Scholars’ Circle – Corporation of Public Broadcasting funding cuts – August 3, 2025

Congress has now clawed back the funding it had allocated for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. What does this mean for the future of publicly funded broadcasting in the USA? How will it affect news, public affairs and other vital information delivery?

We will explore the role of public broadcasting in a democracy. What role does money play at ensuring an independent media? What is the status of public funding and even government owned media throughout the democratic world? [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Victor Pickard is the C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy and also the co-director of the Media Inequality and Change Center At the University of Pennsylvania. He’s the author of Democracy Without Journalism, Confronting the Misinformation Society. And America’s battle for media democracy, the triumph of corporate libertarianism, and the future Of media reform.


• Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin is Associate Professor with the School of Public Service’s Global Studies program and the Frank and Bethany Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs for the Frank Church Institute at Boise State University. She has written, Decoding the Digital Church, Evangelical Storytelling and the Election of Donald J. Trump and last month published PBS and NPR are generally unbiased, independent of government propaganda And provide key benefits to U.S. Democracy.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.