Pressing Issues

08/05/2025

Public broadcasting is far from perfect, and for too many years, the leadership of institutions like CPB, NPR and PBS has tried too hard to placate the politicians committed to their destruction. Standing in the rubble, it’s all too easy to despair and retreat further. Demolition is so much easier than reconstruction, and the Trump regime is hoping to shatter things beyond repair.

At a time when we’re being told we have to settle for less, we should actually be asking for more. The crisis in journalism and the ongoing dismantling of our democracy call for a fundamental rethinking of what public media can be if we fund it at even a fraction of what leading democracies spend.

The fight for public media’s future can’t just be about saving one show, one station, a single government agency, or piecing back together what we used to have. The next fight must be about bringing together and mobilizing a broader community of public-media-makers and allies, planting deeper local roots, and never abandoning diversity and equity when it’s under attack. The right has weakened and watered-down public media for too long. The way forward is making the system more accountable and responsive to the public that willingly funds it.

A public media worthy of broad public support — and billions of dollars — must focus on civic media, community engagement and accountability journalism. Investing in local voices and giving people the tools to tell and amplify their own stories is the answer to the journalism crisis and the antidote to disinformation. We must protect the public airwaves while challenging ourselves to find new ways to distribute content and reach audiences that don’t rely on secret algorithms and the whims of tech billionaires.

Most of all, we must recognize that the fight for public media’s future is a fight for democracy and against authoritarianism. Healthy democracies invest in public media — and right now ours is on life support. It will take years of organizing to rebuild what the Trump regime has demolished in just a few months. While I wouldn’t have chosen this path, we now have the chance to recreate something even better.

When one door closes, they say, sometimes you have to bring a lot of people to push another one open. Let’s make a plan and meet on the sidewalk.