Welcome to Fault Lines. Can public media survive the Trump era? In 1911 Los Angeles voters founded the Municipal News—“Owned by the People”—only to see it crushed by corporate opposition. Today NPR and PBS face a modern assault. FCC chair Brendan Carr has launched a probe into alleged illegal commercials, and President Trump signed an executive order demanding they be defunded, decrying everything from “queer ducks” to reparations coverage. Yet federal funds cover only one percent of NPR’s budget and about fifteen percent of PBS’s. Stations in rural areas, vital for local news and emergency alerts, would feel the cuts most. Legal experts call the president’s order “blatantly illegal,” and both networks are suing, citing the First Amendment. Meanwhile, states from New York to California are experimenting with tax credits and grants to rescue dying local outlets. As media scholar Victor Pickard observes, this moment “spectacularly demonstrates before our eyes all the limitations of a hyper-commercialized media system.” With public funding hanging in the balance, the survival of journalism may hinge on proving that people do, in fact, “like Big Bird.”
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