Who pays for public media?

Civics 101

NHPR

Society & Culture, Government, History

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Public media funding makes up less than 0.001% of the federal budget, and calls to defund it have existed essentially since the creation of the CBP in 1967. However, the history of public media is much longer, and more complicated, than the creation of Sesame Street or NPR. We revisit our episode from last year about how the government funds public media, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and how that money is spent. We also talk about free press, and the firewall that prevents politicians and the government from controlling the flow of public information and educational programming. Since the episode first came out in July, 2024, President Trump has re-entered office, and has taken a number of steps to discredit and disassemble the free press, including public media. Trump has called for the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, to investigate NPR and other public media organizations for their use of corporate support. He also recently announced that he had fired three members of the CPB’s five-member board, something the CPB has said he does not have the authority to do, in a lawsuit they filed against his administration. And finally, alongside calling for Congress to defund the CPB, he issued an executive order telling the CPB to halt all funding to public media, which, as you’ll learn more about in the episode, is the kind of political directive that the CPB was created to prevent in the first place. CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, just a quick and exciting note before today's episode. We have a new Civics 101
0:06.3	tote bag thank you gift. It's my favorite one yet because it defines the separation of powers
0:11.7	in big, bold letters. For a one-time $60 donation or $5 a month, you too can share this
0:18.7	definition with anyone you meet in the world who you think might
0:21.7	need to know it. Click the link in the show notes to take a look at it or go to our website,
0:26.3	civics 101podcast.org. And thank you so much for listening. Keep doing it. Hi, this is Christina
0:32.9	from Civics 101 here. I just wanted to drop in to give you a little update before you
0:37.1	listen to this episode about the Corporation for little update before you listen to this episode
0:37.9	about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We made this episode last year, and it's set out to
0:43.3	answer a couple of questions. First, why does the federal government set aside taxpayer dollars
0:47.8	for public media? And second, what is public media in the first place? Here's what's changed
0:53.5	since that episode came out.
0:55.4	President Trump has re-entered office and has taken a number of steps to discredit and disassemble the free press, including public media.
1:03.1	Now, calls to defund public media are nothing new.
1:06.1	They've been around since basically the creation of a funding model to direct taxpayer dollars to public media
1:11.9	organizations through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over four decades ago.
1:17.1	However, I wanted to mention a couple of things that President Trump is doing that are new
1:21.5	and that we do not specifically address in that episode. First, Trump is called for the FCC,
1:27.4	that's the Federal Communications
1:28.6	Commission, to investigate NPR and other public media organizations for their use of corporate
1:33.4	support. He also recently announced that he had fired three members of the CPB's five-member board,
1:39.8	something the CPB has said he does not have the authority to do in a lawsuit they filed against his administration.
	...

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