[music]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Well, as you were just hearing on the news, the debate is apparently over in Washington on federal funding for public radio and television. Around two o'clock this morning, the Senate voted to eliminate it in what's known as a rescission vote. Rescission because they rescinded about $1.1 billion of tax money that Congress had previously approved for the next two fiscal years. The House had already passed this rescission, though they need to vote again, probably today or by tomorrow, to formalize some changes the Senate made to the other part of the bill, a much bigger rescission of foreign aid, and one small change to the public broadcasting part. The House vote is considered pretty automatic at this point. For all practical purposes, I guess we have to say this morning that the more than 50 years of federal funding for PBS, NPR, and almost all the local public TV and radio stations, including this one, is over as of the new fiscal year on October 1, unless some future Congress votes to restart it.

The Senate did make an exception for Native American tribal radio stations at the request of Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota. What happens now? Well, here's one take from former All Things Considered host Michele Norris speaking yesterday on MSNBC.

Oh, we don't have the Michelle Norris clip. We'll try to come back to that. Instead, I will just say with more now we are joined by the president and CEO of WNYC, LaFontaine Oliver, who has multiple jobs in his background that should make him able to speak to different aspects of the challenge ahead. Besides running the station, which is the biggest in the nation just by virtue of being in New York, the biggest market, he has run smaller public radio stations, so he understands the challenges that they will face, which are in many ways different.

He also has top-level national experience, including several years on the board of trustees of NPR itself. Many of you may not have known this about LaFontaine. Included in that was a stint as the NPR board chair, and he is in fact a third-generation radio person. He also announced this week that he will move into a new position called executive chair, which will focus on the long-term restructuring of this station and the public radio system as a whole in the context of this rescission.

Also joining LaFontaine is Sarah Gilbert, President and CEO of WAMC Public Radio in Albany, which also serves various more rural communities in multiple directions from Albany. LaFontaine, welcome back. Sarah Gilbert, welcome to the show. I'm sorry, it's under these circumstances, as they say.

Sarah Gilbert: It's good to be here, nonetheless.

LaFontaine Oliver: Brian, always a pleasure to be with you and to have an opportunity to talk to the listeners.

Brian Lehrer: We are past the point of debating whether public broadcasting should lose its federal funding. It is losing its federal funding unless some super unexpected earthquake happens in the House of Representatives today. Let's talk about the scenarios and choices going forward. LaFontaine, let's just start with us. How much or what percentage of New York Public Radio revenue has been coming from federal funding, and what will happen to that come October 1st?

LaFontaine Oliver: Brian, thanks for the question. I guess I'd like to start by saying, as far as I'm concerned, I am not giving up this fight. As you previewed here, because there was an amendment to the rescission package, it has to go back to the House. They are likely going to be meeting today on taking procedural votes ahead of taking a vote likely tomorrow on this newly revised rescission package. I am telling folks, now is the time to reach out to your representatives to let them know how important public radio and public television is to you and your local community, because the House has an opportunity here to stand up and to vote against this rescission package now.

Brian Lehrer: I just want to be open here. You're telling me maybe I'm getting ahead of ourselves here in saying this is basically a done deal. It was a close vote in the House the first time around.

LaFontaine Oliver: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Most of the reporting says there's no reason to think it's going to come out differently for these tweaks. You're saying still, contact your representative.

LaFontaine Oliver: I'm saying stay in the fight. I think, Brian, what you're hearing is me being the eternal optimist and saying that we never give up until it is completely all said and done. That doesn't happen until the House takes their vote, likely happening tomorrow. I would encourage folks who are listening to us right now to consider calling their representative. Those calls are important. As you pointed out, the vote was very, very close in the House. In fact, there were four Republicans that did did not vote for various reasons. If those folks had voted, maybe things would have gone a different way, perhaps.

You are not correct in that the overall thinking is that what happened at about 2:00 AM this morning with the Senate has in some way sealed the fate of public media here.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Assuming that happens, what kinds of choices or challenges does that present this station with?

LaFontaine Oliver: As we've talked about before, or on any given year, the federal appropriation that comes to us through CPB in the form of a community service grant represents anywhere between 3% and 5% of our budget for this current budget year that we just closed. It was about $3 million. The choices are, we have investments from CPB beyond our community service grant, in particular, our collaboration with our Capital Reporting Bureau, which Sarah and her team are an integral part of. That is a separate grant that is a part of the funding that we receive from CPB. That's important work. It's a partnership with 12 other public radio stations statewide.

