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A legislative committee held a hearing this week to reimagine the state’s only public television station, so it can stay operational and continue to provide local news, sports and arts programming for New Jerseyans. NJ PBS announced in September that it will cease operations next summer because of drastic state and federal funding cuts, 

NJ PBS, which airs local and national news as well as community and educational programming, used to be known as New Jersey Network. After lawmakers ended public funding for the media company that was run by the state in 2011, WNET in New York City reached an agreement with New Jersey to operate the network, which was renamed NJ PBS.

Bipartisan support

During the 90-minute session, organized by the Senate legislative oversight committee, legislators from both sides of the aisle spoke in support of maintaining public television in the state. Republican Assemblywoman Aura Dunn, who served as the director of federal policy at the Association for America’s Public Television Stations for almost a decade, said for many children and new American citizens, PBS is their first classroom.

“For families that can’t afford private pre-school or expensive streaming service, public television is the only consistent source of educational content in the home,” she said.

Dunn said many parents have told her that Sesame Street was more than just a show.

“It was a trusted partner in their child’s early development, and a critical educational lifeline,” she said.

Democratic Assembly majority leader Lou Greenwald said the power of local news informs and inspires.

“When we invest in honest, reliable, community-based information, we empower people, we bring them into the process and we start to build something that we’ve lost far too much of in recent years, trust,” Greenwald said.

He told the panel that as news organizations have become smaller, with fewer reporters in New Jersey and other states, residents have fewer options to learn what’s going on in their towns.

“It’s about democracy,” said Greenwald. “It’s about community and it’s about a shared truth, in an age when truth is increasingly up for grabs.”