Nearly sixty years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 into law, Congress voted to take back federal funding already promised for the public media system. The Republican majority has accused PBS and NPR of left-leaning bias and being a waste of taxpayer funds.

How we got here: Last week, the president ramped up pressure on wavering GOP lawmakers: “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement,” he posted online.

What it means for LAist: LAist is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that is also home to L.A.’s largest NPR station, which broadcasts at LAist 89.3 FM. As an NPR member station, LAist pays NPR for on-air programming and the ability to publish NPR articles such as this one. Annually, about 4% of LAist’s budget — about $1.7 million — has come from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Where things stand: Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have passed legislation on a narrow, party-line basis to eliminate all federal funding for public broadcasting for the next two years. That’s $1.1 billion previously approved by the Republican-led Congress and Trump.

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When President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke after signing the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, he marveled at technologies like radio and television and satellites, and echoed the words of Samuel Morse in sending the first telegraph message.

“What hath man wrought?” Johnson asked . “And how will man use his inventions?”

Johnson offered an answer to his own question: “While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man’s spirit. That is the purpose of this act.”

The years that followed brought forth the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS and NPR, largely with bipartisan support. It also led to a framework of laws intended to ensure those organizations were protected from political pressure.

CPB began funneling an ongoing subsidy to hundreds of public media outlets across the country. Out of that system came original programs that have become familiar to all corners of the country: Sesame Street. PBS NewsHour. All Things Considered. Tiny Desk. NOVA. Antiques Roadshow. Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

A poster at a March 26 rally to protect funding for U.S. public broadcasters, PBS and NPR outside the NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images )

They were on the air, online, and on platforms that Johnson could never have envisioned.

All helped foster a sense there was something for everyone.

That seeming consensus, under sustained attack, was shattered this week.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have passed legislation on a narrow, party-line basis to eliminate all federal funding for public broadcasting for the next two years. That’s $1.1 billion previously approved by the Republican-led Congress and President Donald Trump. The reversal is notionally due to the need to cut funds to help pay for new Republican priorities, including an expansion of immigration enforcement and extension of Trump’s prior tax cuts.

Editor’s note LAist is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that is also home to L.A.’s largest NPR station, which broadcasts at LAist 89.3 FM. As an NPR member station, LAist pays NPR for on-air programming and the ability to publish NPR articles such as this one.

Annually, about 4% of LAist’s budget has come from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That accounts for $1.7 million in annual funding — money that pays the costs for about a dozen journalists and other expenses. LAist’s coverage on the radio, on-demand and here on LAist.com is free to access for all.

Learn more: Protect my public media Editor’s note: The promise of — and risks to — LAist’s future

Yet Trump had campaigned on retribution and made the news media a core element of his grievance. Public broadcasting has offered a ready target, given the government funding, and he has repeatedly claimed NPR and PBS demonstrate ideological bias.

Last week, the president ramped up pressure on wavering GOP lawmakers, posting , “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement.”

Another Johnson — Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana — said on Tuesday the time had come to turn off federal largesse to public media. “This is, in our view, the misuse of taxpayer dollars,” he said. “They’re not objective. They pretend to be so.”

“In its origination, NPR and PBS might have made some sense,” Johnson added. “But it shouldn’t be subsidized by taxpayers.”

Without federal subsidy, some stations will wither

While NPR receives just a small amount of direct federal government support — less than 2% of its annual revenue — PBS and local stations rely on it far more heavily. For public radio stations, federal funding makes up, on average, 8% to 10% of their budgets; for PBS and its member stations, the figure stands on average at about 15%.

But that level varies widely.

Executives at small stations — especially those that serve rural or tribal audiences — warn they could be devastated or even knocked off the air when aid from Washington fails to arrive at the start of the fiscal year in October.

Tri-State Public Media in southwest Indiana puts a special emphasis on agricultural coverage and has a show dedicated to food and farming given the importance of that industry in its region. It already is suffering from a loss of funding from the state government. About a third of its revenue comes from Washington.

Tim Black, the chief executive, says the loss of federal funds would be “pretty darn close to being catastrophic.”

He says the station can drain its financial reserves and sell off its headquarters to survive another year or two. After that, it may go off the air.

Others are preparing for a smaller, scrappier future.