We also provide content even to public television stations. Those are things that we think are extremely important, that we're going to have to continue to ramp up our fundraising to ensure that that continues to happen. We have a small CPB grant that helps us in our collaboration with the music stations in the state. We call it our Tri-State Music Collaborative. That includes our sister station, WQXR, WBGO, WSHU, and WFUV. That would be funding that we would no longer receive. More broadly, we use about $3 million that comes from that federal appropriation, really, to do everything from acquire content and programming to producing content ourselves. If this goes through, that is $3 million in our FY26 budget and $3 million in our FY27 budget that goes away.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah Gilbert, how would you compare and contrast for WAMC? Maybe you want to tell our downstate and New Jersey, and other listeners, the area that WAMC serves. I used to live in Albany, so I have a sense that you reach out into various rural communities, you go into the Berkshires, you go north, southwest. Who's the WAMC audience? For you, as you're still in a fairly major city, Albany, but different from New York, what are the different implications for your budget?

Sarah Gilbert: For those who don't know, we like to say we stretch from Plattsburgh to Newburgh. We go out to Oneonta and east into the Berkshires. As you can imagine from thinking about that stretch of territory, we cover a very diverse territory. There are rural areas in there. There are mountainous areas in there. The Hudson River goes through it. It has a state capital in our area. We have reporters spread out across that territory reporting on what the key issues are for the various constituencies within our listening area and then joining the dots as to what is important, the threads that we can pull and join together, all of the things which are important to our community as a whole.

Anyone who knows WAMC as you do a little bit, Brian, knows that it's a lean operation. Most of our resources go towards making sure that we're able to provide that fair, transparent, and fact-based reporting in all of those different areas. We're facing around a 5% cut, which for us means about $500,000. For all sorts of reasons, including many of the things that LaFontaine mentioned, it's not nothing. We provide essential early warning systems. We provide that fact-based reporting out across the region. We provide a sense of community and belonging to people in an age where those things are sadly disappearing.

Although it is what seems to be a very grim day for public media we're community strong, as we like to say. There are too many people who depend on us for all of the things that we're talking about for this to be anything other than a call to action.

Brian Lehrer: A call to action for the listeners. This is not a pledge drive. We're not going to ask you for money, everybody. Don't worry. A call to action for what, Sarah?

Sarah Gilbert: To stand strong and to stand up and be part of a community that matters, that provides a coherent sense of civic belonging, and all of the information that you need to be an active participant in that.

Brian Lehrer: Now, let's talk about NPR itself. A Times article that I read on this this morning says NPR and PBS would survive. Only a small percentage of their funding comes from the federal government, but the cuts would force many local stations to sharply reduce their programming and operations as early as this fall. We've been hearing a little bit of that from both of you for the local level. As a former NPR board chair, LaFontaine, do you agree with that much, at that level of certainty, NPR and PBS will survive?

LaFontaine Oliver: Brian, I do agree, but I would caution us because I believe it's important that we really look at how interconnected, how interdependent we all are in this public media system. While maybe a small portion of NPR and PBS's budgets come directly through the federal appropriation, a pretty significant portion, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, 30% of NPR's overall revenue comes from local member stations like WAMC, like WNYC, and WQXR. There could be a cascading effect here when stations are facing sharp budget cuts as a result of the loss of federal funding.

The question becomes, how much of that money are they able to then turn around and spend with NPR for the content that we all rely on, Morning Edition, All Things Considered. I think we need to think about just how interdependent we are as a system. Will NPR survive? I think the answer to that is yes, but I would argue we're at a moment where we don't need NPR to just survive, we don't need WNYC to just survive, we need these organizations to thrive and to grow in an era where, quite honestly, serving the information needs of our communities is getting more difficult, and we are seeing more and more erosion of local news and journalism, and fact-based reporting.

I would say we should be very careful about how we think about the impact of this. I would also say Sarah has some great NPR experience as well, so she may have a perspective on this question as well.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah?

Sarah Gilbert: Yes, it's funny. I'm listening to you talk, LaFontaine, and as always, you're right, as per our usual agreement. I'm also thinking, just as you say, about the moment that we're in and the unique set of offerings that the public radio network is able to offer our listeners together. That mix of local, national, international news is just something that you don't find anywhere else anymore.

