Drama Queens - Work in Progress: Paula Kerger

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

She runs PBS — and she’s fighting to save it. Paula Kerger, the longest-serving president in PBS history, sounds the alarm on what’s at stake as public broadcasting faces unprecedented cuts. From Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood to PBS NewsHour, she makes a passionate case for truth and why democracy itself depends on access to trusted information. Learn how you can take action at https://protectmypublicmedia.orgSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Meaningful connections often show up when you least expect it in those small, surprising moments. So I'm very excited that today's sponsor, Bumble, makes it easier to notice those little sparks. With features like shared interests and prompts, you can showcase your personality right on your profile and connect with people who get your vibe. So if you're curious about who might bring a little more joy into your life, Bumble is a great place to start. Ready to meet someone great, start your love story on Bumble. Hey, everyone, it's Sophia.

Welcome to Work in Progress. Hi, Whips Marties, welcome to this week's work in progress. I have to say, I am having the most excited sort of nerd alert alarm going off in my brain right now, because I'm interviewing one of my brain crushes today, who is a hero to public service, who centers the good of the people and early childhood development in everything that she does. She is just too pure for this world,

but manages to also be such a fighter and such an inspiration. Y'all, today we are joined by Paula Kerger, the president and CEO of people. PBS. This is the woman responsible for Sesame Street. This is the woman responsible for community care. And since 2006, she has transformed PBS into a multi-platform media institution that reaches over 80% of U.S. households. And by the way, has no responsibility to an investor, to an owner, to anybody trying to shape what they say or how they say. say it, her responsibility is to us, to the American people, to the kids in this country who PBS works to ensure are ready to go to school? I mean, come on, what is better than this?

And Paula herself is known for being incredibly dedicated to American community while fiercely defending each and every local station and that educational programming I mentioned that is critical to communities nationwide. I think she's so special because she was shaped by her grandfather's work in Baltimore Public Radio. She had a childhood curiosity that always centered on public service. And she's grown into this adult who I admire so much, honestly, who I hope to grow up to be like, who manages to blend strategic leadership with such a deeply human touch. Guys, in trying times, Paula is the kind of person. who we should look to for cultural relevancy, for educational devotion, and for community storytelling.

Because she is making sure that all of those things remain accessible to all, even when she's literally under attack by the president of the United States. She is a gem. And I am so honored that she's here. So I'm going to stop talking. And we're going to dive in with Paula Kerger. Hi, Paula. How are you? I'm fine, Sophia. It's lovely to meet you. It is so nice to be with you. I just, I'm such an enormous fan of all you do. I'm so grateful for your fight and your dedication to, you know, public service. And I'm thrilled you're here. Oh, thank you.

I so appreciate you giving me this opportunity. Oh, my gosh. I wanted to meet you and to talk to you, but also, you know, to be able to have this conversation with you in front of all the people that follow you, you know. And it's a great opportunity. I'm really grateful. Well, thank you. Gosh, that's really, really kind. It's interesting when you get to meet one of your heroes and they thank you.

You're like, hold on. What's happening here? You know, I just have to say, and I'm sure to your point about all of our friends listening at home, I'm sure they'll be nodding along, public service and the way that that extends into community advocacy, I think can make or break a society, particularly when we're talking about our free press and a free press that has chosen as media has been more and more corporatized, if you will, a free press that's chosen to stick to doctrines of fairness, to not sell itself for explicit profit, to not lie to or mislead its constituency feels to me more important than ever. and to watch NPR and PBS being attacked in the way that they are because they are organizations that mandate a truly nonpartisan accurate truth to be told

feels terrifying and that's how it feels to me as an observer. So I just want to say for you on the inside, thank you for continuing to take time out of your day to come and have conversations like this one while you are literally fighting fascism and trying to ensure that folks like us, citizens, continue having access to the truth.

There's a lot in which you were just talking about and you can even walk back even beyond the role of media and we should talk about that. You know, what is media media in our society? But also, let's talk about, what does it mean to be a citizen? You know, next year we'll mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

And, you know, this country was really an experiment when democracy was created. This whole idea of not a king, not a, you know, sort of a monarchy or any of the other structures that existed before, but this idea that we would all have voice. Now it's taken many years to evolve what all means, the word all means, right? Right. But part of what it means to be in a democracy is to be active and engaged. You know, you are very much engaged in a number of issues. And I think that people don't always realize, you know, civics isn't taught. It's starting to creep back now, but, you know, civics isn't necessarily taught in schools.

People don't really understand what it means. I always liken it to one of my personal heroes, Fred Rogers. And it's about what does it mean to be a good neighbor, right? How do we look out for each other? How do we come together and make decisions that are not just for ourselves, but for our communities? And I think we all have aspirations about building the communities in which we want to live. And that we all play a role. And part of that is being involved.

And, you know, I've had the privilege through my entire performance. professional career to work for various nonprofit organizations. I always have felt really lucky that early on I found the opportunity to work in an organization where not only it was, you know, I didn't even think you could actually have a job doing the kind of stuff that I did. I just, you know, I thought, you know, volunteered. I was in a, I grew up in a family where we were active in a lot of things. And, but all of us have a role. You know, I talk to a lot of young people as they're either graduating from, I've done some commencement speeches and so forth. And it's like, when you think about your life, it's all these different pieces, right?

