the next issue.

xp84

2 months ago

I read the newspaper, just like you described, in the 90s and 2000s as a kid. It was really interesting and valuable. Honestly, yeah, that sounds amazing.

SoftTalker

2 months ago

There was an endless variety of special interest magazines. We bought those too.

DrewADesign

2 months ago

Yeah. This is the tech world making everything better. Sure the news is biased, poorly-written garbage, but you can have a lot of it, instantly, for like no money!

xp84

2 months ago

The Internet is not devoid of good quality media. Yes, some of it you have to pay for. The free papers we had before the Internet were never bastions of great journalism (though I'll admit that national TV news once was once pretty decent, and free).

And all news is biased. The only thing is, you can only see the bias towards your ideological enemies. When it's your bias, it's called "the truth."

They're no longer officially supported though.

I would have, if this planet didn't f*ck me over yet again with crippling poverty lol

mystraline

2 months ago

> I would have, if this planet didn't f*ck me over yet again with crippling poverty lol

You misspelled capitalists. They are the ones who are fucking you, me, and anyone with money.