Not even Trump may be able to pierce the independence that Congress granted to public media

Much of what President Trump is doing, or at least flapping his gums about, is illegal. An example would be his demand that Harvard be stripped of its tax exemption. Such a move would not only be illegal but Trump also arguably broke the law just by saying it, since, as Rachel Leingang reports in The Guardian, “Federal law prohibits the president from directing or influencing the Internal Revenue Service to investigate or audit an organization.” Paging Pam Bondi!

With that as context, I want to discuss Trump’s executive order that PBS and NPR be defunded. I certainly don’t think we should dismiss the threat. The authoritarian era has now fully descended upon us, and Trump may be able to get away with his lawbreaking if no one will stop him. Still, there’s reason to think that public media are in a better position to withstand his assault than are some other institutions.

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As all of us should know by now, executive orders are not laws, and Trump’s ability to impose his will through them is limited. Last Monday, Trump tried to fire three of the five board members at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It didn’t go well. NPR media reporter David Folkenflik reported that the CPB filed a lawsuit to stop the firings, arguing that it was specifically set up to be free from White House interference.

Folkenflik wrote that “the law specifically states that the CPB ‘will not be an agency or establishment of the United States Government’ and sets up a series of measures intended to ‘afford the maximum protection from extraneous interference and control.’” The CPB itself said:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is not a government entity, and its board members are not government officers. Because CPB is not a federal agency subject to the President’s authority, but rather a private corporation, we have filed a lawsuit to block these firings.

Reporting for the “PBS NewsHour,” William Brangham said that the heads of the CPB, NPR and PBS have all pointed out that the CPB reports to Congress, not to the president.

Moreover, the CPB’s budget is set two years ahead, and is already funded through 2027. The agency describes it this way: “The two-year advance funding underscores Congress’ intention that CPB have operational independence, that public media could better leverage other funding sources, and that producers have essential lead time to develop high-quality programming and services.”

So what would a cutoff of government funding mean for NPR and PBS? As Folkenflik writes, the CPB distributes more than $500 million every year, with most of that money going to local television and radio stations. PBS and its stations are actually quite dependent on these funds, getting about 15% of their revenues from the CPB.

NPR depends on the CPB for just 1% of its budget. But that oft-cited 1% figure is poorly understood, because NPR-affiliated stations get about 10% of their revenues from the CPB. According to NPR, the network receives about 30% of its revenues from fees paid by local affiliates so they can broadcast “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and other programs. In other words, a cutoff would actually affect NPR quite a bit.

By most accounts, large public radio stations that serve affluent communities, such as WBUR and GBH in Boston, would be less affected by the cuts than small outlets and those that serve rural areas and communities of color. Writing in The Washington Post (gift link), Scott Nover, Herb Scribner and Frances Vinall report that stations like WWNO in New Orleans say a cutoff of funding would hamper their ability to cover natural disasters such as Hurricane Ida in 2021.

In fact, public media are a lifeline in less affluent areas across the country, which is why even Republican members of Congress have blocked efforts to cut the CPB, as Republican presidents have tried to do going back to Ronald Reagan.

Although public media asks for viewer and listener donations, they are available for free to those who can’t (or won’t) pay, making NPR as well as PBS shows such as the “NewsHour” and “Frontline” our most vital sources of free, reliable news.

In the short run, public radio and television are probably safe. In the long run, who knows? As with so many of our institutions right now, we need to withstand the authoritarian gale and hope that it blows itself out.