Congress Votes to Defund Public Media

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A bill to claw back $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds public radio and television, will be voted on by the House on Thursday evening. The legislation has already passed the Senate, on a largely partisan vote. We’ll talk to the president of KQED and representatives from other public radio and television outlets about the impacts these cuts will have on their mission to provide free public programming to their communities. Guests: Michael Isip, president and CEO, KQED David Folkenflik, media correspondent, NPR News Brian Duggan, general manager, KUNR and KNCC Kate Riley, president and CEO, America's Public Television Stations Andre de Channes, general manager and director of operations, KZYX Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KQED Podcasts comes from the Exploratorium. Leap into the wild new world of artificial intelligence this summer at the all-new All-Ages exhibition, Adventures in AI. Now through September 14th at Pier 15. Tickets at Exploratorium.edu slash AI.
0:20.1	Support for KQED podcasts comes from the San Jose Museum of Art.
0:24.4	Photographer Paul Ho-Hare explores homeland and family among her Hmong American Community.
0:30.7	See the imaginative landscape.
0:33.0	Learn more at SJM-U-S-A-R-T.org.
0:37.8	From K-Q-E-D.
0:52.4	From K-Q-E-D in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:54.2	A bill to claw back $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
1:00.6	which funds public radio and television stations, passed the house last night and is on its way to the president's desk.
1:08.3	That's bad news for public media, including KQED. You may have also heard
1:13.4	we had layoffs here this week, so we're bringing on the head of KQED, Michael Isopp, and then
1:19.4	we'll talk with other public media outlets about the impact the cuts are going to have on their
1:24.1	communities. That's all coming up next right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. It has not been the best week for public media.
1:47.9	Your own station, KQED, remains a remarkable institution filled with brilliant and knowledgeable people.
1:54.4	In the last round of radio ratings that came out, KQED scored the highest rating seen in the Bay Area since 1972. Thank you for that. Thank you for listening. Thank you for coming out in a huge way for our recent pledge drives.
2:08.6	At the same time, the media business, even for a nonprofit like us, is very tough. And we just made a series of cuts and layoffs. Last night, Congress
2:21.0	passed a bill that will claw back money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
2:25.3	which provides money to stations, including us. And I got to tell you, that may not be the
2:31.3	worst of the pressure from the federal government, as we will hear.
2:37.9	So with all this going on, we wanted to bring on the big boss around here.
2:41.1	Michael Isup to talk directly with us and you all too.
2:42.3	Welcome to Ford, Michael.
	...

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