Public broadcasting officials from across the country plan to descend on Capitol Hill today in hopes of convincing lawmakers to preserve their federal funding despite pressure from President Trump and his allies.
Money from the federal government accounts for fully half the annual budgets of some local public television and radio stations.
The lobbying effort follows a multipronged attack from the Trump administration on the finances and independence of public media, with a particular focus on PBS and NPR, the predominant national public television and radio networks, respectively.
The White House has called NPR and PBS programming "radical propaganda" and characterized federal spending on public media as a waste of taxpayer dollars.
The vast majority of that money goes to local public broadcasting stations rather than the national networks.
"I'm extremely worried about it," said Dina Polkinghorne, the interim co-general manager of a station in rural Philo, Calif., speaking on the public affairs show Forum on KQED. "I've never seen community radio in such a perilous situation."
Roughly 190 officials from local stations across the country flew to NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. this week to strategize and impress upon lawmakers the services they provide – and the loyalty of their audiences (who often prove to be engaged voters).
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, has already announced her support.
In an op-ed published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and on her Senate website, Murkowski writes that public broadcasting stations in Alaska not only inform people, but connect them through cultural programs that address mental health concerns, and serve as warning systems "for natural disasters, power outages, boil water advisories, and other alerts."
"We get these essential services at a comparatively small cost," she writes. "What may seem like a frivolous expense to some has proven to be an invaluable resource that saves lives in Alaska."
Polkinghorne's station, KZYX, serves a rural coastal county north of the Bay Area that is relatively economically depressed and has suffered wildfires and winter storms.
She says while residents can watch local TV stations based in the Bay Area, there are none that serve her county. "So radio is really it," she said. "People rely on us for that sort of breaking news to keep them safe and informed."
Polkinghorne told KQED that federal funds – about $174,000 annually – make up 25% of the station's annual revenues.
Officials who run a half-dozen public media stations spoke to NPR News for this story on condition they not be quoted, citing the sensitivity of the moment.
A multipronged attack on public media funding
In recent weeks, Trump has asserted what he claims is his power to fire three of the five board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – or CPB – and decreed that it should stop subsidizing NPR and PBS.
CPB officials say the order is invalid and illegal and plan to ignore it; PBS and NPR say they will fight it.
It is unclear whether that would bar stations that receive funds from CPB from using non-federal money to pay for NPR and PBS programming. If it did, stations could face the choice of losing a significant amount of revenues - or a huge chunk of their programming schedule.
And if many stations were to back away from NPR, it would hit the radio network hard: station payments make up about 30 percent of its annual revenues. The toll on PBS would be greater.
Trump also has said he would formally ask Congress to claw back roughly $1 billion in federal funds lawmakers have allocated to CPB to fund public broadcasting over the next two fiscal years. He has yet to send that request to Capitol Hill. But in the budget blueprint he has presented to Congress, the president proposed the elimination of all federal funds for CPB in subsequent years.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Washington D.C. heard a legal challenge to Trump's firing of the CPB board members. The nonprofit corporation contends those firings are illegal because CPB is not part of the federal government. It asked for a preliminary ruling preventing Trump's decree from taking effect while the larger case goes to trial.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss sharply questioned the lawyer for the CPB over whether such a ruling was necessary. The judge suggested that until he issues a decision in the case, the CPB could go about business as usual with all five members – as it has been doing, despite Trump's demand.
More substantively, Moss appeared to put up roadblocks to Justice Department lawyer Jeremy Newman's assertion that Trump was within his presidential authority to remove the board members. The president appoints members of the board in consultation with Senate leaders of both parties.
"The power to remove entails the power to control," Moss said. "The statute [creating the CPB] is pretty clear that the executive is not supposed to be controlling the CPB."
CPB was created by an act of Congress as a nonprofit, and incorporated in the District of Columbia.
From the outset, CPB has been intended to serve as a firewall that shields public broadcasters from political pressure, even though a significant part of their funding comes from the federal government through CPB: typically about 15% for public TV stations and PBS, and 8 to 10% for public radio stations. (NPR generally receives about 1% of its funds directly from the federal government and a bit more indirectly from stations through programming fees.)
Trump allies level accusations of liberal bias
At a board meeting last week, CPB Chair Ruby Calvert spoke of her profound belief in the mission served by public broadcasters: providing free of charge to all "unique high quality programming, trusted information and educational comment over the air and online."
"I come from a deeply conservative Republican family and state. My brother was both speaker of the House and president of the Senate in the Wyoming legislature," she said. "Like him, I am very fiscally conservative and philosophically conservative. And I want to note that there are many conservative friends who support public media."
In late March, Trump's Republican allies in the U.S. House held a hearing to question the wisdom of government funding for public media, and accused the national networks of an anti-conservative bias.
Republicans resurrected social media messages posted by NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher years before she joined the network in 2024. They revealed she had a liberal political bent. They also expressed outrage at a drag queen's reading time segment that was posted on the website of a PBS member station in New York City. (It was later taken down).
Both Maher and PBS Chief Executive Paula Kerger have given a handful of interviews in which they say the networks will defend their rights and ability to deliver news and cultural programming. Maher has emphasized the role NPR stations play in spreading news and information to so-called "news deserts," where other local news outlets have faded or shut down.
Maher recently spoke with the podcast for the Columbia Journalism Review, in which she reiterated the network is weighing legal action against the administration over its claim that it is ordering CPB and local stations to withhold funds from NPR and PBS.
States rethink their funding of public media too
Public radio officials told NPR financial contributions from individual donors had jumped up appreciably, but did not count on that figure to be sustainable year after year.
Meanwhile, some public broadcasting stations are in danger of losing political support and funding at the state level too.
In Indiana, where the state government is dominated by Republicans, the governor signed a bill into law that wiped out all taxpayer funding for all 17 public broadcasting stations, including those based in Indiana that serve communities in neighboring states. Station officials there told public radio station WFYI in Indianapolis that it "could result in disruptions or cuts to operations, services or staff."
In New Jersey, the budget of Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy would cut public subsidies for New Jersey PBS next year to $250,000, which is a quarter of the current amount. The state has not yet adopted its budget for the upcoming year, but NJ PBS attributed layoffs in part to the budget uncertainty.
Meanwhile, in New York, state officials struck a deal to offer an extra $4 million infusion to be split evenly among public radio stations around the Empire State – a direct response to the sense of crisis emanating from the nation's capital.
The state typically gives $14 million annually to public media – all but $1 million of which is for TV. This new figure is layered on top of that.
Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik. It was edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editors Gerry Holmes and Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.
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