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Tuesday, September 30, 2025 |
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Good morning. Public media system staffers are saying their farewells today; press freedom groups are staging a protest outside the FCC; and YouTube TV and NBCU are bracing for a blackout.
Today is also the Pentagon's press "pledge" deadline; the start of the MLB postseason; and a late-night TV crossover date...
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This is the day NPR and PBS hoped would never come: The day federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) dries up.
Today is the end of the federal government's fiscal year, which is also why a government shutdown is looming. And just as a shutdown feels distant and "political" until it affects you personally, the defunding of public media is more tangible now that stations are cutting back on programming.
Local stations have been laying off staffers, limiting travel and lopping off parts of their operations to cope with the rescission that President Trump promoted and congressional Republicans passed over the summer. In Seattle, KCTS is giving up on its long-form journalism ambitions. In Charlotte, WFAE is closing its "community engagement hub" building. In Pensacola, WSRE is dropping its PBS affiliation.
Some outlets are cutting more deeply than others, since the budget picture varies quite a bit from place to place. (New Jersey's public TV network is at risk of closing altogether.)
In reading about the state-level impacts, I'm struck by how many local public affairs shows are being lost. Trump and his allies railed against perceived political bias of national programs, but those programs will continue while shows like "South Dakota Focus" (on PBS affiliates across South Dakota) and "Almanac North" (on WSDE in Duluth, Minnesota) and "Headline Humboldt" (on KEET in Eureka, California) will not.
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The entire system is in flux |
As for the CPB, it is saying goodbye to most of its staff today. The corporation recently decided to distribute its final $7.1 million by giving a little bit to each TV and radio station in the system.
CPB CEO Patricia Harrison continues to predict that many stations, "especially in rural and underserved areas," will go under without the federal support. "Those who voted against the wishes of the majority of the American people have taken away something of great value," she said at a board meeting Monday morning, arguing that "this realization is just beginning to sink in" among the public at large.
Harrison also acknowledged that stations have seen an influx of financial support from viewers, foundations and other sources.
>> Meantime, one of CPB's final acts was awarding up to $57.9 million to a new nonprofit that will handle connections between stations, thereby cutting NPR out of a loop it has controlled for decades. NPR is trying to block this change, and a federal judge will hear arguments in the matter later this morning. NPR's David Folkenflik explains all the tension here...
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Pentagon 'pledge' deadline is today |
The Pentagon press office's demand that beat reporters sign a "pledge" that would severely restrict their work came with a Sept. 30 deadline. The journalists were told, however, that they could request a five-business-day extension to discuss the matter with counsel.
Either way, the new rules seem like a non-starter, as they'd turn reporters into Pentagon PR puppets. David Sanger's NYT piece and Nancy A. Youssef's Atlantic article both explain the situation perfectly. The AP's David Bauder says it's not clear if any badge-holding journalists have signed on the new policy.
The military's primary point of leverage is Pentagon building access, but as this week is showing, reporters don't need a badge or a keycard to communicate with sources and inform the public. Trump and Pete Hegseth's highly unusual gathering of senior military officers today is causing numerous leaks. Sources tell CNN that the meeting is designed to be a "pep rally." And it is set to be shown live on TV, at least in part. Here's the latest...
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FCC holding open meeting this A.M. |
At an open meeting of the FCC this morning, chair Brendan Carr will get back to the agency's usual business, like "accelerating wireline infrastructure buildout" and "addressing the homework gap through the E-Rate program."
There is also one item on the docket that's very much related to Kimmelgate: "Modernizing broadcast ownership rules." The FCC is expected to move forward with its latest review of local TV and radio ownership limits with an eye toward loosening the rules... though the national TV ownership cap, which is hindering Nexstar, is not part of this particular review.
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Journo groups will be protesting |
Reps for Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists tell me they'll be circling the FCC's HQ on L Street with a mobile billboard truck "to draw attention to the FCC's politicization, most recently illustrated by Carr’s threats that forced Jimmy Kimmel off the air." Reporters Without Borders "has also sent an investor letter to Disney’s board of directors requesting internal documents regarding the affair." |
Today's VOA layoff is on pause |
US Agency for Global Media acting CEO Kari Lake was hoping to institute a reduction in force at Voice of America today, but US District Judge Royce Lamberth has directed her to hold off for the time being.