“I came here because what we do, we do for free. We try to reach everyone regardless of their ability to pay,” says Sue Rogers, the executive vice president and general manager of WXXI, the NPR and PBS member stations in Rochester, N.Y.

“It will test every single shred of creativity we have to continue to try to serve our mission, which we will do,” Rogers says.

Yet she warns that public media stations won’t be able to do all they do now.

“We know that we can do it as best we can, but there will be communities left out and there will be issues uncovered and there will be much lost, in my opinion,” Rogers says. And she points to the $545 million saved annually — less than one-hundredth of 1% of the U.S. government’s multi-trillion-dollar annual budget.

“All for such a tiny — really, $1.60 a person in this country per year — for a tiny commitment of dollars,” Rogers says.

Intensifying scrutiny on national networks

Beyond the loss of the direct federal subsidy, NPR and PBS executives say privately they expect to feel the ripple effects of budget crises at member stations. While the stations receive the vast majority of federal funds, they use a significant amount of that money to pay the networks for the right to run their programs. Yet it will be hard for many of them to go without: Those national programs serve audiences throughout much of the day and help propel stations’ fundraising drives.

Twenty years ago in our first in-person conversation, I asked then-NPR Chief Executive Ken Stern whether the network should forgo the $1 million subsidy it received at the time in order to escape periodic political flare-ups. Then-President George W. Bush’s appointee as CPB board chairperson had accused PBS of liberal bias and was pressuring the network over specific programming choices.

It was an off-the-record, get-to-know-you chat, though Stern doesn’t mind my reflecting on it here all these years later.

Stern told me it was important that NPR receive some federal funds so it would have “a place at the table” and could advocate for public radio stations.

On Wednesday, I asked him to revisit his thinking.

“It worked until it didn’t,” Stern says now.

Stern says the local stations always enjoyed more favor from lawmakers — even conservatives — than the national networks. “Even today, I suspect that, left to their own devices, many Republicans would still vote for funding,” Stern says. “It’s just that now every vote is a political loyalty test, unfortunately.”

While a few Republican senators voiced support for local member stations over the past week, nearly all condemned NPR, including Maine’s Susan Collins, often considered the most liberal Republican in the Senate.

Journalism and government funding in the U.S. are “incompatible”

Six years after my conversation with Stern, another controversy exploded the tenure of one of his successors, Vivian Schiller. Commentator Juan Williams had just been ousted by her chief news executive over remarks he had made on Fox News. Then an undercover camera stunt by right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe cemented her fate. Republicans used NPR as a rallying cry in the waning weeks of the 2010 elections to help take back the U.S. House of Representatives.

Schiller argues this week’s votes were inevitable and that NPR leaders should have prepared for this action by walking away from the funds long ago. “Any evidence-based news organization that reports critically is going to be accused of left-wing bias,” Schiller says. “Journalism and government funding in the United States — those two things are incompatible.”

“That said, when I see these accusations of bias against what I consider one of the finest news organizations in the world, it’s very, very painful,” Schiller says. “These accusations against NPR’s news organization are flat-out wrong. So that’s where we are. It’s excruciating.”

Former NPR CEO Vivian Schiller says NPR should’ve stopped accepting federal funding long ago. “Any evidence-based news organization that reports critically is going to be accused of left-wing bias,” she says. Roy Rochlin / Getty Images )

While PBS stirs controversy too, NPR’s far more expansive news coverage draws the lion’s share of public outrage. The late former CEO John Lansing , who retired in early 2024, considered diversity in hiring and programming choices both a moral imperative and a business strategy to broaden its reach. NPR’s staff came closer to reflecting America’s racial and ethnic complexity. Its audiences did not appreciably budge.

Conservatives noted the shift and often criticized it. They also singled out NPR coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop , the question of the origins of the COVID-19 virus and issues concerning LGBTQ people — particularly transgender rights.

Some people with ties to NPR agree with elements of the criticism.

Bruce Drake, a former vice president for news at NPR in the early 2000s, argues that the network has lost more support from its audiences than it is willing to admit — and not simply due to changes in how people consume media in the digital age.

“The NPR issue is not as much political bias as its sound, cultural orientation, sensibilities and tone — the same things that the Democrats were so tone deaf about in the [2024] election,” writes Drake.