There are friends, you know, all the things we do for ourselves and our health. There's our professional life. There's the community service piece. Yes. And we all need to pay attention to that. And it can be anything from mentoring a child to becoming actively involved in political work, to helping to clean up parks, to serve a nonprofit. boards, to support local arts organizations.

There are all little pieces to help a neighbor. There are all these little pieces of that. That's really what it means to be part of a community, and I think it's what means to be part of a democracy. And if we think of that, you know, as we think about our democracy, is also where you were going around an informed citizenry. And that was always, if you go back to Thomas Jefferson, that was always contemplated is that an informed citizenry was going to be profoundly important as if we, the people,

were going to be governing this country. So, you know, so that means a robust press. That means having media outlets where we can find information. And now we're in an environment where there is information coming us from so many different places and helping people discern, you know, fact, from fiction with the explosion of AI, the possibilities of some things being, you know, people misunderstanding or being deliberately misled. I think the risk of that increases tremendously.

And I think in this whole array, there has to be a space for thoughtful dialogue and for information that you can trust. And when PBS was created, you know, about 60 years ago, the commercial marketplace had exploded with lots of different media possibilities. And there was really good stuff in early television, early radio. But there was a recognition, by the way, the first woman FCC commissioner, a woman by the name of Frida Henick, she had this idea that this powerful media would be able to do a lot of things. But the marketplace wasn't going to always be able to deal with the citizen part. And that she felt it was really important that there would be a

space for public media where our customer is really in the interest and our work is really in the interest of the public, not necessarily an advertiser. And that's actually how, you know, we first began. And so at a time when there were a couple stations and then us is very clear. But I think even in this environment, you know, people are looking for where do you go for information you can trust. And hopefully that brand means something. That was sort of a long dialogue. But anyway, it was a little bit of what you set up for me. I love it. My partner, you know, on a personal note, is always like, honey, you've got to get.

And I'm like, no, no, no, but I can't give you the full context without these 14 details that will then bring us back to where I started. And we laugh about it. But, you know, you said something that really touched me. And it leads me to what is normally my first question for people. I skipped it because I wanted to give you all of the. compliments and flowers you deserve, and there are certainly more. But when you touched on Mr. Rogers, and the profundity of what Fred Rogers meant, of what that show meant, of what

modeling being a good neighbor meant for early childhood development, and also, frankly, for social change. You know, you see a lot, since the Internet is the Internet, a lot of people will say, well, it didn't used to be this way, and not everybody was always trying to shove an opinion down your throat or be woke or be this or be that. And you think about the fact that Mr. Rogers sat on a television series during fights over segregation and put his bare feet in a kitty pool with the postal man on his television show who happened to be a black man. And what that meant to America at the time, that these two friends sat down and shared a space, that was in our country segregated and had a lovely conversation and reminded people of what it

means to be a neighbor. And I think about my own childhood watching that show and falling so in love with mission, I think that by the time I was eight, I was begging my mom to pick me up early from school so I could have my butt in the seat in front of the TV by 3 p.m. for Oprah to start. another person really trying to remind us of what community is in a broadcast space. What was your childhood like? You touched on the fact that you grew up in a service family, but, you know, I'm thinking about my own sort of eight-year-old self learning from these spaces that you have advocated for.

And I wonder what your life was like around eight or nine and how conscious you were of your neighborhood, as it were. Yeah. It's, you know, I grew up outside of Baltimore and I grew up in an area that was largely rural. And so for me, I spent, you know, I was thinking about this in the summertime because I would, you know, as soon as the sun was up, I was outside. And I don't think I had shoes on the entire summer, you know, and I loved being outside. We, I love nature. I love animals. And, you know, we had like woods behind our house. I'd go down in the stream. and, you know, dig for crayfish and all that kind of stuff. And, but because of where I lived, A, there weren't a lot of kids. There were a few, but there weren't really that many kids. So it wasn't that whole neighborhood thing where, like, kids were, like, in gangs on their bikes, like, riding everywhere.

I didn't have that. There were suburbs that were not that far from me, but it was far enough. There were no sidewalks. We had paved roads. I don't know. It was rural. It wasn't that rural. But it was a, it was a, it was a,

different environment. And for me, the connection to many things was TV. So I, like, we didn't watch TV all throughout the day, but, you know, at night, I saw a lot of stuff that I experienced because I saw it on TV. So my earliest memories was as a little girl sitting very close to the TV set, watching old I Love Lucy reruns. So that's sort of how, like, I thought women were. You know, because when you think about, like, the role of women, you know, I mean, she was, you know, she was zany and unbelievably creative and all this, but she was always aspiring to do something more. You know, that was part of it was. And then my next role model was Mary Tyler Moore, because she was a woman, right, that struck out on her own. She happened to go into media. And she had a career. And that was really what, you know, she had her friends and all of that. but it was very different than a lot of the things that I saw. I had other experiences that, you know, that I, I mean, I love, I love the arts. I love dance.

