Oppose Funding Cuts to NPR and PBS

The Trump administration is calling to starve local National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations by demanding $1.1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that disburses funding to public media organizations and local stations throughout the U.S. While this amount is a small percentage of the overall budgets of NPR and PBS, most of the federal funding goes to local member stations to keep news departments afloat and able to produce local programming.

These funding cuts are part of a larger effort to dismantle the nation’s public broadcasting system, spearheaded by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Taylor Greene chairs the DOGE subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight, and seeks to end all funding for public broadcasting. Her committee began hearings under the moniker “Anti-American Airwaves.”

The 1000 or so NPR-affiliated stations and 336 local PBS stations are budgeted by Congress to receive about a half-billion dollars in public funding in 2025 and also in 2026, which accounts for less than 1/100 of the federal budget.

98% of Americans live within range of one of the more than 1000 public radio stations, which provide important local news coverage at a time when such coverage is declining on mainstream media. In addition, many NPR stations are the only source of emergency bulletins, and in some rural areas with limited broadband access, are the only sources of news at all. Demand your representatives oppose any cuts to our public broadcasting services.