This week brought a convergence between the Trump administration’s goals of streamlining the federal government and authoritarian levels of controls over the media. Congress held an “Anti-American Airwaves” hearing with the CEOs of US public broadcasters NPR and PBS on Wednesday, accusing them of producing progressive-leaning news programming and children’s programming that indoctrinates with LGBTQ views. 

I’ll get to those concerns in a bit but first why should we care? I think I speak for many Americans that grew up in public schools during the late 90s-early 2000s by saying that PBS Kids raised us in many ways. How many people learned basic empathy from shows like Sesame Street and Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, became curious about why the Earth orbits around the Sun with Fetch!, or finally figured out where Malta is with Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? As an adult, public media has continued to be a window to the world with informative specials and masterclasses, comprehensive daily reports on the day’s events on PBS News Hour, and a myriad of Tiny Desk concerts. 

I’ve been a sustaining member of my local NPR/PBS duopoly WABE in Atlanta for over a year now and it’s eight of the easiest dollars I spend each month. Despite living in one of the top 10 media markets in the country, the station fills coverage gaps that commercial media just is unwilling to. Their news operation is focused on topics that truly impact Atlantans rather than the easy way out of cycling between come, traffic, and weather. Where else can you find discussions on stories that just make you smile and black planting alongside the biggest political stories? Another news organization in Atlanta could do it but (with exception to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, another resurgent news organization I’m super proud to be a subscriber of) they just don’t.

On a national front, the Trump administration’s blazing fireball of chaos has forced me to reevaluate my relationship to the news. I’ve left behind the firehose of the 24-hour news cycle in favor of a nightly news summary. For large swaths of time since the COVID years, PBS News Hour has become my nightly ritual (to the chagrin of my parents who insist on watching David Muir every night). I’ve never once doubted the editorial integrity of the News Hour team even if it concerns a perspective that I disagree with. They’re biased towards facts in a way that invokes journalism icons like Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw, having a conversation with the public every night on what happened in the world and leaving it up to the public to draw conclusions. Plus, their culture coverage is unmatched (yes, including the drag queens) on network television.

What's at Stake

The proposed 2025 Corporation for Public Broadcasting budget (which would fund operations in 2027) requests $595 million in government funding:

• $390.54 million to local programming/station needs
• $139.01 million to national programming (NPR/PBS/other independent producers)
• $35.7 million for "System Support" tasks that enhance public broadcasting with innovation and collaboration
• $29.75 million for Corporation for Public Broadcasting operations

Both NPR and PBS have very storied histories to become part of the fabric of American life, but for our purposes I’ll try to keep it brief. (I wrote a 10-page paper in college just on the early years of both organizations if that tells you anything.) In the 1950s, organizations such as the Ford Foundation and Carnegie Foundation saw the emerging television medium as a chance to foster a publicly funded alternative to commercial programming that was focused on enriching the lives of viewers rather than profit. A study done by the Ford Foundation to evaluate the initial scope of this venture recommended that it “support activities for more effective use of mass media, such as the press, the radio, and the moving picture… for nonacademic education and for better utilization of leisure time for all age groups.” 

Those efforts became National Educational Television (NET), a network that distributed content to 242 stations set aside for the purpose by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in cities that were educational centers or that already had at least three commercial channels (leaving room for each of the three commercial networks to operate). The programming (a mix of broadcast lectures and content closer to what we’re accustomed to from PBS today) was criticized as being too highbrow for the average adult and attracted a minuscule audience of roughly one-two percent of a potential viewing audience for any given program.

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 created a charter for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the government entity that issues grants to PBS and NPR, with the mission of improving educational television and incorporating radio into the mix of NET’s work.

Efforts to defund public broadcasters like NPR and PBS certainly aren’t new. In 1969, Fred Rogers passionately appealed to the Communications Subcommittee to maintain funding for public television, comparing Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’s $6,000 budget to what commercial broadcasters do with it:

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene used the hearing to protest the use of Lil Miss Drag Queen and a PBS News Hour segment on drag queens. While the News Hour segment did air nationally, neither segment was technically produced by PBS' national operation.

The Lil Miss Drag Queen segment aired as part of a YouTube series produced by New York station WNET in partnership with the New York City Department of Education and didn't receive funding or distribution by PBS. News Hour bears the broadcaster's name but has always been produced by Washington-based WETA for the broader network. PBS funds the broadcast but doesn't produce or broadcast it.

Those local stations will feel the pain most if funding cuts are put in place, and while Sesame Street or the News Hour likely could receive additional funding from nonprofits or the general public to subsidize, smaller stations in rural areas might not be as fortunate. We might be losing local broadcasts of high school football games or updates on crop prices that really impact communities across the country with few commercial broadcasters to fill those gaps.

The mandate couldn’t have been clearer from Corporation of Public Broadcasting president John Macy Jr., who said during a 1970 speech before the National Press Club that public broadcasting is “the vehicle used to return to the concept that through rational debate and discussion reasonable men can work to solve public issues; the vehicle to give the citizen some opportunity to make his own judgements known on these issues.”

I may be speaking out of turn but it feels like we need more of that these days, not less.