WASHINGTON - February 26, 2018 - America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) and NPR today presented the 2018 David J. Brugger Lay Leadership Award to the more than 720,000 grassroots advocates from Protect My Public Media, public television and radio’s grassroots advocacy campaign.
The APTS board of trustees created the David J. Brugger Lay Leadership Award in honor of its former president and CEO, David Brugger, the longest-serving leader of the organization.
“This year, the David J. Brugger Award is not being presented to an individual, but to a truly awe-inspiring group of public media supporters, in recognition of their remarkable achievement in grassroots advocacy,” said Patrick Butler, president and CEO of APTS. “From its modest beginnings seven years ago as 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting, Protect My Public Media has become one of the largest and most effective grassroots movements in America.
“We started last year with 400,000 grassroots advocates. But after President Trump proposed to eliminate our funding, we added another 320,000 recruits to our grassroots army in 2017. They sent hundreds of thousands of messages to Congress defending our funding, and both our champions and our critics on Capitol Hill were moved to congratulate us on the power of this campaign.”
"What is most compelling and important about our joint work together is the constant emphasis we place on our stations ... your community service, your local programming and your local voices of support taking action to protect and defend our mission," said Loren Mayor, COO, NPR. "The basic message that your stations are valuable and essential centers of every community we serve resonates like never before."
Protect My Public Media (PMPM) is an action network of Americans who are dedicated to protecting local public television and radio stations and the programming and services they provide. PMPM, in collaboration with local stations and partners, directs audiences to take action to protect the federal investment in public media.
Butler concluded, “Protect My Public Media is an exceptional example of the power of public media and what is possible when we all work together. With help from NPR -- the best partner we could hope for in an initiative of this size and scale -- I am honored to present the 2018 David J. Brugger Award to Protect My Public Media.”
The 2018 David J. Brugger Lay Leadership Award was presented to Protect My Public Media during the APTS Public Media Summit on Monday, February 26, 2018.
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About APTS
America's Public Television Stations (APTS) is a nonprofit membership organization ensuring a strong and financially sound public television system that provides essential public services in education, public safety and civic leadership to the American people. For more information, visit www.apts.org.
Contact: Stacey Karp
202-654-4222
skarp@apts.org