Leaders of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the private agency that funneled federal funding to PBS, NPR and hundreds of public television and radio stations across the country, voted Monday to dissolve the organization created in 1967.
PBC was clotting since Congress took action last summer to protect its activities with the support of President Donald Trump. Its board of directors decided Monday to shut down CPB entirely rather than keep it alive as a shell.
“CPB’s final action will be to protect the integrity of the public media system and democratic values through dissolution, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks,” said Patricia Harrison, the organization’s president and CEO.
Many Republicans have long accused public broadcasting, especially its news programs, of being biased against liberals, but it was only in the second Trump administration—with full GOP control of Congress—that these criticisms became untenable. turned into action.
Ruby Calvert, chair of the CPB board of directors, said federal funding of public media has been destructive.
“Even at this moment, I am confident that public media will survive and that the new Congress will examine the role of public media in our country as it is critical to the education of our children, our history, culture and democracy,” Calvert said.
CPB said it provides financial support to the American Archives of Public Broadcasting in its efforts to preserve historical content and partners with the University of Maryland to maintain its own records.