I saw dance on TV. I didn't, you know, we, you know, eventually, I mean, we would occasionally go into Baltimore and we would, you know, go to see things and so forth. But it was, you know, it was a connection to a lot of people. And me, it still is. For many people, it just connects them. And Fred is an interesting. person to talk about

because, you know, before Fred Rogers and before Sesame Street, Children's Television was, usually it was like the weatherman from the station who would like put on a clown suit and they'd run cartoons. That's what kids' television was. And Fred thought, wow, this could be a

teaching tool. So this is how he built Mr. Rogers. And he spoke slow. And he spoke quietly. You had to lean in a little bit to hear him. And And he would look into the camera and he would tell kids, I know he told your little seven-year-old self, I like you just the way you are. A lot of kids, that was really profound.

So in addition to that beautiful scene that you talked about with the swimming pool and the postman and the two of them sitting together, very quiet gesture, he, you know, he also told children that they were important. And he encouraged them in a way that was just beautiful. He also understood things about how kids learn. So if you remember from those Mr. Rogers episodes, he always woven songs. And so sometimes, you know, grown-ups 40, 50 years old, will sing some of the songs I knew. And it's how you remember things. That, by the way, we've learned and continue to weave in all of our kids' shows. So Daniel Piger's Neighborhood, which is our most popular show on PBS, was created by someone who had been an intern for Fred and that decided to reinvent Fred because, you know, once Fred passed, there isn't another Fred Rogers.

I can't tell you how many people send headshot saying, I can be the next Fred Rogers. There isn't another Fred, but you can reinvent it in an imaginary world. And so that's what Daniel College's neighborhood. And all those lessons, all the structure of how Mr. Rogers was organized is played out again in. in that show and other shows, it's the lesson, it's the kindness, it's those lessons, not just the numbers and the letters, but how we deal with one another, how the music reinforces the message. It's beautiful. Indeed. And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. We often think we know our type in dating, tall, funny, a certain job,

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of status quo assumption, as Fred did, as, you know, Candice did. as Oprah did, it's so powerful. Yes. And I know you've had such a long career in media, but before we get into, you know, the importance of PBS, the importance of teaching children, and not just to be clear,

there's plenty of kids' content, but a lot of kids' content is designed to keep them coming back. It's junk food. It's not whole nutritious food for the mind. And what you do at PBS, what Mr. Rogers began, what Sesame Street continued, and what anyone who takes up the mantle of that legacy does, is to your point, to make sure we are creating for children in a way that empowers them, that teaches them empathy, that models kindness, that lets them know they have value. You can't do that in an unboxing video on YouTube, frankly. And so before we get into some of, you know, the real, I would say, moral power of centering the mental health and well-being of a child, I'm actually really curious if you can help us cut through all the noise and understand in like the most simple terms, what really is PBS and how is it funded?

Because there's a lot of nonsense, obviously coming from the political party that wants to cut all our public service so that they can launch the next depression and then let all their rich friends buy up our assets for pennies on the dollar and be even richer. Like, that doesn't make any sense in the grand scheme of, you know, the American budget. But I think what would help people make sense of it all is to know, A, what is it that you do? And B, how does it get paid for? And like, I do mean in layman's terms for us. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to talk about the what is it by first bridging off of what we were just talking about, which is kids, because then we can talk about what we do for everyone else who's over five, right?

Yes. Like us. Just shy. Yeah, we're just shy of over five. We focus a lot of our work for children on the youngest. because we know that, you know, through the legacy of Sesame Street, as well as Fred Rogers and others, that we have an opportunity to reach kids when they're young, we are very focused on the fact that half of the children in this country do not attend formal pre-kines.

And so we have children in this country that have a lot of advantages and have a lot of opportunities to see and experience things, and we have other children that are more limited. And so the whole idea behind the programming that we've created, even going back to the very beginning was to try to reach some of those kids. And so even if you don't have the opportunity to be in a formal school setting to give those children exposure to the basic skills they need to succeed the first time they enter school, both in terms of, you know, as I said before, basic letter and numbers, but also some social emotional skills and so forth so that they can begin to, you know, really have a thirst for learning, a lot.

love for learning. That's what all of our children's programs are built on. They're all tested against basic curriculum that kids need to master before they enter school. They're fun to watch because kids control the dial. So if you don't like it, you're not going to watch. But we also do a lot of measurements around our children actually learning. And we actually go back and do longitudinal studies too. We just did one, like the first generation of kids that were watching Daniel Tiger that I talked about and what did they take away and how did that change their lives and impact their lives. So that's the business that we're in. Children's programming is really interesting right now because a lot of the big streaming services, I would say with

the exception of Disney, which is very much in the kids' business, have really backed away some from kids' content. So where kids are ending a lot of time is YouTube. And there are some good things on YouTube, and there's a lot of things that are not appropriate for kids on YouTube. And increasingly, content is being produced by AI. And so it is, you know, it is, you refer to as junk food. Some of it is, you know, does not have the educational rigor that the work that we produce. We're in a different business. You know, we happen to use as schools as everyone else.

