WITF President and CEO Ron Hetrick Responds to Executive Order Defunding PBS and NPR
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Staff
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” Ben Franklin said that. Access to independent media and information sources is vital for democracy. As a Founding Father of this country and a Pennsylvanian, he understood that.
We can’t let the Executive Branch exert its power unconstitutionally and overthrow access to public information and freedom of speech — and, literally, access to free and essential information.
It’s critical to note: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is not an executive agency, but an independent nonprofit organization. This is essential context for the White House’s Executive Order issued late Thursday night, Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media.
The order seeks to defund public media, but the Administration doesn’t have the authority to do that. Congress, in its wisdom, set CPB up this way to protect editorial integrity and resist political interference.
CPB President and CEO Pat Harrison makes it clear in this press release following the order: “CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.”
Harrison continues:
“In creating CPB, Congress expressly forbade ‘any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees or contractors…’ 47 U.S.C. § 398(c).”
We’re not going anywhere. We are here for and aspire to reflect the Central Pennsylvania communities we serve.
Public media serves as a backbone to provide news and resources across the U.S., delivering relevant, factual and important information to nearly all Americans for $1.60 per person per year. For less than the price of one cup of black coffee, we provide access to education, health care and critical information about weather, public emergencies, employment opportunities, community services and more — services that many residents of rural communities rely on.
Every American community — no matter if it’s urban, rural, wealthy or underserved — deserves access to news, information and educational programming for free.
Despite the uncertainty and orchestrated chaos we’re dealing with from forces seeking to defund us, our compass is serving you. That’s what will give us the direction we need to move forward.
We’re looking at additional forms of funding and revenue generation. The reality is CPB is only a fraction of what keeps us going. We have many more ways to fuel our information engine.
But we need all of you to be a part of this movement — a movement that puts the public good and “freeness of speech” before any government entities that look to stymy us.
On May 1, 1969 — exactly fifty-six years before the Executive Order issued on May 1, 2025 — Fred Rogers testified before Congress about the importance of funding PBS.
“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility,” Fred Rogers said. “It’s easy to say, ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”
