Tag Archives: PBS News Hour

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OPB is facing a Big Hole. Will Donors step Up?

Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) is in trouble.

A bill clawing back $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides funding for NPR and PBS, including OPB, has passed the Senate. It is expected to pass the House next and then to be sent to President Trump for his signature. 

Are you and thousands of other Oregonians prepared to start or increase donations to OPB to replace the federal money it now relies on?

Public radio across the country is already begging for money. On July 18, Alyson Brokenshire, Senior Director, Principal and Major Gifts at PBS News Hour sent out a message: “For the first time in history, Congress voted to zero out funding for public media, including PBS News Hour. This decision creates a critical funding challenge for us, but one we can meet with your sustaining support.”  WBUR in Boston also sent out a plea on July 18: “Give. Longtime listener or reader? Become a first-time donor at this pivotal moment. Give again. Thank you, a million times over, for being in our corner. Give more. Help us close this $1.6-million funding gap, right now. Give every month. When you become a Sustainer, we know we can rely on you. Month after month. Year after year.”

In fiscal year 2023, government grants to OPB totaled $4,679,653 or 9.5% of the station’s $49,370,988 in revenue from contributions, including sponsorships.[1]

I’m already a sustaining contributor to OPB. I provide ongoing, monthly financial support through automatic deductions from a credit card. I recently increased my monthly donations because of the threats of funding cuts by the Trump administration. Am I prepared to donate even more when those cuts are real?

My sense is that OPB has a tough road ahead if it tries to replace all of the $4,679,653 in annual federal support it now receives. 

Current economic uncertainty is one thing likely to impact fundraising. There is already evidence that such uncertainty is leading people to scale back on discretionary spending, including charitable donations.Nonprofit giving in the US has taken a $65 billion hit since 2021, according to Philanthropy.org. 

Another reality is that a substantial percentage of America’s private wealth is held by conservative and center-right donors, many of whom are wary of institutions they perceive as liberal, and many of whom see public media as liberal. That perception was recently reinforced by Uri Berliner, a former senior business editor at NPR. In 2024, he wrote a blistering critique of NPR in The Free Press, accusing it of lacking viewpoint diversity and of a drift towards a progressive ideology

Trump administration officials and members of Congress have piled on, claiming that NPR and PBS push “left-wing propaganda” and accusing them of violating the CPB’s nonpartisan mandate.

Never one to be subtle, Trump has mercilessly blasted public radio and television. “NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms (Networks!), should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote late Wednesday on Truth Social. “Republicans, don’t miss this opportunity to rid our Country of this giant SCAM, both being arms of the Radical Left Democrat Party. JUST SAY NO AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

“NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical, left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy, white, urban liberals and progressives,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) said at a subcommittee hearing earlier this spring, 

Could OPB survive without the federal grants or any increase in donations? Probably, but the hit would be hard, though not as hard as the likely hit on KCUW in Pendleton, OR, which relied on federal money for 98% of its revenue in 2023. KCUW is is managed by members of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he secured a deal from the White House that some funding administered by the Interior Department would be repurposed to subsidize Native American public radio stations in about a dozen states, but there’s no firm provision in the bill for that.

The impact of any cut in OPB’s programming would be felt particularly by Oregon and Southern Washington’s more educated and higher income populace (71% of OPB’s TV audience, 82% of OPB’s digital audience and 85% of OPB’s radio audience has attended college). The public broadcast audience also typically falls into higher household income categories and have for years, primarily because households that listen to public media tend to have more formal education.

One potential threat to any OPB fundraising outreach is the changing media landscape and its burgeoning cost. 

Not only are media outlets multiplying, but alternative media are increasingly soliciting subscriptions. I have long subscribed to the Wall Street Journal (that subscription alone costs me $779.88 a year) and the New York Times, but added a subscription to Bari Weiss’ Common Sense newsletter, later renamed The Free Press, in 2021. I have since added subscriptions to a raft of other Substack publications with various points of view.  

I also make contributions to a number of Oregon and national non-profits, the Ukrainian Freedom Fund, and a Ukrainian news site, The Kyiv Independent.  And once in a while I’m a sucker for a GoFundMe plea. 

My point is, like many Oregonians, I’m already heavily invested in trying to do good. But there’s a limit. Periodically, I have to cull my subscriptions and donations because the cost gets out of hand. This means reprioritizing. And in the case of public broadcasting, fundraising pleas are going to come from various entities competing against each other for support, including individual programs, such as PBS News Hour, and individual stations, such as OPB and KCUW.

If OPB wants to replace the $4,679,653 in government financing it is set to lose, it is going to have to convince a lot of people to up their giving or chip in for the first time. 

This at a time when Oregon’s economy is facing a period of sluggish growth and some signs of weakness, with potential big givers from companies like Intel and Nike under stress and smaller givers uncertain about their economic prospects. President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is also likely to put pressure on many Oregonians and the state budget and there’s potential harm from Trump’s aggressive tariffs.