Last year, Uri Berliner, then a veteran business editor at the network, published an essay in the Free Press that revived the issue. Berliner castigated the network for embracing what he characterized as a progressive mindset instead of a more open-minded quest for truth in its reporting. He asked for a meeting with NPR’s new chief executive, Katherine Maher, who had started days earlier. She declined.

He left NPR for the Free Press soon after.

Berliner says the Senate vote marks “a sad day.”

“NPR was a treasured national trust,” Berliner said in a text message. “It no longer is one. Instead of restoring the journalism gold standard of neutral impartiality the NPR leadership chose to squander the last year as the network doubled down on agenda-driven journalism by and for progressives. So here we are.”

After Berliner’s essay was published, conservative critics of NPR scoured Maher’s social media posts.

NPR CEO and President Katherine Maher testifies during a House Oversight Committee hearing in March. Anadolu / via Getty Images )

They found she had condemned Trump during his first term and proclaimed support for then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020. Being chief executive of NPR is Maher’s first job in journalism; the network’s board said she was entitled to such views in a prior life. She nonetheless became a lightning rod for Republican lawmakers in the 16 months since.

NPR officials have resolutely defended the fairness of the network’s reporting, though they say they are open to criticism. In an effort to shore up public trust, Maher and NPR’s chief content officer created a senior editing team to ensure high-level review and awareness of all news content before broadcast or posting. That was paid for by a grant from the CPB.

Stations confront a changed landscape

Some station managers say they too have periodically complained about news judgment to the network. But they attest to the value provided by NPR and PBS programming and news coverage.

Others have spoken of the reporting collaborations NPR has fostered in recent years as a success. Texas Public Radio in San Antonio has taken the lead on reporting on the recent deadly floods in the Lone Star State. But Dan Katz, the station’s news director, cites a collaboration with the Texas Newsroom, a joint project with other public media stations in the state, in helping him break news.

That newsroom has been cultivated in part with federal money in CPB grants, Katz says.

Ironically, as political debate over NPR has led Trump’s congressional allies to wipe out federal funds for public broadcasting, several station officials say they have never worked more closely with the network to deliver top-notch local coverage of regions far from NPR’s headquarters in Washington or major bureaus in New York or Los Angeles.

Maria O’Mara, the executive director of PBS Utah, NPR affiliate KUER and the bilingual station Avanza, says she’s ready to move on from the political debate.

“It has just drained us of time and energy and brain power that we need to face other existential questions about our system and our public service,” she says.

She hopes stations now forge an even stronger relationship with the national networks and each other to become more viable and vibrant.

“It is about public service,” she says. “We are needed by our listeners. We feel that clarity of mission.”

Disclosure: This story was written and reported by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik. It was edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Topline Paramount, CBS News’ parent company, said it will pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit President Donald Trump filed against the network, claiming it deceptively edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to cast her in a more positive light. AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

Paramount said Tuesday it would settle the lawsuit by paying Trump $16 million for his future presidential library and his legal fees. The lawsuit is among a series of moves by Trump and his administration targeting media he views unfavorably. In addition to lawsuits Trump and his companies have filed against his media foes, his administration has elevated partisan right-wing voices in the White House press corps and sought to effectively shut down federally funded media outlets, including the international broadcaster Voice of America, among other tactics. Trump’s new FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr also launched investigations into several outlets and warned publicly that a probe into CBS’ interview with Harris last year could affect the network’s pending multi-billion-dollar merger. Trump has also amped up his rhetoric to attack the press, calling pollsters for the New York Times, ABC News, the Washington Post and Fox News “negative criminals” who should be “investigated for ELECTION FRAUD” after the outlets have published surveys in the past week that show he has net negative approval ratings.

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Trump’s $20 Billion Suit Against Cbs—and ‘60 Minutes’