But our goal at the end of the day is to make sure that kids are prepared to go to school. If you're another content producer, your goal may be just to make sure that kids are watching the next clip and the next clip. and that, you know, it created that circle for them so that it just keeps them glued. But you've got to think if you're a parent, what is your child actually seeing? What do they experience? Is this helping their brains develop? Is this helping them see a wider world? So that's what we do for kids.

It's also what we do for the rest of the audience that we attempt to serve. You know, we're a variety service. We have the news and we have documentaries. We have a very deep interest in science. You know, through series like Nature and Nova, we do a lot of productions in partnership with the BBC, this beautiful David Attenborough productions and so forth. They're so gorgeous. We're very fortunate to have worked with Ken Burns for many years. He has a big series coming up on the American Revolution. This is why I can speak so knowledgeably about when our country was founded, because I've learned so much from Ken as we've been working on this project together.

We also bring the arts, you know, and there's, you know, there's all the competition. shows but to bring theater and opera and dance and just Austin city limits. I mean, just a wide array of programming content. And all of it is intended to give people access. There are a lot of people in this country as I was as a kid that just didn't have the opportunity to see a lot of performance. To give people that don't have the economic means to buy tickets to a Broadway show and so forth, the access to see those things. And to hopefully help people just feel inspired. I mean, that's part of what we do at PBS. And so the way that we're funded is we have for years and when Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, he envisioned this public private

partnership. He envisioned that the federal government would put some money in. It ends up, it was 15% of the budget for public media, that means all of our stations and PBS together, 15%. And that money would mostly went to our stations. And so if you are in L.A. or if you're in New York

and you're a big city, those stations, the percentage of our budget, their budget that came from the federal government was probably less than 10%. It was maybe 8 or 9%. Some small stations

in rural parts of the country, the part of their budget that was federal dollars, was as much as 50%. And so I worked really hard in the many years that I've now been in this job to really make sure

that legislators understand is the money that you're providing is not coming to Washington, it's not going to New York, it's going to Peoria. It's going to Granite Falls, Minnesota. It's going to Cookville, Tennessee. It's going to Nashville and Austin and everything.

Yes. It's going to parts of Alaska where no one has any other media access. Correct. And so what was always expected in this partnership is that there would be some government money. And then each station would then do their job in trying to rally their community around funding their stations. So we often say on PBS, thank you to viewers like you. That's actually where the largest amount of money comes into public broadcasting. So in this moment, the public site has been pulled out and pulled out in a way that has been very difficult for us to manage

because we were always given an advance appropriation so the government would decide two years out what monies would come into public broadcasting because you know you've been in TV for all this TV production is expensive, it takes a long time. And so it was put in place so that we knew at the beginning of every year that we would have the money for that year and we also to be coming for the next year so we could our station properly plan. You have to know what you're working with. Otherwise, how are you supposed to do a job?

Correct. That money was all eliminated. It was pulled out just weeks ago. We have two months to figure this out. And there were a lot of commitments to what were made when Congress met. This happened both on the House side and the Senate side, and they said, well, we're just getting rid of this

advance money. We will deal with you in the appropriations process. Guess what? Appropriations process began to move forward two weeks ago. No money for us. Of course. We have no money now coming out of the federal government. So I have been working with some foundations to try to get quick money delivered to our stations so that they actually have a little bit of running room so they can figure out what their plans are for the future. But I think it's just really very disappointing that something that has worked well for 60 years, it's suddenly gone.

Well, and something that feels really important to discuss is the ratio we're talking about here. You know, to go from a million dollars to a billion dollars is an insane exponential multiplication. To then imagine going from a billion dollars in any level of the budget to a trillion dollars is unimaginable for most people. Our current government is giving a $1.3 trillion tax cut to the wealthiest people in the nation while defunding public services for everyone else. And what's so frustrating to me is the Department of Education budget that PBS was getting. which was just eliminated was $23 million. It's not even a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of what we pay for,

of what we do. It feels like the kind of moral loss for no fiscal gain akin to us cutting USAID. That's less than 1% of America's entire budget to invest in our soft power around the, world and to be good global neighbors. And so we are eviscerating all the things that actually make this country great so that we seem more like the kings that you referenced in the beginning of this conversation, which is antithetical to the founding of the country in the

first place. And so, you know, when folks at home are like, God, you know, you really seem to hate the right. It's like, well, I hate anything that's un-American, actually. and this is this is really antithetical to who we are and i feel like it is my duty as you said you referenced i suppose earlier that i'm you know i'm lucky i've got a platform because of my day job and because i've got the day job i do i can also protest the government and certain agencies in a way that people who work inside of it aren't allowed to and so i do feel like it's really a responsibility for me. And I have to say a little thank you to the folks at home. You know, Paula, my fans know me. Like the people who listen to this show, the people who show up

to organize for elections and community service and to build schools with me, they are dedicated, wonderful people. So I hope that they, you know, always feel like when I'm expressing my frustration with attacks on, you know, our country and frankly attacks on our children like the attack on PBS is, I hope they know, like, we got to hit the streets for this. How can people help you? Because look, I saw the great, for context, just today, an article came out in the New York Times about how there are some great philanthropists who are helping you raise this stopgap money to hopefully stop the doom loop of these stations will shudder. And then if they shudder, others will shudder. It'll be this horrible domino effect for an informed populace.

