Our next few segments are going to be focusing on protecting press freedoms and the power of the fourth estate. And there's nobody better to talk to you about that than the president and CEO of PBS, Paula Ker. Paula, thank you so much.
Thank you. Great to be with you again.
Paula, the last time we were speaking on stage, members of Congress were trying to debate a rescission package to figure out whether or not PBS and NPR would actually get defunded. And it turns out it happened.
One of the actions that PBS took was to sue the administration. But now that the funding has been repealed, what do you do? Is that lawsuit going to continue? What's the next step?
So, if you remember when we talked, it was in Washington and we followed Mike Johnson on stage. It was quite an interesting day. So, the lawsuit is actually around the executive order that would forbid any federal money to go to PBS and NPR. So, it's not just the money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It's money from the National Science Foundation. It's money that we used to receive from the Department of Education. It's any resources that would come out of the federal government. It would also forbid stations to use any federal money for anything that they do in relation to us. So, it was pretty far-reaching. So, that still stands whether the Corporation for Public Broadcasting continues or not. To have an executive order sitting there that says no federal money can come into our organizations is not an order that we feel should remain. And so, that still is underway.
And in terms of underway, where is it in the process? Do you expect this to go to court and get litigated?
Well, it's moving through the court now, so we're just waiting for the next steps here. So, we'll see. I think it should be resolved in the next few months. It was on that trajectory, but there's not more I can tell you other than it's sitting waiting to be heard.
So, right now, you're in this sort of limbo phase, right? You have pending litigation. At the same time, you're trying to raise new types of funds to keep these stations afloat. What is the plan for survival in the short term and the long term?
Yeah. So, right now is an interesting time to be in media anyway, you know, because as every person on this stage will talk about today, as we look at pivoting, as we have been pivoting over the last years from an organization that was principally broadcast to one that's multiplatform. And so, you know, we're obviously continuing to look at what that looks like with a different funding structure. Perhaps the thing that's the toughest for us to wrestle through, which I think is one of the things that defines us in many ways, is our local stations. And so, we have stations across this country. In a lot of communities, particularly small rural communities, they're the only stations. If you go to a place like Alaska, there are no other broadcasters. There's a public media station, radio or television, and that is it. And so, what we have been working on, when I first started focusing on it in the early days after the rescission vote, is working with a group of foundations to put together some resources that would be a bridge fund for those stations so that they can actually look at the future as we are mapping out the direction for PBS, to give them a bit of a glide path so they can figure out — some may end up doing some consolidation, some may share some services, some may partner with other types of organizations. Some have actually begun to put together their own funding plans, and so we just need a little glide path. I've been in this business a long time. I started at a local station during the contract with Newt Gingrich, and that was the scariest moment for public broadcasting in terms of federal funding. That was a three-year glide path to zero. This was a three-month glide path. And so being able to have some resources so that we can make good strategic decisions and protect local journalism and local stations is really important. So that was the first focus for us.
And what about protecting PBS at the national level? I know you've made cuts in the wake of the rescission package and not receiving the funding. Do you think that you're going to have to make further cuts? Are you going to have to cut programming, or do you think the worst is over from that perspective?
Well, right now, in addition to trying to raise money for stations, I'm also working closely with our producing partners to make sure that we have the resources available for the work that we do. Obviously, the most pressing is our news service because that is live, that happens every day, and we're burning through money to keep it going. So that has been a first priority. We've had some good success with raising some of the money to close the gap there. But also, you know, we're working closely with our producers to make decisions on how much content we can move forward. Because we produce so much in advance, we actually had a pretty robust pipeline for this next year. So really thinking about how we might spread a little bit of that out, but also at the same time looking at ways that we can bring in additional resources. And the public — I mean, it's really amazing. I think, you know, like old friends, you kind of take some things for granted, and I think a lot of people thought, 'Oh, PBS, they're paid for by the government.' And now, because this has been so visible, you know, a lot of our stations and PBS — we have our own foundation — we've heard from a lot of people in the public. I'm also not giving up on the federal appropriation either.
