CHARLESTON — The non-profit group that helps raise money for West Virginia Public Broadcasting remains concerned about a bill on the desk of Gov. Jim Justice they say will weaken the board that manages the news, education, and cultural programmer.

The Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting Board, the 501(c)(3) that solicits annual memberships for West Virginia Public Broadcasting held its quarterly meeting Wednesday afternoon in Charleston.

The board empowered its chairman, Elliot Hicks of Charleston, to write an op-ed to send to media outlets and to the Governor’s Office expressing its concerns with Senate Bill 844, redesignating the Educational Broadcasting Authority as the Educational Broadcasting Commission.

SB 844 reduces the number of members to the renamed EBA as well as their terms. The bill also places authority to hire the executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting in the hands of the cabinet secretary for the Department of Arts, Culture, and History. The bill passed the Senate 30-4 and the House 79-12.

Under current code, the EBA’s only employee is the executive director, who also serves as the executive director of WVPB. But SB 844 would only allow the new Educational Broadcasting Commission to provide advice and guidance to Randall Reid-Smith, the newly minted cabinet secretary for the Department of Arts, Culture, and History.

The EBA held an emergency meeting at the end of February to discuss SB 844 with Reid-Smith, where committee members said they had never been consulted about the bill. While the appointed members of the EBA are also gubernatorial appointees, Hicks said SB 844 provides the current and future governors more direct control over WVPB and its programing, including news.

“It was certainly something that caused quite a stir among our people here and among the EBA members,” Hicks said. “Because (Reid-Smith) now gets to appoint the director for our Educational Broadcasting Commission … it gives the governor a more direct hand in what happens and who is running this organization.”

Eddie Isom, who previously served as chief operating officer and director of programming, was appointed interim executive director of WVPB last August after former WVPB executive director Butch Antolini resigned suddenly. The EBA hired Antolini – the former communications director for Justice – as interim WVPB executive director in October 2021, becoming the official executive director in December 2021.

Antolini came under scrutiny in December 2022 after the firing of a WVPB reporter who accused him of removing her from coverage of the formerly named Department of Health and Human Resources due to pressure from former DHHR Cabinet Secretary Bill Crouch over her reporting of numerous issues at one of the state’s psychiatric hospitals.

“We certainly had the incident … where we had a reporter and lots of confusion about what happened after she reported on a story about (DHHR) and there was a complaint about that report,” Hicks said. “The story was mired in controversy mostly because of what happened with her after that. It genuinely didn’t smell good and there were a lot of people who were aggrieved with the way that whole thing happened.”

Hicks and several board members raised concerns about further interference in the news coverage of WVPB by the Governor’s Office or other state officials. WVPB maintains several bureaus across the state actively covering government, health, and environmental news.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen with this yet,” Hicks said of the bill. “It’s not necessarily what it directly does, but what it gives people the ability to do. If somebody can interfere with your reporting, then your reporting might be a little more circumspect. That’s one of the things we worry about.”

Last March, the EBA held an emergency meeting that went into executive session. Authority members met with Antolini behind closed doors to discuss several personnel issues during his tenure, but no actions were taken against Antolini at that time. Prior to Antolini’s resignation, sources said the Legislature’s Commission on Special Investigations had been looking into WVPB and Antolini, though the commission is unable to confirm or deny active investigations.

“We were told there was going to be an investigation done on the circumstances around that reporter’s firing, quitting, termination, or whatever,” said board member Brian Gallagher (Huntington), who served as the board’s previous chairman. “We know something was started, because some people were talked to, but nothing happened with it, and I think it went away.”

The Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting Board is also concerned that by severing the firewall between the governor and WVPB, it could adversely affect fundraising.

“We’re concerned about the ability to inspire people to give to an organization that now doesn’t look independent and looks a lot like the government,” Hicks said. “We have to be concerned about whether the people who have been so generous with the (Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting) in past years will continue their giving. We’ve certainly have had communications from people who have said they are going to wait and see and keep their powder dry and see how this happens in implementation.”

According to WVPB’s 2023 annual report, more than 35% — or more than $3.8 million – of its funding comes from state tax dollars, with more than 18% ($1.9 million) coming from federal sources and more than 46% ($4.9 million) coming from private donations through the Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting and the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation, which handles major gifts, grants and awards.

“I think donations are a bigger portion of the budget than what the state gives us,” said board member Cecilia Mason of Martinsburg. “I think they’re setting it up to lose a lot of money because I don’t think people are going to donate either.”

Gallagher said the Friends board briefly considered its options when members thought that Antolini’s actions regarding reporters were being investigated, including the possibility of encouraging people to not give money to the non-profit.

“We decided at that time to say we were going to wait until this investigation was over, because it may be that journalistic integrity had been compromised to such a point that we may be at a point where this board wants to say that we should encourage the friends to not give money anymore,” Gallagher said. “We never got to that point.”

Members raised concerns about whether the change to the EBA would affect memorandums of understanding between the Friends board, the foundation, and WVPB; and what the change could mean for the relationship between WVPB and NPR and PBS on the national level.