We should invest in public media, not defund it
By Tim Isgitt – A version of this article was originally published on May 7, 2025 by the Marin Independent Journal.
The time for public media is now.
Say the words, “public media,” and you are likely to conjure nostalgic images of NPR or Ken Burns, Gwen Ifill or Big Bird, Reading Rainbow and Mr. Rogers. For my son, it’s images of Wild Kratts, Molly of Denali, and Curious George. For many of us the image is of cherished local stations like KQED or Northern California Public Media that are dotted throughout the country.
Public media is an American Institution, with almost six decades of service to our communities, our society, and our democracy. But it is much more than just a network of local nonprofit media organizations and the national brands like PBS and NPR that support them. Public Media is an ideal. It is a shared aspiration for a more connected, informed, and civil country, a place where we can come together as neighbors and in communities to learn, to be inspired, and to be treated with respect.
Unfortunately, both the service and ideal are under attack, with calls by both the Trump Administration and some in Congress to end the modest but essential federal funding that is the basis on which the network is built. While some political leaders defame ‘woke’ content as reason to defund public media, others cite the need for budget savings. For context, the federal government provides approximately $535m annually for public media through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, roughly $1.60 per person, which represents less than .01% of the federal budget. Most of this investment goes directly to about 1,500 stations around the country.
Public media was established almost six decades ago to address the absence of media that served the public interest. In 1961, Newt Minnow, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, famously called the media landscape at the time a ‘vast wasteland’ meaning there were no public interest alternatives to commercial media. He went on to say that “program materials should enlarge the horizons of the viewer, provide him with wholesome entertainment, afford helpful stimulation, and remind him of the responsibilities which the citizen has toward his society.”
For decades, local public media organizations have worked to meet this shared mission, to provide for the informational, educational, and cultural needs of their communities. The generational impact of this system over this time – on education, cultural enrichment, trustworthy news and public affairs programming, children’s programming, local community connection, and advancing our democratic values – is beyond measure.
The media landscape has changed dramatically since Newt Minnow shared his vision, particularly over the past decade. Today, our country is plagued with rampant mis- and disinformation, toxic content, and pernicious polarization fed by commercial and social media, outlets and platforms that prioritize profits over people, and do more to divide us than to pull us together. These platforms are influencing our dialogue and discourse like never before. While the media landscape is much vaster than it was in 1961, it many ways it is still a wasteland, with very little, beyond public media, that serves the public’s interest.
We can do better.
Political attacks on public media, whatever their motivation, imperil both local service and the aspiration behind the mission. Unfortunately, or perhaps by design, these attacks are happening at the exact moment in our shared history where we should be investing in the institutions that can bring us together and those that can counterbalance the forces that pull us apart. That’s the value and promise of public media.
As we look out over the next 50 years, the questions we should be asking are what kind of generational impact do we want for our kids and grandkids? Would you rather live in a more connected, engaged, and respectful country? These questions about values transcend political allegiances. Rather than defunding public media, we should be investing more and looking for ways to broaden both the mission and the service at this time of need. It’s time to invest, not pull back. Isn’t that what we all want for our kids?
The time for public media is now.
