On Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed the Department of Government Efficiency rescission bill that cuts around $9 billion in federal assistance programs, including funding for public radio and television in New Jersey and elsewhere.

NJ Spotlight News, which is part of NJ PBS, spoke with Cassandra Etienne, the associate director of membership and programming at the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University, about the nationwide cuts and the impact on New Jersey’s public media outlets and the communities they serve.

“When we think about the role of public media, it provides access to high quality news and information that is free and accessible to viewers and to readers,” said Etienne. “It is also essential in times of emergencies and crises . . . and natural or man-made disasters. It is essential to an informed and engaged society that can participate civically.”

Under the rescission bill, NJ PBS would lose $1.5 million in funding from CPB. And while no funding goes directly to the Center for Cooperative Media, there are several partnerships with NJ PBS and NJ Spotlight News to help news and information reach more people around the state. One such program is Spanish translation of NJ Spotlight News content.

“We gathered [yesterday] the partners of our Spanish translation news service … and we discussed how the service of making news and information available to Spanish-speaking audiences that may not have access to this content otherwise,” Etienne said.

Etienne rejected claims by some conservatives that public television news has a liberal bias.

“I don’t think those accusations are fair,” she said. “Public media is not beholden to corporate interests per se, nor is as vulnerable to advertising and other stakeholders as other types of media are. And so when you have … funding that had already been allocated in support of public media being now stripped away, that’s a disservice to the people that depend on it for news.”