Public broadcasting, RIP?

Boston Globe

14-05-2025

At my public middle school in Arizona, I was taught Intelligent Design, which is a pseudoscientific alternative to evolution more akin to creationism. I was told that humans did not 'come from monkeys,' and that to think so was insulting.
An entrance to the Arizona PBS offices in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix.
Katie Oyan/Associated Press
PBS was the only educational channel I could watch at home, and while I was mostly interested in the kids' shows, I also tuned in to the National Geographic specials, where I watched experts discuss things like animal biology and evolutionary theory. I realized that PBS was making a better case than my teachers.
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At the end of the school year, I moved to a rural ranch in the Pacific Northwest. At 13, I was fully in charge of my own education. I had one American history textbook and access to a shared desktop where I visited Khan Academy — and where I watched PBS.
Without these resources, I would have resorted to scrounging for answers on Google or various social media sites. I had no digital media literacy, and doubt I would have been able to distinguish science and analysis from conspiracy and misinformation.
I had few adults to guide me. My brother was listening to Joe Rogan. I lived with relatives who were climate-change deniers, one of whom was a state representative. They owned every National Geographic going back to the '60s, but told me to disregard most of what was written inside them.
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The other reading material was the 'Left Behind' series about the biblical End Times and 'Hank the Cowdog.' Without PBS, I probably wouldn't have found trustworthy, or easily digestible, educational materials at all.
The Trump Administration's latest efforts to cut federal funding for broadcasters like PBS and NPR would have jeopardized my ability to learn on my own, and for free. My story isn't unique. Sixty percent of all PBS viewers are in rural America, and roughly the same portion are low-income. When I was a child with limited resources, PBS was the only reliable education I had, especially as the adults around me failed.
Good riddance, CPB
By
There have been plenty of loud protests about the Trump administration's efforts to cut spending on health care, scientific research, and public schools, and some of these are legitimate. But the outcry over its attempts to
Public broadcasters like NPR and PBS are no longer the kind of necessary public goods President Lyndon Baines Johnson
Moreover, public funding makes up only a fraction of NPR and PBS's budgets. Federal funding makes up
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The headquarters for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C.
Charles Dharapak/Associated Press
If they're so essential, people are likely to pay for them through memberships or donations, allowing them to survive on their own.
Trump's executive order directed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and all executive agencies to cease funding NPR and PBS. Congress has already allocated $535 million to CPB for this fiscal year.
These cuts are fundamentally different from the Trump administration's attacks on basic scientific research, which
And why should the government fund highly politicized media, anyway? Johnson promised a public broadcasting that would be 'free, and it will be independent and it will belong to all of our people.' But outlets like NPR belong to liberals. Don't take my word for it — take NPR's. The outlet's former senior editor Uri Berliner
If NPR wants to be a liberal outlet, better do so on its own dime.
So don't let the other misguided Trump cuts mislead you about this one. It's a win on many fronts. Less government spending. Less taxpayer-supported news poorly masked as unbiased public broadcasting. And a step toward restoring trust in the media.
This column first appeared in
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Rebecca Spiess can be reached at