You know, I love seeing names like the Ford Foundation and Pivotal Ventures. I don't have that kind of money. Nobody I know has that kind of money. What can the average person do right now to support you, to support PBS? Like, if somebody's got five or ten dollars to spare, where do they send it? Yeah, it's hugely meaningful. So, I mean, we have been built on, I mean, I always refer to us is the most American and the most democratic of organizations because we have been built on support from our communities. It's all those $5 contributions. Yeah.

And so this is this money that you're referencing, which has been raised by a few foundations and others, is just trying to give some of the most vulnerable stations a little bit of runway. But a lot of people used to think, oh, well, you're government funded. You're fine. Or they think, well, you know, I turn on my TV,

said or, you know, I turn on my computer and I see you and I see all creatures great and small and I see all the things that I love and so forth, and you're always there. Well, this is actually a really critical moment. If you actually care about the fact that, you know, this is a media service that is absolutely focused on your kids succeeding, if this is a service that you rely on for your news or the things that you care about, you need your support. And every dollar counts. support your local station. You can also go online. We have a foundation, PBS Foundation. You can also go there and make a contribution to PBS itself. Everyone teases us about our fundraising dives and sending you a mug or whatever. I like my mugs.

To me, I've always believed. Because, you know, look, I have been in this job for a while and we have 179 separate licenses. We're in every state. When I first took the job, I had worked in our station in New York, and I had been the station manager there. And when I took the job at PBS, I thought, you know, I know a fair amount about public television, but I knew it from my lens of running that station. And so I thought, and you know, some people think New York is an island off of the coast of North America. You know, it's like a little different than, you know, other places. And so I thought, you know, I want to learn more. If I want to do this job well, I'm going to travel around the country.

and I'm going to meet as many people as I can, not just the people that run the stations. I wanted to meet the people that counted all the stations. I wanted to talk to teachers. I wanted to talk to different community leaders and so forth. And so I've been to every state. I have seen a lot of stations. In many communities that I visited, our local stations are the last remaining locally owned, operated, and governed media companies.

Wow. They say there aren't local TV or radio stations. A lot of them are owned somewhere else. Some of them are programmed somewhere else. Yes, that's the problem. They are run by people that live in the community, but care about those communities, and that are looking at what they do,

and I'll speak just for television because that's what I run, they're looking at what their television station can do to both tell the story of that community, but also to bring people together. And all of those stations are supported by, lots of contributions. And so this is really a moment. So I would love to be one of those viewers like you that we thank on our air all the time. And just it's an easy thing to do, step up. A lot of our stations also look for volunteers. Our stations do a lot of work in schools. And so, you know,

you can send a contribution. You can get involved. And that will make a huge difference. I am not giving up on the government funding. We're going to be pressing on this. We should. but we also have to make sure that we are keeping these beautiful stations strong and relevant and important because as you were saying at the very beginning of this podcast, the need for information that you can trust is more important than ever. And that's what we are relentlessly focused on is making sure that we're producing information that people can trust as they make the decisions for their communities, families, and for themselves. And now a word from our sponsors. No one can resist a rule of culture, so here's one for the dating files.

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not limiting information for people, particularly in their local geographies, is incredibly important. And, you know, if you've got a, say, Sinclair Media that has a clear bias that limits the free speech of its employees and programs the same stories to run nationally, that harms the people in those communities because they don't know what's happening next door. They don't know what's happening around the corner. They might not be able to organize to save a volunteer firehouse or save a hospital in the town over if it's the closest one to them. And there's also the reality that a lot of these stations

are the emergency alert stations for people as well. I got a whole lot of flack when this rescission's package happened and I heard that your funding was cut because it was just I don't know maybe 10 days or two weeks after that

horrific tragedy at Camp Mystic that is in a county that didn't upgrade its emergency system when it was given the funds to do so by the federal government because President Biden was the president at the time and they said they didn't want any democratic money. And to me, refusing to show up for your country and your neighbors,

regardless of how they vote in either direction, by the way, feels criminal and just had proved deadly. And I said, you know, how could we do this after this horrible tragedy has just happened? And by the way, you know, you've just seen this massive horrific flooding in Tennessee. We had just watched this awful devastation. throughout Tornado Alley, like, people weren't getting emergency alerts and people were dying. And the number of people who said, that's not how anyone gets their alerts anymore, struck me, Paula, because I thought, oh, we're really entrenched in this moment of infighting in our own country

where people think, well, if I don't do it that way, no one does it that way. Yeah, there's a misunderstanding, though, of the role that we play. Yes, so I wanted to ask you about that to help us clear that. it's not that you're getting your information from your TV set. We are actually feeding the information you're getting through your phone. So we are, because we're a broadcast network, right, we can push out one to many. So anyone that has been in a crisis, I was in New York doing 9-11, you know that cell phones, you know, cell phone service becomes overworked and it's unable to sustain the volume of activity. And the power about the work that,

that we do is because broadcast is one to many, we can push a lot of content out. And so we run a service that pushes that content out to the public, but also to first responders. And so we were knit in as the backup infrastructure for our emergency alert system for the country. So with getting your information from NPR, and this actually, this discussion happened on the,

it was either the House or the Senate floor, I think, because, Because at the time of the vote, there was a tsunami warning in Alaska. Yes. It was the radio stations that were pushing out that information. And, you know, someone on the House floor said, well, I'm not listening to NPR, so I wouldn't have gotten it anyway. That wasn't how the information was going to pushed out. It was also getting pushed out to your phones, which you probably would have seen.

