A.J. Bauer, Guest Columnist

NPR and PBS Aren’t Threats. They’re Treasures.

The two outlets — with their journalistic and educational programming — are even more crucial in a media landscape now full of platforms that aren’t committed to facts.

May 6, 2025 at 12:00 PM UTC

By A.J. Bauer

A.J. Bauer is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama. He is the author of "Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against the Press," forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

Today’s letters of the day are N and O.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP

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When Donald Trump signed an executive order last week cutting federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, he was right about one thing: We do live in a moment of media abundance.

But his market-based notion of abundance fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of public broadcasting, which is not about quantity but quality.