YouSaid · the spoken record

Katherine Maher

lines on the record: 44
first: 2025-06-09
most recent: 2025-06-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“But I guess what I would say is that no person is a political platform, right? This is the thing that when people talk about us as liberal or when people talk about our reporters as liberal, the reality is all of us are contradictory. We have often competing beliefs about matters of the day. And so while one person might care very much about one political topic that aligns over here, you know, in their backyards, they might care very deeply in a different direction. And if you speak to that complexity of the sort of lived American experience, people can find something for them in the work that we do. So the question is, you know, there's a reason we say all things considered. How do we make sure we're serving that range of interests so you don't have to care about everything, but there's enough that does resonate?”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In a context in which we'll never all meet each other and we're never all going to agree. I think there's real value in that at the highest level. I think there's value in it from a civic infrastructure perspective that strengthens our democracy. And then, of course, there's the instrumental value of saying, look, we're providing information to people in a way that is high quality, subject to scrutiny, and committed to everyone. So there are multiple aspects of why our purpose matters. In terms of how we have Do we have that conversation? Well, we have to reintroduce ourselves. We have to identify the things that are relevant to people who don't currently listen to us today who might find interest in what we do. That's on us. That's our obligation to go out and have those conversations.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I believe that we are here to, I believe that we're here to serve a nation in a time in which commercial alternatives are interested in serving subsets of the nation. I don't want to get too academic about it, but I think that if you look at the way in which national conversations, national dialogues occur, historically they had to do with having some sort of commonplace to have them. You know, you can look back to the golden age of broadcasting, far fewer resources. We're never going back there. I'm not suggesting that we are, but we can and are mandated to be the kind of place where you can have differing opinions and you can make yourself comfortably uncomfortable with people's perspectives that you might not have otherwise heard. So the purpose of NPR is, if anything, to think about how you create a nation of shared perspective, a nation that reflects the American experience in all of its”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Could see an opportunity for us to do that. Absolutely. I mean, there are numerous nonprofits that have for profit subsidiaries, particularly when you think about fee-for-service type products, Mozilla is one of them, Wikimedia Foundation as well. I mean, there's lots. If we had something that was a compelling product, I don't see why we wouldn't think about that from a sustainability perspective.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was a principle for me when I was at Wikimedia. When I was at Wikimedia, we created an entity that was owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, which is a nonprofit that was a for-profit where we could work with companies that were already training on our data in order to be able to have contracts which would allow us to have financial support for Wikipedia's continued operations. That was enormously helpful to us. And when we looked at deploying into our own product, we were looking at, well, how do we think about consent? How do we think about auditing? How do we think about legibility? How do we think about being able to correct the data inputs in order to ensure that we're addressing issues of obvious bias in closed-loop systems? So all of those with, you know, I'm a big believer that technology allows humans to do what humans are better at. And we should really be thinking of this as assistive in the sense that we direct and correct it.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Excellent programming. How can we pull from across that? So we're being more responsive, more dynamic, and more personalized to the interests that people have wherever they are in the country.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The ability for us to reach more voices. We've been experimenting with tools that allow for greater synthesis like many organizations do to be able to identify what questions we're not asking. And then for how we do make better use of our back catalog, we have, which is tied, of course, to the potential licensing, but it's really around, we have this extraordinary 50 plus year archive, like many, many media organizations, but we're not using it, and particularly with audio, which is not a highly discoverable medium. Audio is so challenging. There's been very little product innovation in the experience of audio since podcasting came out. It's basically been like transcription and the ability to choose a spot and jump in. So what can that afford us in terms of context and the ability to make more of our content evergreen so that there is just more depth and richness? And how does that allow our network, which is also producing a tremendous amount of really”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The way that I've been thinking about this and with the folks who in our one of the first things I did was set up an AI general manager who's responsible for thinking about where we go with this is trust. There are a number of efforts around watermarking and developing credible training databases for organizations. We're not currently in a licensing place. I think that there is opportunity for us to explore that and opportunity for us to explore that with our station network and potentially even with other public broadcasters outside the United States. If you look at the number of English broadcasters, you could imagine innovation, which is another one of the things we're looking at, around a model that is trained on public broadcasting, a model that allows for people to ask questions of high quality, high integrity institutions that have the advantage of having a lot of their content already available to the public. We're looking at how it can be used for dialogue and improve.