All food for thought.

[1] In most instances, sponsorships are considered charitable contributions by the underwriters.  On OPB’s IRS Form 990, these sponsorships are included in the $49,370,988 reported as contributions and grants. There is also a small amount of sponsorships that meet the definition of advertising, which primarily occur on OPB’s digital platforms.  For FY 23, advertising is included in the program service revenue of $1,381,015 and in unrelated business revenue reported on OPB’s IRS Form 990-T.  

For FY 23, advertising is included in the program service revenue of $1,381,015 and in unrelated business revenue reported on our IRS Form 990-T.  Sponsorships are not otherwise disclosed on the tax filings.  Total revenue was $56,821,607.

Notable Sources of Revenue$Percent of Total Revenue
Contributions$49,370,988             86.9%
Program Services$1,381,015               2.4%
Investment Income$3,446,034               6.1%
Bond Proceeds$0 
Royalties$0 
Rental Property Income$415,851                0.7%
Net Fundraising$0 
Sales of Assets$2,207,719                 3.9%
Net Inventory Sales$0 
                                                                       

Figures are from Form 990 which non-profits are required to file annually with the IRS. These CPB grants are included in the Contributions and Grants revenue of $49,370,988 on OPB’s FY 2023 IRS Form 990. CPB grants are not included in government grants on the Form 990 as CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation, not a government agency. 

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Justice Department Wants to Deport Harvard Scientist to Russia. Where is the Outrage?

                                                           

Kseniia Petrova (Polina Pugacheva, via Associated Press)

UPDATE

On May 28, the New York Times reported that a federal judge said she would grant bail to Ksenia Petrova   in an immigration case stemming from Ms. Petrova’s failure to declare scientific samples she was carrying into the country. “There does not seem to be either a factual or legal basis for the immigration officer’s actions” in stripping Ms. Petrova of her visa on Feb. 16, Christina Reiss, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Vermont, said in a court hearing. She added that “Ms. Petrova’s life and well-being are in peril if she is deported to Russia,” as the government has said it intends to do.

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 To what levels of uncaring depravity have we sunk?

U.S. Government lawyers told a federal judge today that the Trump administration intends to deport a Harvard scientist back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear that she will be arrested there over her protest of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The New York Times reported the action today. 

Christina Reiss, chief judge of the United States District Court in Vermont, asked the government to clarify whether or not it planned to deport Ms. Kseniia Petrova to Russia.

“You are asking for her removal to Russia?” she asked.

“Yes, your honor,” Jeffrey M. Hartman, an attorney representing the Department of Justice, replied, according to the Times.

That this is taking place in Donald Trump’s America is a travesty.

Petrova, a 30-year-old Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since February. Her detention occurred when she was returning to Boston from a trip to France. Her story was reported by Geoff Bennett, who serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS News Hour. 

Kseniia Petrova, a 30-year-old Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since February. Her detention occurred when she was returning to Boston from a trip to France. Her story was reported by Geoff Bennett, who serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS News Hour. 

Returning to Boston’s Logan International Airport from a trip to France, she brought back frog embryo samples for her lab. The PBS News Hour reported on April 24 that ICE said she knowingly broke the law in failing to properly declare the embryos. According to the News Hour, A typical customs violation results in a fine, but Petrova had her visa revoked, was detained and flagged for deportation.

In moves more common in a police state, where people are swiftly moved from place to place to avoid detection, ICE first sent Petrova to a cell at the airport. The next day they transferred her to a jail in Vermont. She spent the next week there. Then ICE flew Petrova to detention in Louisiana. She has now been imprisoned at the Richwood Detention Facility in Louisiana for two months in a one-room facility with 89 other women, wall-to-wall beds and almost no personal privacy. Yes, for two months now.

The News Hour reported that Petrova has been a vocal critic of the Russian government and its actions in Ukraine and fears persecution if deported there. “I am afraid that, if I come to Russia, I will be arrested, because we have in Russia special law,” she said. “If you say something against current war, you will be imprisoned, and you can be imprisoned for 15 years.”

“ICE is required to detain individuals … only if they are a flight risk or a danger to the community. Ms. Petrova is neither,” said her attorney, Gregory Romanovsky. “Her continued detention serves no purpose and wastes limited government resources.”

The Trump administration, banking on the support of its most dedicated backers, is running roughshod over human rights right here in America. 

Where is the outrage? 

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Kseniia Petrova’s Ordeal: Do You Hear The Jackboots Coming?

Kseniia Petrova at Harvard Medical School

Remember when the eight-time WNBA All-Star, Britney Griner, was arrested in 2022 at a Moscow airport on drug-related charges? She was detained for nearly 10 months, spending much of that time in prison. American public and political outrage was severe and her supporters pressed the White House hard to bring her home.

