Following Congress’ Recessions Act of 2025, which cut approximately 1.1 billion dollars of funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB), the Senate’s newly outlined 2026 fiscal year appropriations budget includes no signs of future funding for the corporation. On Aug. 1, the CPB announced it will be shutting down operations. The CPB’s closure effectively cuts access to quality educational content for millions of underfunded schools, and paves the way for censoring liberal content.
Since 1967, the CPB has been renowned for its long-term support of educational content and has been federally funded since. The CPB is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting, meaning it doesn’t produce any programming of its own, but rather helps fund famous programs like the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Due to these budget cuts, both NPR and PBS are forced to end certain programs and cut staffing positions to keep their signals running. While famous programs like Sid the Science Kid or Tiny Desk may not be at risk, local programs such as Inland Edition, the Emmy-winning public affairs show, will be caught in the first line of fire if they cannot make up the losses with donations.
Local CPB funded broadcasting stations have partnered themselves with school districts and state governments for years, steadily increasing their involvement during the COVID-19 pandemic and the years following to supplement at-home learning. According to Protect My Public Media, PBS Reno’s Curiosity Classroom program brought 6,959 workshops to elementary students in northern Nevada and California from October 2023 to June 2024.
The Trump administration has expressly called for the “end of taxpayer subsidization of NPR and PBS” for allegedly pushing “liberal, left-wing” content onto children, despite the program’s influence on enriching youth.
Additionally, Trump has extended further pressure to other Republican leaders to back the bill, threatening to revoke his support if they don’t.
It’s been made clear that this is not about education at all, but rather about censoring facts that do not align with the MAGA narrative.
Trump claims that funding these corporations fuels “left-wing propaganda with taxpayer dollars,” by accusing them of painting Republican agendas as negative while doing the opposite for Democrats. Despite these claims, Allsides Technology, an organization that evaluates political bias in media, only rates PBS as “moderately” aligning with liberal thought. Beyond that, his allegations about left-wing propaganda are based on the fact that these organizations are dedicated to providing diverse coverage to match today’s standards for universally applicable content, exposing how this administration’s priorities are not with education but rather pushing their political beliefs.
For instance, the White House Executive Order condemns NPR for stating that “banana slugs are hermaphrodites,” and that “some deer are nonbinary,” ignoring that both of these facts are scientifically supported and true. Additionally, they scrutinize both of these programs’ coverage of drag queens, trans stories, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
To remedy this “problem,” the White House recently entered a partnership with PragerU for their new Founders Museum exhibit. PragerU, a prominent conservative nonprofit, specializes in creating right-wing short-form historical documentaries that have recently gone viral. From using AI to make John Adams quote conservative commentator Ben Shapiro to minimizing the impact of Christopher Columbus’ exploits in America, the hypocrisy within the Trump administration is astounding. After essentially replacing PBS with PragerU, a channel that is purposefully fabricating educational content to pander to the conservative version of “history,” it’s been made clear that this is not about education at all, but rather about censoring facts that do not align with the MAGA narrative.
This Executive Order represents more than a budget cut but rather a direct attempt to rewrite the nation’s history. If truth is replaced with partisan influence, the next generation of leaders will be misinformed due to exposure to a conservative echo chamber. Now is the time to be critically aware of the narratives popular media sources push and speak out in support of public broadcasting stations. Whether it be by calling state representatives or donating to PBS or NPR, the public must take a stand against this blatant attempt at censorship.