Trump—who has feuded with CBS for years—sued the network for $20 billion, claiming it deceptively edited its “60 Minutes” interview with Harris after the network in a preview of her interview aired a different version of Harris’ answer to a question than the one shown in the full program. In the preview, Harris gave a longer answer in response to a question about the Israel-Hamas war than the one aired during the full show. The network later released a full transcript of the interview that showed it ran the first sentence of her answer in the preview and the last sentence during the show, though the meaning of her response was largely the same. Trump is suing CBS as its parent company, Paramount, is seeking the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of a multi-billion-dollar merger with Skydance. Trump urged the FCC to revoke the network’s broadcasting license last month over “60 Minutes” coverage of him, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has warned that the deceptive-editing allegations against CBS could become a factor in the FCC review of the merger. Meanwhile, Paramount and Trump began mediation talks earlier this month as Paramount owner Shari Redstone wants to settle with Trump, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources. The lawsuit has led to accusations from journalists that Paramount leadership has meddled in coverage of Trump, compromising their integrity. Wendy McMahon, president of CBS News and Stations, said she would step down Monday following a “challenging” few months in which she and the company did “not agree on the path forward,” ostensibly referring to the settlement talks. Longtime “60 Minutes” producer Bill Owens also left his post in April, citing waning editorial independence. Trump reportedly wants $25 million or more and an apology to settle the lawsuit, the Wall street Journal reported this week, citing an unnamed source.

Ftc Investigates Media Matters For America

The Federal Trade Commission opened a probe in May into the liberal advocacy group, Media Matters for America, and whether it coordinated with other watchdogs to deter companies from advertising on Elon Musk’s X, according to multiple reports. Musk is also suing Media Matters for defamation over a report it published about antisemitic content on X. Media Matters president Angela Carusone told Forbes in response to the probe “the Trump administration has been defined by naming right-wing media figures to key posts and abusing the power of the federal government to bully political opponents and silence critics. It’s clear that’s exactly what’s happening here, given Media Matters’ history of holding those same figures to account. These threats won’t work; we remain steadfast to our mission.”

Trump Tries To Dismantle The Corporation For Public Broadcasting

The House voted last month to rescind $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, part of a larger $9.4 billion “rescissions” request to Congress that also asks lawmakers to retract $8.3 billion in funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development. PBS sued Trump to block him from cutting funding for the public television station, days after NPR also filed a lawsuit to stop the move. Trump signed an order May 2 directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease funding NPR and PBS. The FCC also said it’s opened investigations into NPR and PBS and whether they aired “announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements,” Carr said in a letter to the organizations in January. Carr said the investigation could factor into Congress’ decision on whether to continue funding the organizations. NPR said in a statement in a news article about the threat that the funding cut “would have a devastating impact on American communities across the nation,” adding that “locally owned public media stations represent a proud American tradition of public-private partnership for our shared common good.” PBS CEO and President Paual Kerger told NPR the move would “disrupt the essential service PBS and local member stations provide to the American people.” On April 29, the CPB sought a temporary restraining order to prevent Trump from removing three board members—two appointed by Biden and one appointed by Trump during his first term then reappointed by Biden—arguing the law that established the organization allows Trump to appoint board members, but not fire them.

Reshaping The Fcc

Carr has opened numerous investigations into media organizations and has echoed Trump’s critical rhetoric of news coverage. “We must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans,” Carr tweeted prior to his appointment as FCC chair. He also warned that “broadcast licenses are not sacred cows,” suggesting the commission could revoke licenses for companies that don’t “operate in the public interest,” and he threatened that the FCC could block merger proposals from companies that promote DEI. In addition to the NPR and PBS probes, Carr has announced investigations into Comcast’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and a San Francisco-based radio station’s coverage of an immigration raid. Comcast said in a statement to the New York Post in response to the probe that it would cooperate with the investigation and built the company “on a foundation of integrity and respect for all of our employees and customers.” The FCC doesn’t distribute and can’t revoke licenses for entire networks and instead oversees licensing for their affiliated local broadcast channels. Cable networks, such as CNN and MSNBC, are not within its jurisdiction since they don’t broadcast on public airwaves. Stations could fight any attempt to revoke their licenses in court, and laws that dictate their regulatory authority would make it highly unlikely, if not impossible, to pull a station’s license. The FCC is prohibited, for example, from “engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press.” Licensing and merger decisions require the approval of the full commission, which is made up of the chair and four members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms. One of the commission’s two Democrats, Geoffrey Starks, announced last month he would resign this spring, and a third Republican seat is vacant.