As you can tell by my silly accent, I'm not originally from around these parts. Actually, before I went to NPR and ran the newsroom there, I spent 10 years at the beginning of my career on the BBC International desk. I am steeped in all of the reasons why public media was brought into being in the first place and why a lot of the work that is done by the reporters, producers, editors everybody who's involved at all levels of support across these organizations brings content to air that more commercially-focused organizations would not seek to pursue because there is little profit in it. It's easier to build audiences fast with different kinds of more commercial content.

The offerings that we, together as a network, are able to put together, local programming in each of our listening areas, plus the national programming and international programming that we get from NPR, and the holistic approach that that brings is just second to none. It's unique.

Brian Lehrer: I thought that wasn't an Albany accent that I was hearing. I thought it was more Schenectady or troy, perhaps. Sarah, with your experience at NPR, it's one of the leading news organizations of any kind in the United States for its national and global reporting staff, if there's this two way cut, there's the direct federal funding cuts that'll take hold now, but also this bank shot where they're reducing funding to all the local stations and that's going to make it harder for them to pay dues into the system, which is where a lot of the money comes from for all the NPR journalists.

Do you see actual reporting being cut back shortly after October 1st, when this takes effect, or if you know people there currently, what kinds of conversations are they beginning to have?

Sarah Gilbert: I couldn't speak to their internal conversations. I've been out of there for a couple of years now. I will say that I know the philosophy of the organization very well. It's my philosophy, too. It's all of our philosophy. Before we do anything else, we will protect our ability to continue to provide audiences, listeners, readers with content that they can't get anywhere else. That is front and center for the mission. It's why we all get out of bed in the morning, and we will protect it at all costs.

Brian Lehrer: Same question for you, LaFontaine.

LaFontaine Oliver: Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with Sarah. I guess I would just add the nuance for us here at WNYC is that we are also a producer and distributor of national content, stellar national content with programs like Radiolab and On the Media, and New Yorker Radio Hour. That same dynamic that will play out for NPR and stations' ability to contribute their fees for running NPR programming, that same dynamic will play out for us here.

We are thinking very much about that. We are thinking very much not just about our own financial health, but the health of the system and how we can stand up and be a leader, and ideally find ways to make sure that stations continue to be able to air our national programming. First and foremost, I would agree with Sarah and say we believe, I think at our core, that serving the local information needs of our community, it's our stock-in-trade, and it's the thing that we're going to protect.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to say one thing to our listeners before you go about your new position of executive chair? I know you and I have talked about this a little bit, and I guess it's got a national systemic aspect to it, to reinvent in the context of what's going on here.

LaFontaine Oliver: Brian, I would just say briefly that this potential loss of federal funding it really creates an imperative for us in our system to envision and create a new public media system in this country that, quite honestly, finds ways to serve more Americans in different ways and on whatever platforms they may roam. We're a complicated, intricate system.

For me to have the opportunity to really pick my head up and to lean into leading efforts to develop new funding models to forge partnerships across public radio and secure support from foundations, members, non federal sources to do the kind of work that I was able to do with Sarah in advocating for state funding for public radio just a few months back when we were able to solidify $4 million for public radio, that is the work that I am looking forward to doing. It is the work that I must do as someone who cares deeply about the long-term future of public media.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah, just as a last word since LaFontaine started, and I imagine you would echo it with a call to call members of Congress to try to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat at the 11th hour here as this rescission bill goes back to the House one more time today and tomorrow, though it's expected to pass, would you recommend that people call their local representative, whoever it is, even if they're a Democrat who's going to vote against this, or to pick somebody who might be a swing voter on the Republican side and call them even if they're not in their district?

Sarah Gilbert: Well, of course, I'm going to pick the right answer there and say do both. Now is not a time to sit back, lean in, and when the smoke clears, I'm looking forward to being creative with some very great partners like yourselves.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah Gilbert, President and CEO of WAMC Public Radio in and around Albany, and our President and CEO, LaFontaine Oliver. Thank you for coming on for this update after the Senate's rescission vote this morning.

LaFontaine Oliver: Thank you, Brian.

Sarah Gilbert: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. More to come.

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.