PBS Chief Paula Kerger on the Aftermath of Federal Funding Cuts—and What People Get Wrong About Public Media

Paula Kerger is navigating arguably the most challenging period of her 20-year tenure at the helm of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which has more than 330 member stations. Last spring, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for all federal funding to PBS and NPR to be blocked, accusing the organizations of bias. Soon after, the Department of Education notified the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that it was terminating the 2020-2025 Ready To Learn grant for educational content, affecting PBS as well as dozens of public television and radio stations. PBS and NPR sued, and in March this year a federal judge ruled that the executive order barring the federal funding violated the First Amendment. But the organization must still grapple with a funding shortfall created by a Congressional vote to rescind around $1.1 billion in advance appropriated federal funding for PBS and NPR, and an entirely new landscape for public media. The CPB, which was created in 1967 as a nonpartisan nonprofit to direct federal appropriations to public television and radio stations, announced in January that it would officially dissolve. PBS has since reduced its budget by ...