“I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner said in a handwritten letter to President Biden appealing for her freedom.

Apparently, America learned a lesson from Griner’s imprisonment. But it was the wrong one. 

Kseniia Petrova, a 30-year-old Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since February. Her detention occurred when she was returning to Boston from a trip to France. Her story was reported by Geoff Bennett, who serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS News Hour. 

Returning to Boston’s Logan International Airport from a trip to France, she brought back frog embryo samples for her lab. The PBS News Hour reported on April 24 that ICE said she knowingly broke the law in failing to properly declare the embryos. According to the News Hour, A typical customs violation results in a fine, but Petrova had her visa revoked, was detained and flagged for deportation.

In moves more common in a police state, where people are swiftly moved from place to place to avoid detection, ICE first sent Petrova to a cell at the airport. The next day they transferred her to a jail in Vermont. She spent the next week there. Then ICE flew Petrova to detention in Louisiana. She has now been imprisoned at the Richwood Detention Facility in Louisiana for two months in a one-room facility with 89 other women, wall-to-wall beds and almost no personal privacy. Yes, for two months now.

She has an immigration court hearing scheduled for May 7 in Jena, Louisiana, related to her asylum case.

The News Hour reported that Petrova has been a vocal critic of the Russian government and its actions in Ukraine and fears persecution if deported there. “I am afraid that, if I come to Russia, I will be arrested, because we have in Russia special law,” she said. “If you say something against current war, you will be imprisoned, and you can be imprisoned for 15 years.”

“ICE is required to detain individuals … only if they are a flight risk or a danger to the community. Ms. Petrova is neither,” said her attorney, Gregory Romanovsky. “Her continued detention serves no purpose and wastes limited government resources.”

He has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Vermont, arguing that a declaration issue doesn’t justify detention and the government failed to follow standard protocol.

NPR reported that earlier this week, during a preliminary hearing, a Louisiana immigration judge found the government’s case to be legally insufficient and ruled that the Notice to Appear, the document that initiates deportation proceedings, did not meet legal standards. The judge gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement one week to submit stronger evidence.

The Trump administration, banking on the support of its most dedicated backers, is running roughshod over human rights right here in America. 

Where is the outrage? 

I despair.

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The Future of Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) Under Trump? Precarious.

Update: May 2, 2025: President Trump signed an Executive Order on May 1, 2025 stating, “I therefore instruct the CPB Board of Directors (CPB Board) and all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.” It’s not clear how this order can be implemented since the president has also asked Congress to approve a recission package for there Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has not been acted upon by Congress.

Update: April 14, 2025: The Trump administration said today it would end funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR. It said it would   ask lawmakers to cut more than $9 billion in funding for the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio and foreign aid in the current fiscal year,. The proposal — known as a rescission package — would codify cuts identified by the Department of Government Efficiency an attempt to employ a little-used legislative tactic for reducing spending already approved by Congress.

The White House plans to send the package to Congress on April 28, starting a 45-day period during which the administration can legally withhold the funding. If Congress votes down the plan or does nothing, the administration must release the money back to the intended recipients. The Congressional Institute has written a detailed explanation of how the rescission process works. 

________________________

The Trump administration has made no secret of its hostility to public broadcasting.

Even before the Nov. 2024 election, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan to transform the federal government during the next conservative administration, called for the government to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting(CPB). CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation fully funded by the federal government which is the largest single source of funding for public radio and television. CPB was created by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. (A video on the history of PBS is available at https://shorturl.at/7o1X2.)

CPB funds National Public Radio (NPR), which serves as a national syndicator to a network of more than 1,000 public radio stations in the United States, and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the private, non-profit corporation that distributes programming to public television stations in the United States. 

Mike Gonzalez, a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation who authored the section on the CPB in Project 2025’s policy guide, argued that both NPR and PBS have a liberal bias and that the “government should not be compelling the conservative half of the country to pay for the suppression of its own views.” Gonzalez also argued that the federal government cannot afford to spend half a billion dollars “on leftist opinion” each year because it is trillions of dollars in debt.

In an all-caps April 10, 2024 post on Truth Social, his social media platform, candidate Trump wrote: 

Donald J. Trump @realDonald Trump NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! EDITOR SAID THEY HAVE NO REPUBLICANS, AND IS ONLY USED TO “DAMAGE TRUMP'” THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!

Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 as a whole in his 2024 campaign, but he has vigorously pursued many of its proposals since becoming president and has appointed many of its authors to key government posts.  

As president, Trump has restated his opposition to funding non-commercial public broadcasting, as has Elon Musk, Trump’s crony.  And because CPB has no ongoing federal funding mechanism, annual Congressional appropriations are required. That opens the door for Trump.

