Hey everyone, just a quick and exciting note before today's episode. We have a new Civics 101

tote bag thank you gift. It's my favorite one yet because it defines the separation of powers

in big, bold letters. For a one-time $60 donation or $5 a month, you too can share this

definition with anyone you meet in the world who you think might

need to know it. Click the link in the show notes to take a look at it or go to our website,

civics 101podcast.org. And thank you so much for listening. Keep doing it. Hi, this is Christina

from Civics 101 here. I just wanted to drop in to give you a little update before you

listen to this episode about the Corporation for little update before you listen to this episode

about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We made this episode last year, and it's set out to

answer a couple of questions. First, why does the federal government set aside taxpayer dollars

for public media? And second, what is public media in the first place? Here's what's changed

since that episode came out.

President Trump has re-entered office and has taken a number of steps to discredit and disassemble the free press, including public media.

Now, calls to defund public media are nothing new.

They've been around since basically the creation of a funding model to direct taxpayer dollars to public media

organizations through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over four decades ago.

However, I wanted to mention a couple of things that President Trump is doing that are new

and that we do not specifically address in that episode. First, Trump is called for the FCC,

that's 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.

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