And that's what the member was doing. She held up her phone and she said, I'm getting these alerts on my phone. And it wasn't because she was tuned to NPR. It's because it was being pushed out to her because... By public broadcasting. By public broadcasting. So, you know, we're going to try to keep the, you know, so we are working to keep the infrastructure solid.

I worry if we start to lose some stations, which we likely will. There'll be parts of the country that won't be covered. And part of what the federal government was investing, the federal government has invested this over the year, is, you know, some of our stations were looking to upgrade equipment to make sure they had the latest software and all that stuff. And so all that money got pulled. And now there's a whole back and forth about, well, maybe that money shouldn't go to public broadcasting at all. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. It has nothing to do with anything that we're broadcasting or

anything that we're doing is a media company. It is an infrastructure. We are a public service company. And so to, you know, suddenly be looking at, you know, well, maybe we should look at another solution. Why wouldn't you use the solution that you have? And for a small amount of money, you can just keep it going. Yes. That works incredibly well. Proficient. Do you know how much per person the investment in public media in this country is? It's $1.66 a year. Wow. That is the investment in public media from each citizen. A $1.66. a year. And what we, again, have tried to do is to take whatever, as I said, you know, we use a lot of it to lift up stations in smaller, rural, poorer communities that could use

the support. Everybody gets a little base of support. And then we try to be as entrepreneurial as we can in raising additional money alongside of it in order to create a service that meets the needs of the public. We partner with a lot of media organizations. You know, everybody knows of our partnerships with organizations like the BBC. We partner with NHK in Japan. We partner with other media companies. I'm partnering with Amazon. I partner with anybody where we can put the resources together to bring forward a robust schedule of programming that we think meets the interests of the people that watch us. And we are, we have always been in a different position than everyone else is, again, why I say we're in a profoundly different business,

we just use the same tools, is that I don't have to worry about how I am satisfying our advertisers. What I worry about is I look at what is missing from the broadcast landscape, and then this is what we bring forward. And we hope that we do a good enough job, that the public believes that it's important, and they support us in what we're doing. You know, many of our local stations, they're the ones that are doing candidate debates, they do town halls. Yes. So all of this stuff. Well, you know, it's important.

It is important. And one of the things I think is really crucial to repeat for our listeners, just like you were able to shoot down the myth that people aren't getting their emergency alerts from public broadcast just because they're not listening to NPR. It's incredibly important, you know, this idea that it's all a conspiracy has really permeated our culture, right? Everyone's like, oh, well, the government's a conspiracy and medicine's a conspiracy. No, no, private corporations that have only a duty to please their shareholders rather than to take care of public health. Like, guys, there's your conspiracy. they're not prioritizing your wellness. They're not prioritizing the safety of your family. They're not prioritizing clean air and clean water. They're prioritizing returns. And what you just said,

Paula, I want to shout from the rooftops. PBS centers the wellness of the American people, not shareholders. And it makes it the most rare and precious thing that we have to protect. And my hope is that through our conversation, people will want to, you know, read the articles that we will link in our show notes that are all the things I was reading to prep for today. Because the more we understand what this really is, what it really means and how dangerous these threats are to us, not just to NPR, that will, I think, motivate people. And I'm curious, you know, again, because it's easy in a country of 332 million people to say, well, I don't know anybody who's had that problem. So you think the problem doesn't exist. But like one town over, everybody's got that problem. So when you talk about this wonderful public broadcast tour that you did when you took the presidency, what are a couple of anecdotes or stories that stand out to you.

you that you learned about your own company moving across the country. You know, I would love to enlighten people with, oh, I might not know Mary from Pekoyma, but I heard her story on this podcast, and that really shifted my understanding of the landscape. So if you have like maybe two or three of those, I would love to hear. Yeah, I do. I, you know, and I always believe that, look, everything in life is storytelling, right? You know this profoundly well.

And, you know, I mean, if you, you know, and I think that's the way to understand us is through the lens of how people relate to us. Television is a really intimate medium. Think about where do you, where are you when you watch television? Yes. You know, you might be in your living room or your kitchen. You might be in your bed. Exactly right. And so I think people have a different relationship with us.

A lot of times when I was traveling around, and I still do some travel. I stopped a little bit around COVID and I haven't traveled so much since then. But as I said, I've already been all over the country. I've been almost to every station. And what I learned in those experiences, people would tell me these profound stories about their lives and their family's lives and how we touch them. You know, people that had children on the autism spectrum.

There's something about our programming and particularly about the programs that we produce that use puppets and so forth that breaks through. in a different place in, in kids' brains. In fact, here we launched a new series called Carl, the Collector, and Carl, who is the lead character, is on the spectrum. And there's a, there's a whole group of children around him that are neurodivergent and how they come together as a community, hugely powerful. I cannot tell you how important this series has been for so many.