Dick Tofel, the former President of ProPublica, wrote on Substack, “ …they will very likely, sometime this year, have the votes they need to smash the current arrangement. That will occur, I think, in significant part because the current regime does not have the political will to materially cut federal spending and thus feels compelled to cut immaterial spending (federal aid to public broadcasting costs Americans about $1.50 per person) in a performative manner that, they hope, fools their base.”

Tofel’s view is that whether Trump wants to force public stations off the air altogether or just eliminate their national news programming, “the distinction will hardly matter” in communities that can’t afford to mount substantial operations of their own.  Funding cuts at the national level would, he says, most likely mean the loss of shows such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered, the NPR morning and afternoon shows, PBS’ Frontline and PBS News Hour.  In larger, richer (bluer) cities (such as Portland), some parts of local efforts will likely be salvaged, he thinks. 

For fiscal year 2025, Congress appropriated $535 million for CPB. This year, Republicans have introduced multiple bills to defund CPB and on March 25, 2025, a day before the heads of PBS and NPR testified before a House subcommittee, trump said he’d be “honored” to see funding for public broadcasting end.

In a January 16, 2025, message, Rachel Smolkin, OPB ‘s president and CEO, raised the alarm about potential cuts in federal support to her station and others around the country, but took care to note that “Federal support represents a relatively small portion of OPB’s operating budget “. In fiscal year 2023, government grants to OPB totaled $4,679,653 or 9.5% of the station’s $49,370,988 in revenue from contributions.[1]  In most instances, sponsorships are considered charitable contributions by the underwriters.  On OPB’s IRS Form 990, these sponsorships are included in the $49,370,988 reported as contributions and grants. There is also a small amount of sponsorships that meet the definition of advertising, which primarily occur on OPB’s digital platforms.  For FY 23, advertising is included in the program service revenue of $1,381,015 and in unrelated business revenue reported on OPB’s IRS Form 990-T.  

For FY 23, advertising is included in the program service revenue of $1,381,015 and in unrelated business revenue reported on our IRS Form 990-T.  Sponsorships are not otherwise disclosed on the tax filings.  Total revenue was $56,821,607.

Notable Sources of Revenue$Percent of Total Revenue
Contributions$49,370,988            86.9%
Program Services$1,381,015               2.4%
Investment Income$3,446,034               6.1%
Bond Proceeds$0 
Royalties$0 
Rental Property Income$415,851                0.7%
Net Fundraising$0 
Sales of Assets$2,207,719                 3.9%
Net Inventory Sales$0 
                                                                       

Could OPB survive without the federal grants? Probably, but the hit would be hard. 

The impact of any cut in OPB’s programming would be felt particularly by Oregon and Southern Washington’s more educated and higher income populace (71% of OPB’s TV audience, 82% of OPB’s digital audience and 85% of OPB’s radio audience has attended college). The public broadcast audience also typically falls into higher household income categories and have for years, primarily because households that listen to public media tend to have more formal education.

But that is part of the problem. An increasing number of the rest of the population is tuning out.

NPR‘s weekly broadcast audience has been experiencing audience declines, as have NPR’s podcasts, and sponsorship revenue has dipped. And CPB took  a big hit last year when former NPR business editor Uri Berliner posted an essay on the Free Press substack site accusing the organization of adopting a left-wing stance in which “race and identity” were “paramount.”

Earlier this month, the NY Times reported on an NPR document that detailed what would happen if the Treasury stopped cutting checks to CPB. “NPR can weather the funding cut… thanks in part to aggrieved listeners: Executives predict a sudden boom in donations if Congress defunds it, as listeners rush to defend their favorite programs.,” the report said. “But they will likely give more in big-city markets.”

Public television in the United States would likely be in worse shape, the report said, because PBS receives much more of its budget from the federal government.

In a weird sort of way, the collapse of so much of the traditional news media and the rise of one-sided communications might be public broadcasting’s savior. 

Some analysts think things have gotten so bad in a fractured media environment that public broadcasting is more critical. A reason for hope, the Los Angeles Times wrote in March 2025, is that “… the American media landscape is in such poor shape that NPR is more necessary than ever. Across the country, print journalism has imploded. Commercial TV and radio news operations are also in decline. Especially in red states, NPR is sometimes the only source of local news. True, people everywhere now get information from cable channels, random websites or social media, but many still want what NPR offers.” 

With that in mind, the debate over funding for public broadcasting, and OPB’s future, is a reminder that depending on government money for a service can be a trap. That money is always subject to the political winds.  If a free press is dependent on whether a Trump-like personality is in office, more local public support may be vastly preferable.

[1] Figures are from Form 990 which non-profits are required to file annually with the IRS. These CPB grants are included in the Contributions and Grants revenue of $49,370,988 on OPB’s FY 2023 IRS Form 990. CPB grants are not included in government grants on the Form 990 as CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation, not a government agency.