Lamberth's Monday ruling "preserves the status quo at the agency until he rules on a plaintiffs' underlying motion to block the reduction in force," The AP explains here.
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YouTube TV might lose NBCU channels |
"YouTube TV and NBC are still far apart on the largest outstanding issue in their carriage battle," Puck's John Ourand reports. Unless there is a breakthrough today, NBCU's channels will be removed from the YouTube TV service late tonight. (You'll recall YouTube and Fox came close to a blackout last month, but ultimately cut a deal.) This time around, NBCU is thought to have leverage given its "very in-demand sports programming," but YouTube is making the argument that NBC "is asking us to pay more than what they charge consumers for the same content on Peacock..."
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Yes, there's even more. Turning Point USA's college tour is returning to Utah for its first event since Charlie Kirk's assassination... Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are visiting each other's shows...
Amazon is holding its big annual hardware event... and MLB's postseason games are starting this afternoon...
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Today's new nonfiction releases |
YouTube settles with Trump 💰 |
Yesterday's word of YouTube's $24.5 million payout "makes Alphabet-owned YouTube the last of the three Big Tech social media companies sued by Trump — which included Meta and then Twitter, now called X — to settle over his removal from their platforms," CNN's Ramishah Maruf and Clare Duffy report.
When the platforms first gave Trump the boot, legal experts said his lawsuits were frivolous, but the tech giants ended up settling anyway. Sure sounds familiar...
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>> This morning Simon & Schuster announced that "107 Days" by Kamala Harris sold "350,000 copies across all formats through the first week on sale in the U.S." The book is now in its fifth printing and is "on a trajectory to be the best-selling memoir published in 2025." (X)
>> Trump has renewed his threat to impose a 100% tariff "on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States." This time, "film producers and executives aren't sure how seriously to take him." (Variety)
>> Lally Weymouth, the Graham family scion and longtime Washington Post interviewer, has died. She was 82. (WaPo)
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OpenAI puts burden on copyright holders |
OpenAI "is planning to release a new version of its Sora video generator that creates videos featuring copyright material unless copyright holders opt out of having their work appear," Keach Hagey, Berber Jin and Ben Fritz scooped yesterday, citing sources. The trio said major studios and talent agencies were notified "over the past week."
Sora is also getting "a stand-alone app" to win users' time, WIRED's Zoë Schiffer and Louise Matsakis report. "The app, which features a vertical video feed with swipe-to-scroll navigation, appears to closely resemble TikTok — except all of the content is AI-generated..."
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More of today's tech talk |
>> Hadas Gold reports: "Not only is antisemitism rampant" on X, but "crowdsourced community notes are failing to effectively moderate posts," according to a new study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. (CNN)
>> A team of Guardian reporters spent a year studying "the everyday Facebook networks where far-right ideas grow." Here's what they found. (The Guardian)
>> The aforementioned OpenAI is "rolling out parental controls for ChatGPT on the web and mobile." This follows "a lawsuit by the parents of a teen who died by suicide after the AI startup's chatbot allegedly coached him on methods of self-harm." (Reuters)
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Hollywood notes and quotes |
>> "Far-right commentators are lashing out online over Bad Bunny headlining the 2026 Super Bowl." (Axios)
>> "MrBeast, the world's biggest YouTuber, has defended his latest stunt video — 'Would You Risk Dying for $500,000' — which shows a professional stuntman escape a blazing building while collecting bags of cash." (BBC)
>> "The singing voices of Huntr/x, the fictional girl group in the animated Netflix film 'KPop Demon Hunters,' have set their first-ever televised appearance and live performance,” with the group slated to appear on "The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon" on October 7. (Variety)
>> "The Simpsons Movie" is getting a sequel, coming in July 2027. (TheWrap)
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