“It’s very scary.”
In separate interviews, three veteran nonprofit executives used the same phrase to describe the future of public media in the United States under the next Trump Administration. While agencies are currently funded through 2025, the attacks are fierce.
The GOP Is Out for Blood
In April, president-elect Donald Trump called National Public Radio (NPR) “a liberal disinformation machine” and vowed to never give it a penny while Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) introduced the “No Propaganda Act,” a bill that aims to prohibit federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the CPB “complicit in perpetuating political bias.”
Three weeks ago, Department of Government Efficiency co-heads Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy joined the fray, calling for an end to federal funding to the CPB in the Wall Street Journal.
This isn’t new, of course.
Conservative politicians have tried to destroy public media ever since the Public Broadcasting Act created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in 1967 with its call for public media to address “the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities.” We saw it with President Richard Nixon in 1972, in Rep. Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract With America, and under President Trump during his first term in office: The annual budget each year called for the elimination of the CPB, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
And yet, the CPB survived. In 2018, when Republicans controlled all three branches of government, bipartisan compromise prevailed: The CPB was protected. The NEA and NEH even received a $3 million funding boost.
This time promises to be different.
Simon Kilmurry, who was the executive producer of the PBS independent documentary showcase “POV” from 2007-2015, said conservative pushback has always come with the job, “but the level of jeopardy has increased significantly,” he told IndieWire. “I think you’re going to see points of vulnerability in a more coordinated fashion this time.” He said that the CPB, NEA, and NEH “will be targeted.”
In the past, supporters relied on Republican backing from disparate parts of the country where public arts and media funding were the only source of news and culture. Here’s why that’s now much less likely.
The Demonization of Public Media
“It’s not just Republicans now; it’s these insane MAGA people,” said documentary veteran Gordon Quinn, producer of “Hoop Dreams” and co-founder of Kartemquin Films. “They’re going after diversity, but a diversity of voices and public media are critical for a well-functioning democracy.”
Adriana Bosch, a former producer of PBS series “American Experience,” put the situation in stark terms: “It’s not about the content of public media; it’s more about the existence of public media.
“My fundraising plan relied on the NEH and CPB,” said Bosch of an upcoming project. “There is no certainty that it will be around in 2026.”
Destroying Public Media Kills Documentaries at the Source
For more than 50 years, public media has been the most fundamental, consistent, and reliable source of funding and distribution for independent documentaries.
“There are so many films that wouldn’t have seen the light of day in terms of broadcast if not for public media,” said Debra Zimmerman, longtime executive director of Women Make Movies. Her organization survived previous defunding from the federal government.
“Right now, we have five projects that are funded by the NEH to the tune of more than $2 million,” she said. “That’s major funding that isn’t available from anywhere else across the spectrum.”
Former Sundance Institute executive Keri Putnam recently compiled a report for Harvard’s Shorenstein Center that said more than 60 independent documentaries go into production each year with funding through the CPB-supported ITVS and National Multicultural Media Alliance entities. Public broadcasting also provides massive distribution: the PBS documentary programs reach over 22 million, while independent docs on commercial streaming platforms reach only 4.4 million.
Putnam told IndieWire, “It is clearly attracting audiences because it is reliably trusted and known as a destination for this work, and likely too because it is free in most cases.”
“Public media is also crucial at a time when most commercial distributors are primarily focusing on true crime documentaries and celebrity bios, all but abandoning social-issue storytelling. One example: As a counterpoint to the A&E reality series “Duck Dynasty,” launched in 2012, Alabama-based public media was motivated in part to counter such sensationalistic stereotypes with its own documentary series “Reel South,” now in its ninth season.
Said producer Nick Park, “We now have a platform that filmmakers in this region have come to rely on as a career-sustaining opportunity and viable place for their work. If CPB was defunded, “Reel South” could likely not exist without new funders, which we currently don’t have.”
Private funding already provides the bulk of the PBS budget; just 15 percent comes from federal sources (New York’s large WNET PBS affiliate receives only seven percent). However, many PBS affiliates and other smaller media organizations, many of which are in Republican-controlled states, rely on a far greater portion of government support.
Aaron Pruitt, director and general manager for Montana PBS, said about a third of its budget comes from the CPB, a third from local university partners, and a third from “viewers like you.” “But each of those legs are vital for our survival,” he said. “If that funding went away tomorrow, a hit of that percentage would be devastating.”
Red States Love Their PBS, Too
He remains optimistic, believing that the CPB will not be defunded “because I think Americans love their local public radio and TV stations,” he said. Pruitt touted the successes of local projects such as regional Emmy winner “Charlie Russell’s Old West” as well as “Backroads of Montana” and “Glacier Park’s Night of the Grizzlies.”
Public media advocates use such examples to make their case on Capitol Hill. Robin L. Bronk, CEO of advocacy group The Creative Coalition said there are tangible economic reasons for the government to support the arts. “Arts contributes to over four percent of the GDP,” she said. “It’s one of the few sectors that runs a trade surplus, so if you care about the U.S. economy, there’s proof of concept.”
Jamie Bennett, interim co-director for Americans for the Arts and a former NEA staffer, said he plans to target members of Congress by flying in citizens from their districts this December. “It’s the old-fashioned tactic of bringing in constituents to have conversations about public broadcasting,” he said. “The more we can start from the local level, I think there’s pretty wide agreement on both sides of the political spectrum that having news and information of, by, and for the community, is really important.”
Ken Burns and “Antiques Roadshow”
An irony of the right-wing allegations against public media’s liberal bias is, for every hour of independent nonfiction about an Inuit lawyer, the intersex community, or young Latina women — to cite a few recent POV documentaries — there are many, many more hours of content across the 1,500 CPB-supported, locally owned and operated public television and radio stations that wouldn’t offend the most hardened conservatives.
The highest-rated shows on PBS are Ken Burns documentaries, TV series “Finding Your Roots” and “Antiques Roadshow,” and British period dramas “Call the Midwife” and “Masterpiece.” Other current favorites include “Nature” and “NOVA.” As one insider told IndieWire, “PBS has more shows about animals than people of color.”
In fact, many of PBS’s biggest defenders also criticize how far it’s strayed from its mission to “constitute an expression of diversity” and address “the needs of unserved and underserved audiences.”
“We wouldn’t be here with two Oscar-short-listed films if it weren’t for public media and its support of our journey,” said filmmaker Michèle Stephenson. “But in the last decade or so, it’s been a problematic organization for BIPOC voices.”
Stephenson and her partner Joe Brewster, directors of the ITVS-supported POV documentaries “American Promise” and “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” refuse to accept a PBS further diluted by right-wing assaults. “It’s about compromise at what cost,” she said. “I don’t think kowtowing is going to save us. We have a long battle ahead of us and we need to strap in and start the work.”
Added Brewster, “I don’t think it’s time to back down. I don’t think it’s time to make documentaries about how great it was in the 1950s, because it wasn’t. Give us a public television that allows for risk-taking and critical thinking. Make the mission clear. Don’t water down the mission.”
But if Trump and his Republican colleagues deliver on their promises to defund these agencies, it’s difficult to see how that mission can survive. As Simon Kilmurry said, “It’s very easy to tear something down, but it’s hard to build it back up and the damage that can be done can take generations to fix.”
