Brian Laird on WNYC, as our annual winter membership drive is about to end tomorrow,

and we've been talking about the political threats to multiple public broadcasting funding sources.

With us now for a few minutes to take us a little deeper into what's going on.

There's none other than the president and CEO of WNYC, LaFontaine Oliver.

Hi, LaFontaine.

Thanks for coming back on the show to report to our listeners.

Hi, Brian.

Always a pleasure to spend time with you and the listeners.

So we've been talking throughout the drive about the threats to public radio. Can you tell

everybody more about what they are specifically? Yeah, Brian. So I would start by saying there's

sort of several buckets of threats that we're facing right now. First and foremost,

several bills have been introduced before Congress aimed at either freezing or revoking

federal funding through the corporation for public broadcasting. We've also seen sort of a shift

in the sort of regulatory environment.

The new head of the FCC, Brendan Carr, alerted NPR and PBS and stations about an open

investigation into our sponsorship spots for public radio and public television stations.

And, you know, while we certainly are confident that our underwriting messages and practices

fully comply with the FCC regulations, that is, you know, a part of another bucket of threats.

I think you've also seen and heard information about NPR and the New York Times.

I believe it was NBC News Politico.

Being asked to vacate long-held office space at the Pentagon. Things like that make the job of reporting information to the American public more difficult

during a time when, you know, more reporting is needed.

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