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Just before the Indiana primary election in May 2016, I had the opportunity to conduct a one-on-one interview with Donald Trump. I was one of just four local reporters given an audience while Trump was in Indianapolis for a campaign rally. He had not yet clinched the GOP presidential nomination.
We all gathered on an otherwise vacant floor in the JW Marriott Indianapolis and waited patiently for the candidate to arrive. When he did, Trump made a loud announcement as he walked through the collection of reporters and photographers.
“Lots of powerful people here!” he bellowed. “Very powerful!”
It did not feel like flattery at the time. And, looking back, I am certain it was not.
My chance to interview Trump, I assume, came about because I was the moderator of “Indiana Week in Review,” a program produced by WFYI-TV Channel 20 and broadcast by PBS and NPR outlets across the state. In fact, the Trump Indiana chair in 2016 was the late Rex Early, a guy who no doubt had input on the selection of reporters who would be granted access. Early, by the way, built much of his public reputation as a panelist on “Indiana Week in Review.”
Now, with the cuts in federal funding for public broadcasting made at Trump’s request and the elimination of state funding made for the same reason, that program faces an uncertain future, as do many of the statewide outlets that broadcast it.
I made my case in an earlier column for changes in the public broadcasting business model, so I will not revisit that. I will share that state financing of public television and radio stations has always been subject to the whims of politicians. Back in the ’90s, a Republican state senator who will go unnamed wanted me to know that public broadcasting was getting a million-dollar boost in the upcoming state budget. He said that during GOP caucus deliberations on the budget, the late Sen. Morris Mills revealed the increase without comment. When another senator asked why, Mills said, “My wife likes public TV.”
The political winds will change one day, but I am not sure public broadcasting in Indiana will be able to overcome the whims of Donald Trump.
Nor am I convinced that the damage Trump has inflicted on CBS News will ever be reversed. (And this hurts me deeply as someone who worked for one CBS affiliate or another for almost 37 years.)
The payment of $16 million to settle a Trump lawsuit against “60 Minutes” was unforgivable. That lawsuit was deemed baseless by legal experts, and Stephen Colbert accurately labeled it a bribe. Which gets me to the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” It is an affront to the First Amendment.
I know CBS said it was a financial decision, and late-night television is a dying model and money-loser. But it took just one week after the announced cancellation for the Federal Communications Commission to approve a merger between CBS parent company Paramount and Skydance, a merger on hold for more than a year.
That gets me back to Rex Early, who was fond of explaining complicated
scenarios by saying that 98% of what goes on is exactly as it appears. It appears that the FCC, acting on Trump’s directive, forced the Colbert firing.
Looking back on that 2016 encounter, I believe Trump recognizes power, but he has no desire to share it.•
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Shella hosted WFYI’s “Indiana Week in Review” for 25 years and covered Indiana politics for WISH-TV for more than three decades. Send comments to [email protected].
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