Public media stations across the country are using their airwaves to urge listeners and viewers to write to their senators to hold off the impending end to federal funds for the systems. It’s a practical strategy, but a limited and nearsighted one.

It’s correct that if even a handful of Republican senators resist the proposed White House cuts to the system, then the administration’s $9.4 billion budget recissions legislation (with a vote deadline of July 18) could fail, and the $1.2 billion funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting survive. But insistence that the combination of Big Bird and rural broadcasting’s reach will carry the day is not a winning strategy in response to what President Donald Trump has called “taxpayer subsidization of biased media.”

In the face of deep conservative dislike, especially for NPR, the system must, as Harvard University is doing in its negotiations with the White House over its federal support, offer a deal that acknowledges legitimate concerns and will allow centrist Republicans to vote to preserve CPB funding.

Such a deal must start with some acknowledgements. Notwithstanding the “national” in NPR’s name, the system does not serve a broad cross-section of the country. With the exception of Dallas-Fort Worth, the leading public radio news stations........

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