Why is public media under threat?
Despite the overwhelming trust people of all political stripes place in public media, lawmakers have long threatened to gut the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides essential financial support to NPR and PBS stations across the country.
And under the Trump administration, threats to public media have escalated. Elon Musk is threatening to zero out funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) via his “Department of Government Efficiency,” and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has launched a trumped-up investigation of the underwriting practices at NPR and PBS. And some Republican lawmakers in Congress are already working on efforts to defund CPB.
A vibrant, independent public-media system is essential to a healthy democracy. We’re fighting to protect and strengthen all forms of public media — and push these outlets to reimagine what they could achieve with more funding and a focus on newsgathering and diverse communities.