We've had people come to us and say, we've been struggling with Hal to talk to my child about the fact that he has autism, And he's been watching Carl, and he said to us, Mom, I'm just like Carl. Am I autistic? I mean, how profound is that for that incredible family? When I first took the job, I went to Nebraska. And I went to a reception, and there were a lot of people that were involved with the station there. And this guy came up to me. He had traveled.

He said, I traveled two and a half hours to come to this event. He said, because I wanted to meet you. and he said, you're the, you know, you're now running PBS. I said, yes. And he said, well, I wanted to shake your hand and I wanted to look you in the eye and I want to make sure that you remember me. He said, I am raising my children on the ranch where I was raised. And he said, we're in the rural part of the state. And he said, I worried a lot that my kids would not have access to everything that would allow them to live, you know, great lives. He said, but we have you. And he said, and I just need you to know that we can. count on you and you need to do the best possible job for us. And he said, oh, he said, I can, I can imagine you've got a difficult job, but I hope that if you're ever tempted to go a different path or to take a shortcut, that you think about me and you think about my kids and everything that you mean to us. That's so beautiful. Again, these are really powerful stories. People whose lives. We did a video profile of a young guy growing up in New York City. Okay, so a place where he's

surrounded by like a lot of stuff. And this kid was a street dancer. He's home one night. He's like flipping through. Somehow stumbles on to a rerun of a program that we had aired on great performances that had Berishnikov in it. And he had never seen, he had never seen ballet before. He had never seen anything like that before. This kid enrolled high school for performing arts became a dancer, became a principal dancer for the San Francisco Ballet. That's how we found him because we were taping Swan Lake. He was dancing in it. And you know what he does now? He's a teacher. He's teaching kids dance. So incredible experience on media that changed his life, you know, obviously touched all the audiences that saw him over the years, but more profoundly

is touching the lives of all these kids who are now learning from him. The idea of doing anything like this had never occurred to him until he had that experience. And that's the miraculous ripple effect for good that I believe in when we create for good, when we center for good. I will be a defender of PBS for the rest of my life because I believe in you as an organization. for good. I'm curious, who are our allies in this fight to keep the lights on? Because listen, I think the ACLU made a great point. There is a wonderful argument to be made here that the current administration's attack on public broadcasting is an attack on free speech because they desire to alter the speech of what is broadcast. And I hope that that works. But I am not an attorney.

who's at the ACLU, I want to know who are the allies we should be supporting, who should we be writing to, who should we be thanking, who should we be boycotting? Tell us where to pull up, because my people are ready. Yeah. So, I mean, the one thing I will say up until this period is we've actually also always had bipartisan support. There are a lot of people from both sides of the aisle that have always supported us. I think we're in a very unusual time right now. And I think we're in a very unusual time right now. And I think that if people want to continue, you know, we started this effort called Protect My Public Media and, you know, people can sign up. I think you can still sign up because we're, as I said, we're not giving up. There will be another moment where we will try to galvanize people to reach out to legislators. And I think that it's important for everyone to reach out to your legislator and just remind them how important this is. because this is where it is profoundly important for people to understand that their voices are heard. Prior to this vote, we literally had millions of calls and texts and emails going up to the mail.

And I think there are some that believe, well, we've gone through this moment and now people are going to go off into their lives and do their own special thing. I think we just have to keep this up because I do believe that. you know, that we will have a moment where we can put this back on the table, and it should be. I mean, we're going to work really hard. We're going to try to keep things glued together, this effort that you mentioned with these different foundations. This is just going to, this is bridge. That's what it's called. It's a bridge fund to try to get us to that next place. I'm hoping what this is going to bridge us into is not just giving stations a little bit more time to try to figure out how they can manage without the money, but hopefully,

we can get some of that money put back in, it'll make a profound difference. I mean, the workers as we pull in, allow us to be able to do more. So in the coming year, we've got, like, great programming come up. I've already mentioned Ken's series on the American Revolution. That was created a few years ago. I mean, it was finished a year ago, and now we'll broadcast in November as we lead. I'm so excited. It is magnificent.

It is so beautiful. And we need it now. And we need to understand where we came from. We need to understand that it was really messy at the beginning. It's not this idea that we have of how our country came together. It was really messy. It's messy now. But if we care about our democracy, we have to come together.

And part of that is understanding how did this all start? It was improbable. It shouldn't have happened. We shouldn't have been successful in forging this democracy. But we were. But we were. Yes. And it is, it continues to be fragile unless we all take a role in preserving it.

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this way you seem to be retaining hope retaining optimism how do you do that right now or is it because you're a genuinely optimistic person who knows we'll get through this or is it because of belief in your team or or I guess maybe a mix of all these things how do you how do you stay so up. Because I believe in what we do. I believe that it is right and is important. And I've had the, really the unbelievable privilege of being able to talk to people across the country who said, and we believe it too. And all of the responses that I have gotten in, you know, the last weeks of people saying, we're behind you. That just lives. lifts you up. And I think we are in a moment in this country where people are craving hope and inspiration. And that's, that is who we are and that is what we do. I believe in this country. I believe in the people in this country. And I believe people will come together. And that's what, that's why, and you and you cannot, because, you know, Sophia, what's the alternative? You're going to go into your bed and put the covers over your head. No way.

