Katherine Maher
speaker
51 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard May 2025
Katherine Maher’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
I don't believe that it behooves anyone to compromise on the independence of their organizations and their organizations' missions, particularly as a media organization. If you start negotiating or compromising on editorial point of view, what you're functionally doing is enabling people external influence to color the way that stories are reported.
And while it may well be that I may share some perspectives around the need for us to ensure a diversified audience and a representative range of voices, If I start negotiating with a government entity, official and president, now that raises questions about what other compromises might enter into our reporting. And so for me, that's a very bright line that a media organization should not cross.
That's right.
Let's see. Reporting on the impact of the administration on disabled folks. Reporting on veterans issues and the revocation of a program that was designed to keep veterans in their homes following COVID-19. Tiny Desk. Tiny Desk concert.
My dream? Yes. It was. My dream board was to advocate for NPR in any way that I can in all public media. So if I'm going to go in front of Marjorie Taylor Greene, I'm going to tell her exactly why we're so valuable and beneficial to the country.
I think I was just trying to sit down. Oh, really? Without falling out of my chair.
Well, you know, when you get in there, it's a little bit like Mount Olympus. They're very, very far away and very high up, and you're very small and on the ground, and so you're just that thing of looking up. It is actually kind of awe-inspiring. I know that people are sort of cynical about Congress at times, but... I was in awe.
I mean, I'm sitting there, this is the seat of our legislative branch, and it really was an honor to be able to go in.
Well, there's also a very big difference between disseminating the news and gathering the news. And what we do is we do news gathering. It allows for people to then be able to come in and add their spin and their commentary on it. So I have no problem with TikTok influencers or other people resharing that news. I think that that's actually great.
But we want them to have credible sources of news to begin with to be able to base that work on. But more importantly, I think the big misconception is that this money goes to NPR or to PBS. The reality is that the vast majority of funds in public broadcasting resources go directly to local stations. So I'm talking about, I did a little research. I'm talking about WKAR.
I think it's WMUK, WKAR are the stations where you grew up.
There you go. Exactly, yes, WMUK.
And so stations like that, they get a significant part of their funding comes from public funds. And that really matters, especially when you get into rural parts of the country. So I was in Asheville, North Carolina recently, as we all know, devastating damage in Hurricane Helene. They have enormous radio towers that broadcast across that top because it's like this.
You know, it's the Appalachian Mountains. Same thing's true. Eastern Kentucky. You get out to the Rocky Mountains, same thing is true. Huge swaths of the country. That's expensive to maintain. We cover 99.7% of the country with our broadcast coverage, and that allows for Americans to have access to news, even in places where news deserts are growing, where disasters happen.
That's what your federal funds go to. They go to your local station. They go to your local reporters.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR, PBS, and all of public media.
It's not great. I think that Americans need to be aware that it is going to be harmful to the system, right? So a lot of us probably grew up on kids' television, PBS Kids. I mean, it is a crown jewel of American public broadcasting programming.
And whether you think about your history with Mr. Rogers, whether you're thinking about Sesame Street, whether you're thinking about more contemporary programming, That is so important, and that is a threat, under threat. When you think about your local radio stations, those may not be able to provide the same sorts of services.
And the first thing that's gonna go, I have to tell you, is going to be local reporters' jobs. We have news deserts. 20% of Americans live in a place where they have no local news coverage other than public radio. What that means is that when we lose public funding, we are no longer going to be able to cover things like what matters in the statehouse.
We're not going to be able to cover natural disasters. We're not going to be able to cover issues of local politics, issues of what's happening in your local sports team. We know that the existence of local news, and public radio in particular, contributes to lower rates of polarization, higher rates of civic engagement, and higher rates of civic trust.
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