Fox News and other party-line followers may have friends in the House and the Senate. But public broadcasting has something even better: friends in the houses of everyday Iowans. Friends who vote. Guest columnist

Terri Hale lives in Ankeny. Amy Johnson lives in Cedar Rapids.

Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns has called public broadcasting the “Declaration of Independence applied to communications.”

Acclaimed travel writer Rick Steves has called it “a thoughtful oasis in our media landscape that does not have an agenda.”

So, imagine our surprise when U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa (a former broadcast journalist and frequent guest on the Iowa PBS show "Iowa Press") recently labeled National Public Radio and PBS “left-wing propaganda.”

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa called NPR and PBS “politic

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