Trump Has Tried To De-Fund Voice Of America

About one-third of Voice of America’s workforce was terminated earlier this month, Kari Lake, senior adviser for the organization’s parent company, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, told multiple outlets in a statement that said “buckle up, there’s more to come.” The move comes after Lake—a special adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, parent company for international broadcaster Voice of America—announced a “partnership” earlier this month with the conservative One America News Network to broadcast its programs on USAGM networks, including the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Martí and Voice of America. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on April 22 ordered the Trump administration to restore funding for Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Network and rehire all staff, halting an executive order Trump signed in March to shut down the government-funded news organizations. Trump, claiming Voice of America was “anti-Trump” and pushed “radical propaganda,” revoked funding for the VOA and its parent company, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, prompting the organizations to place more than 1,300 employees and hundreds of contractors on leave. Lamberth, who is overseeing six lawsuits opposing the shutdown, ruled the move was likely unconstitutional since the organization was created by and is funded by Congress. On April 29, Lamberth ordered the Trump administration to reinstate $12 million in funding that had previously been appropriated to Radio Free Europe, saying in the ruling the Trump administration cannot take away money that Congress allocated, the Associated Press reported. The VOA, which has a budget of about $260 million annually and was formed in 1942 as a counter to Nazi propaganda, broadcasts in more than 40 languages to an international audience of more than 350 million. Radio Free Asia was formed in 1994 by the International Broadcasting Act and has a budget of about $61 million, and the Middle East Broadcasting Network was founded in 2004 and has a $100 million budget.

Trump’s Battle With The Associated Press Over ‘gulf Of America’

The White House has attempted to bar the Associated Press from accessing some spaces, such as the Oval Office and Air Force One, after it refused to rename the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America” in its style guide. The Associated Press then sued the Trump administration over the blockade, and Judge Trevor McFadden ruled in the AP’s favor earlier this month, though Trump has appealed the ruling.

Increased Challenges To The White House Press Corps

The White House also eliminated a permanent spot in the press pool reserved for wire services and instead put the AP, Bloomberg and Reuters in a rotation for two “print” slots, along with 31 other outlets. The Trump administration announced in February it would decide which journalists are allowed in the White House press pool, breaking a years-long tradition in which the independent White House Correspondents’ Association coordinated the pool, made up of 13 journalists from a rotating group of outlets who travel with the president and share their reporting with other media outlets. The Trump administration has also set up a “new media” seat in the briefing room that’s offered to outlets that don’t have a permanent spot, such as Forbes, though it often hosts non-traditional media such as podcast hosts and social media personalities.

Trump’s Truth Social Parent Company Suing Many Media Companies—including Forbes

Trump and his companies have filed multiple lawsuits against media organizations prior to his winning a second term. Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company for Trump’s Truth Social platform, filed a $1.5 billion lawsuit against 20 media organizations, including Forbes, The Guardian, Reuters, Axios and MSNBC, in November 2023, alleging they defamed him by incorrectly reporting that Truth Social lost $73 million from its launch in early 2022 through mid 2023. Many outlets, including Forbes, corrected their stories to say Truth Social had lost $31.6 million since its inception.

Trump Sues Bob Woodward For $50 Million

In January 2023, Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward, publisher Simon & Schuster and parent company Paramount Global for nearly $50 million, claiming Woodward published recordings of his interviews with Trump for his book “Rage” without Trump’s permission. Trump in December also sued the Des Moines Register, its parent company, Gannett, and its former pollster, Ann Selzer, over a Selzer poll shortly before the election that found Trump would lose Iowa by three to four points, only for him to win the state by 13 points. Trump alleged the poll amounted to election interference and a violation of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. The paper and Selzer filed motions to dismiss the suit in February, and the Register alleged the law only applies to “consumer merchandise,” and there’s no evidence Trump ever purchased anything from the paper.

Tangent

Trump has had mixed results in his legal battles with the press. He settled with ABC News last year in a lawsuit Trump filed when anchor George Stephanopolos said Trump was found liable for “rape” when a jury found him liable for sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll. The network agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and issue a statement of regret as part of the settlement. A judge in July 2023 dismissed a case he filed against CNN over its use of the term “the big lie” to refer to his false claims he won the 2020 election and alleged comparisons between Trump and Hitler.

Further Reading

F.C.C. Chair Orders Investigation Into NPR and PBS Sponsorships (New York Times)

Which media companies has Donald Trump sued? (Reuters)

‘60 Minutes’ Chief Resigns in Emotional Meeting: ‘The Company Is Done With Me’ (New York Times)