Still flabbergasted over being defunded by Congress, board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) cried, lied, and quoted Shakespeare during their melodramatic July 24 board meeting. On August 1, the board announced it is starting an “orderly wind-down of its operations,” and most of the CPB staff positions “will conclude with the close of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025.”
You would cry too, if you were losing a compensation package bigger than the salary of the president of the United States. In 2022, CPB CEO Patricia Harrison’s compensation was $524,000, according to the CPB’ most recently available 990 tax exempt form.
CPB is a nonprofit created by Congress in 1967 to administer funding for Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).
Each year, Congress gives CPB loads of federal taxpayer money, and CPB decides the amount to give to 1,581 public radio and television stations. But the Big Beautiful Bill trimmed CPB out of appropriations, meaning it gets zero money instead of the $1.07 billion it expected for 2026 and 2027.
During its meeting, the board spent 30 self-indulgent minutes extolling the importance of public broadcasting and warning that life without it could harm rural communities. Diane Kaplin used Radio Station KSDP in Sand Point, Alaska as an example, saying without it, “There would be no information” about the recent earthquake and tsunami warning.
But that is a lie. Sand Point and everywhere else in the United States gets Wireless Emergency Alerts — instant emergency information delivered to cell phones to keep the public informed, not just the ones who think to turn on the radio.
In 2022, CPB gave KSDP $211,000. The radio station’s total revenue was $265,000. The CPB portion could have been paid by Harrison’s salary alone for two years. The folks at KSDP might be angry to learn that their annual budget for the compensation packages for all employees combined that year, ($141,067), was slightly less than Harrison’s 2022 bonus ($144,645). At least one person on the KSDP staff has a second job.
If the CPB board really cared about keeping broadcasting viable in small towns like Sand Point, it would not have a huge, overpaid staff in Washington, D.C.
In 2022, CPB spent $19.3 million on salaries and benefits. At least 14 CPB employees that year had compensation packages worth more than $260,000. Of those, five employees were paid over $470,000. Not bad for government work. It is obscene to the point of corruption.
The Aleutian Islands are not a typical U.S. community and there KSDP radio may actually be a treasure to the 6,000 residents in its listening area, but in 2022 it only took in $1,650 in contributions; zero in membership drives; and just over $18,000 in “underwriting,” which is tax-free advertising. The station is almost fully subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. That is how it works at most public broadcast outlets.
‘Is there Bias? Sure.’
The funding cut was sparked by President Donald Trump’s May 1 executive order “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media.” A rescission proposal explains why CPB was targeted for defunding, saying, “These funds would be used to subsidize a public media system that is politically biased and an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer. Enacting the rescission would eliminate Federal funding for CPB.”
Public broadcasting’s far left bias is well known, and the Federalist has reported on it often.
“Is there bias? Sure, we’re not perfect, but we were working on that. It’s not a legitimate reason to shut down everything,” Harrison, 86 said during the board meeting. It was a flippant response to an existential threat.
A 2023 Pew Research Center report shows public radio and television has suffered from a declining audience since 2017.
“The American people, many of whom have not followed this, will wonder what happened. Somebody’s going to have to tell them what happened,” board Chair Ruby Calvert said during the meeting.
Wait — with access to 1,581 radio and television stations CPB didn’t tell their audience what was happening? No, they did. But CPB could not generate enough public interest. The truth is, most Americans don’t care if public broadcasting continues. There are many more media options competing for the public’s attention than in 1967, and when you routinely deal in bias, you lose audience. It’s a reality all broadcasters must face.
During the most pretentious part of the board meeting, Harrison compared employees at CPB to English King Henry V’s “ragtag army” that was “outnumbered by the French at the Battle of Agincourt, but won despite those odds.” Harrison then quoted (imprecisely) William Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Henry V.
“And those now against us shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their honor cheap when any speaks that walk with us upon St. Crispin’s Day,” she said before her voice faltered, and she began to cry. But Harrison was interrupted by Tom Rothman, who added to the quote, “We few, we happy few…” and went on to quote a movie he produced, comparing Harrison to an inspiring moment in the film. His voice halted and cracked, nearly crying, and for 10 seconds, Rothman turned off his microphone to gain his composure.
Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
The public should expect lots of news stories about Trump killing Sesame Street in the coming months. CPB is going to use all its political clout to fight the defunding.
“We’re pursuing two parallel strategies as we continue to do everything possible to secure annual appropriations for [fiscal year] 26,” Harrison said during the board meeting. “And we’re actively preparing for the possibility of close out, or transition funding, should Congress not reverse course. So it’s very difficult. Hope on the one side and sort of acceptance on the other.”
As I reported in July, Rothman, Kaplin and Laura Ross were members of the CPB board until Trump removed them “effective immediately” on April 28. The next day they went to court to prevent Trump from removing them, but they lost the case. But they continued to show up for board meetings, and the other board members allowed them to participate. They even changed the bylaws (again, after they were removed and had no authority) saying a president could not remove them. The Trump administration had to go back to court and ask it to make the board members pay back money they earned while remaining on the board and to rescind any decisions they made while acting as board members.
The board’s website still shows Kaplin as a board member and now lists Ross and Rothman as former board members. Hopefully the rest of the CPB staff will not do the same thing and refuse to leave on Sept. 30 — the date the board has targeted for employees to end their time at CPB as it closes out operations.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
