As part of an ongoing deluge of executive orders, President Donald Trump ordered that the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) immediately cease funding for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). For over five decades, these services have been directly subsidized by the federal government, with the CPB serving as the primary channel for those funds to reach both broader public broadcasting organizations and smaller, local stations. Over 350 PBS– and 1000 NPR-affiliate stations provide access to free news and informational programming. Trump’s cuts threaten not just the financial integrity of American public broadcasting, but citizens’ access to these basic services.

Although CPB funding makes up a smaller portion of the budgets of PBS and NPR than donations and other private sources, lack of advertising revenue and limited private commercial interest often leaves the services running rather tight margins. Complete cutoff of federal funding would greatly hamper their ability both to keep up their operations and, more importantly, to provide new programming. Paula Kerger, CEO of PBS, explained in an interview on “Face the Nation” that, although currently airing programming is unlikely to be affected, “​​we have programs in development right now, and that will suddenly skid to a halt.” The termination of this program development would almost certainly cause a decline in viewer retention and has the potential to drain PBS and NPR of their donations base due to a lack of adequate offerings. More importantly, those who rely on these services for news and educational programming (particularly for children) will be left behind.

In addition to killing future programming, the budget cuts threaten the operation of stations which serve smaller communities.Although PBS as a whole receives a relatively small percentage of its revenue from the government (~15%), “some stations,” Kerger estimated, “have 40 to 50 percent of their budget from federal funds.” These stations face a serious threat to their financial wellbeing.  Furthermore, “some stations around the country […] work directly with preschool providers and parents, and this funds those activities,” said Kerger. In these cases, Trump’s tax cuts would spell certain doom for children’s educational content both on television and in the real world. 

The Trump administration explained the reasoning for these cuts in a recent press release, claiming that “unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,” and that government funding is therefore “outdated.” They also alleged that “the CPB fails to abide by” principles of impartiality and nonpartisanship, simultaneously stating that “which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter.” These arguments not only fail to provide evidence for their chief contention, they also reflect a lack of understanding of the true role of broadcasting services. Today, government funding for public media isn’t meant to address a lack of commercial opportunity. Rather, its purpose is to curb the impacts of excessive commercialization of that media, which prices out millions of Americans from mainstream news which is hosted on paid cable, internet, and print sources.

Contrary to Trump’s assertions, public broadcasting’s lack of commercial incentives ensures that its reporting is particularly unbiased and its content — especially for children — is informative rather than strictly entertaining. Modern childrens’ entertainment is a space that is growing increasingly dominated by thinly veiled product advertisements and attention span-defiling, polychromatic nightmares of “educational” dreck. See “Baby Shark,” YouTube’s most-viewed video of all time, to understand the combined effects of broad reliance on internet entertainment and corporate disregard for quality and substance. Without PBS to fill the void of quality children’s entertainment, generations of children whose parents rely on screen-based entertainment will be subjected to this increasingly mindless slop.

Beyond the realm of children’s content, NPR’s thousands of affiliate stations — which supply listeners with news updates, entertainment, and more — are almost certain to suffer. Radio is already a slowly dying industry, with various digital sources increasingly overtaking its listener base. Trump’s cuts would only exacerbate the issue. Similarly, PBS and other public access television networks which receive CPB funding are home to programs like live music performances (and archives of such), reruns of classic television, historical documentaries, and other culturally enriching experiences. Without stations to put out this content, audiences would be far less exposed to the variety of content presented, both because these stations aren’t the sort of flashy, money-making enterprises which companies would choose to prop up, and because on-demand streaming allows people to make safe, known choices in their viewing rather than be presented with novel, curated content.

There’s nothing new for Trump with this policy decision. It’s the same reason he cut funding for colleges and called for a dismantlement of the Department of Education: he wants an uneducated populace. Without the sorts of informational, educational content which NPR and PBS provide to this generation — and will for the next — Americans lose out on crucial resources for their practical and cultural understanding, especially in the rural areas from which Trump has typically drawn the more fervent of his supporters. Trump understands that the easiest way to skirt around boundaries, whether those imposed by the law or by public opinion, is by relying on an uninformed to uphold his platform. If Trump can rally his supporters around his words and the lies and propaganda of his cronies, with little to no possibility of them escaping his MAGA echo chamber, he can indefinitely steer their votes toward the degradation and usurpation of our most foundational institutions.

The lasting impacts of Trump’s executive order remain ambiguous. Although the order calls to immediately cease funding, “it is not clear that the president has the authority to make such orders to CPB under the law.” The CPB is certainly standing firm against the President’s actions, at least while it can, having “already sued the Trump administration over his executive order seeking to fire three of its five board members; on Friday, it dismissed the validity of the president’s new order.” Still, Trump’s second term has been defined by extreme, extralegal actions, and there is little doubt that he and his administration will continue their war on America’s public media. What remains to be seen is if our institutions are strong enough to withstand it.