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Public broadcasting is now less ‘public’

By John Doyle - Report From the Legislature | Apr 5, 2024

Over 2,000 bills were introduced in the recently completed Regular Session of the West Virginia Legislature. Fewer than 300 were passed into law.

Some state legislatures limit the number of bills legislators are permitted to introduce. Not so here, thus the large number. And each year’s Regular Session lasts only 60 calendar days, so most of the introduced bills have no chance of passing. A lot of the bills are never taken up by the committees to which they were referred.

Many of the bills I opposed failed to pass, and several that did pass were amended to make them less onerous, to me. This pleasantly surprised me.

Of those that passed, I think the worst was the one that gave the head of the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History sole authority to hire and fire the Executive Director of the West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority, the agency that runs public broadcasting. The head of that department is appointed by the governor, and serves at the governor’s will and pleasure.

This means that the governor, currently Jim Justice, has sole authority over public broadcasting. He has the same power over our state’s public radio and television that Vladimir Putin has over Russia’s state radio and TV.

Prior to the passage of this bill, the decision as to who was to direct public broadcasting was in the hands of a board made up of several members. The members of that board serve staggered terms of several years each, theoretically making them less subject to gubernatorial interference.

That system worked until Justice became governor. He interfered with the agency, bullying the board to fire first an executive director and then a first class reporter, both for doing their jobs properly. Now, the governor’s political interference has been formalized by the passage of this bill.

I have many conservative friends who argue against the idea of public broadcasting. They contend that its very existence runs the danger of permitting political interference by whoever has political power at the moment.

Voila! The current crop of state lawmakers decided to make sure that happened.

Possibly some, their faces held straight with great difficulty, will argue that they have proven their point. You will, I’m sure, notice the non sequitur. A few years ago the Legislature did something similar to the West Virginia Library Commission, which is also under the domain of this department.

The bill in question changed the name of the Educational Broadcasting “Authority” to “Commission.” I’m not sure why — both words mean essentially the same thing statutorily.

A different bill that was passed, changed the title of the “Curator” of Arts, Culture and History to “Secretary.” I have another suggestion; “Sovereign of the Arts, Kaiser of Culture, High Prince of History, Grand Inquisitor of Libraries and Emperor of the Airwaves.”

If the “wrong” person (as determined by most current legislators) were to be elected governor, I predict the Legislature will hurry to undo this just-created nonsense.

Next month, I’ll tell you what I think was the worst bill that didn’t pass in the 2024 Regular Session of the West Virginia Legislature. You’ve been given a hint.

John Doyle is a 26-year former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates. He can be reached at rjohndoyle@comcast.net.