Nothing good ever happens by that. It comes by having a conviction of purpose, believing in what you do, and in just trying to galvanize support forward. And I think that the response that we have gotten us far and continue to get, our stations are getting contributions from people that they've never heard from before. I mean, this is a moment. And so really riding on that crest of positivity and hope and belief, is what's going to carry us forward. I love it. I love it. I feel that. I feel very ready. I want to look up my local PBS station up here and figure out how I can go volunteer. What are some of the things that were I to do that I might find as volunteer opportunities? Well, each station is a little different. Some stations do a lot of community events and they are looking for people to be engaged. Some people, Some stations, as I said, are very active in schools, and they look for people to help connect. So, yeah, so talk to your local station and see what they're doing and what they might need.

And obviously, contributions help. Some stations actually have people going door to door and asking people for contributions. I mean, there's just a lot. Some stations are still having volunteers in their studio, you know, all of that. I mean, it's, I think that each station, I mean, this is the thing that people don't understand. not a network. So every station is individually owned and operated with their own thing. And that's actually what is pretty cool about PBS is because when you travel around and each station is, you know, we air a lot of the same programming, but different. You know, stations, you know,

produce some of their own programming, but their own stories sort of happening within their own communities. And it's, it's, so there's a, there is, it is very intensely local. And so, you know, So I just encourage everyone to connect to your local station. Well, great. Maybe we can start a little community campaign for that. How great would that be? I know you are obviously holding so much. I mean, you are working for the nation.

You are fighting back. It's quite a David and Goliath fight as it strikes me as a story. I'm curious, though, for you, you know, when you're not. riding for the, you know, the future of America. Just in your own life, Paula, what, what's on the horizon? What excites you? What, what feels like your work in progress? And that could be personal or professional, certainly. But as you all center public good, I also want to know how you center yourself. Yeah. It's, you know, look, I think for all of us that, you know, lead organizations and particularly during periods like this, it is, you have to be very

deliberate in personal, right, because you are, and particularly for, you know, I'll just speak for myself right now. I mean, there's a lot on my shoulders going into the, going into the vote. And it has been a, it has been quite a period since January. I mean, I, I was, as you know, I was called to testify in front of Margie Taylor Green's committee and sort of getting ready for that and, you know, just really being very much in the forefront of a lot of what we were doing. Every day I just focused on, you know, what was sitting right in front of me. And right now, you know, once the vote happened, then just really figuring out how can we stabilize our system, how we can begin to bring resources in. And right now I'm very focused on trying to raise money for the news hour, for example, because, you know, as for the monies that I have lost, there are, you know, all of our producers are having to make hard choices. But the news hour, that has to be on the air every night.

And so we've got about a $10 million gap there. So I've been really working to try to close that. So anybody wants to make a contribution to news hour, you can contact me. But anyway, I just, I do think that for my. myself, what I've been trying to do is actually harken back to that eight-year-old. You know, when I'm home, I have a home in the country. I live in the country, actually. It's not I have a home.

That is where, that is my home in the country. I have two dogs. I love, I love being out early in the morning. I have the Merlin app on my phone. I love to turn it on and, you know, sort of spot. I'm very interested in science and nature. I sit on the Natural History Board here and just very engaged in a lot of things around science and nature. And I love to look up, put all the devices away when I don't need them.

I only keep my phone for the Merlin app and then I stick it in my pocket. I try not to look at anything even if it's buzzing. And I just try to sort of connect back. And I think this is where a lot of us actually find strength is I connect back to those things that really meant a lot to me when I was a kid. I'm not barefoot the whole summer like I was when I was a kid. But I very much, that was very much of the grounding for me when I was young. And so I try to come back a little bit. And I'm not doing such a great job.

You know, I know that, you know. Well, things are a little hard right now, but. Things are a little hard. But, you know, but I do try to get my walk in the morning with the dogs with, you know, and look up and just listen. I have started actually to tell myself when all of this feels over. overwhelming. I will literally speak out loud to myself alone in the room and go, okay, honey, you got to go out and touch grass. Five minutes outside. It really, to your point, it's so important. And I'm glad to know that you are still centering those experiences as often as you can

in the midst of your very honorable fight. Yeah, it matters. And it just reminds us that we're all part of something far bigger than each of us individually, right? Just look up, look at the pattern of the leaves in the sky. You know, just think about trees in particular, you know, quite powerful, you know, because so many of them existed far before we were born. We're just after we were there. We're part of this whole interconnectedness. And our time on this earth is pretty finite. And we have one chance for this, I'm going to garble Mary Oliver, but, with this one beautiful life. And what are we going to do with it? You're one wild and precious life.

Wild and precious life. How are we going to seize it? That's it. That's it. Thank you so much, Paula. I just adore you. And I'm so glad we've connected. Yeah. This has been really great. Sifia, thank you. Thank you so much for this channel. This is an IHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.