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know. Was talking about this just earlier today with some other media leaders. And I think, first, just want to acknowledge that a lot of us feel behind in terms of our ability to be responsive to this. You cited a part of our policies, which is the case. We don't want anyone putting any sensitive confidential data into some of these models. And at the same time, I recognize that if we aren't training or giving people the opportunity to experiment with how these models work, we're losing the opportunity for them to learn the benefits, be creative with the outputs, think about how this could work into their workflows. And so we have been talking about how we actually create sort of an agreement with one of the companies in order to be able for that to be in-house with ways that we are comfortable with from a data privacy and policy perspective. So we're definitely moving forward on that. Some of those things feel as though they're just on the cusp of change.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's one thing that I'd like us to do. The second thing is that some of our most successful internal innovations have come from our interns. They've come from people who were new to what was going on, who were learning the medium and were innovating with it. So how do we build on that, that energy and that fluency with emerging technologies and emerging media behaviors? And to me, that is around creating the space and allowing for clearly defined pilots where we give people the resources to go out and experiment and see what traction that actually gets.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think that it's a really fair question because a lot of the innovation that has been proposed in NPR has not necessarily been nurtured in the past and much of it has actually gone outside. And so some of the really creative stuff that has come to us we passed on, unfortunately. I think that part of that is creating a culture of better scouting. If you look at some of the most popular shows out of public radio over the course of its history, they have come from the local station production. So you could look at Prairie Home Companion, you could look at Car Talk. These are sort of regionally specific shows that proved to have universal appeal. So how do we become better scouts of interesting work and recognize the creativity and diversity across the system where people are working with fewer prior constraints? They're working with greater constraints that allow for more flexibility and innovation. I think that those are”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because it's absolutely delayed. It is so delightful and a great project. And it's just your joy. And there's a lot of our programming that has that kind of joy. If you listen to something like Planet Money or the Indicator, if you listen to Shortwave, it's all curiosity and discovery. And I think there's an opportunity for us to lean into that. I was fascinated by some research that just came out internally around Gen Z. And it found that the awareness of our brand has gone up dramatically in the last year, possibly because we've been in the news. The sense of affinity with what it is that we offer has also increased. And the sense that we understand their generation has as well.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is not the case anymore. People don't commute with the same regularity. Their time schedules have really changed. They're using their phones instead of radios in their kitchen while they're making breakfast or look brushing their teeth. So how do we respond to that? How do we respond to the family that's using their smart speaker? How do we respond to the 30-something that takes their phone with them and it auto syncs to their car? Never going to look up a dial. How do we think about people who are playing podcasts on their smart TVs? And those are visual mediums. An enormous percentage of tiny desk watching, which is, as you said, a hugely popular program, happens on smart TVs. So my sense of this is that we have...”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of that listenership or the diversity of that listenership, it was not of healing to our older listeners. And fairly so. We were referencing cultural moments that weren't necessarily on their radar. We are actually really fortunate that we have this natural segmentation. Our listeners on radio tend to be Gen X and boomers. And then our listeners on digital are also increasingly boomers, but also Gen X and below, right? So there's that Gen X straddle. I think that's a huge opportunity because we don't have to be all things to all people in all domains. We can segment really effectively in the digital space. We can understand how people are using our reporting and using the programming that we have. We can build personas around what it is that they need. You know, the classic NPR persona was I get in my car, I commute, I get in my car, I commute home, and I would listen to, you know, those two ten-pole programs.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I had memories of when I lived in DC the first time around back in 2010 or so NPR at that point was seen as being a real digital innovator. We were early to podcasting. We were early building our own app. We had NPR1, which was personalization that people often still talk about how much they loved. I'm not saying it was perfect. I mean, that's like 15 years ago technology. But I at the time really had high regard for the technologists, the product people at NPR. My understanding is that over the course of the last decade or so, that wasn't afforded the same priority. There were tensions around the resources that went to radio versus digital. I think that those are false tensions. We recognize that radio has a certain listenership. It's of a certain age. It's a certain behavior. When we tried to increase the youth”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I was an unpredictable pig. No, that's not right. I don't think I was unconventional. That's what I meant to say. I was an unconventional pick. Yet much of my background has really been around how do you meet the moment with information and how do you safeguard the rights of inquiries, speech, and privacy of the public and ensure that folks have the access to information they need to think about how to go about their lives. In fact, since we were talking about sort of criticism, the work that I've done in the past has taken on different administrations at different times on both sides of the aisle. So where I come to this is sort of fundamentally, again, about that right to inquiry, right to information. From a technology standpoint, though, I walked into NPR.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Is it ammunition Is it ammunition against me? Absolutely. Is it unfortunate? It is. Could you ask any member of our newsroom and say, Has she ever interfered with a single thing we've done? Of course not.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sometimes approaching a decade ago in a very different role, even in that role, that was not a partisan aspect to my work. There's a strong firewall. We're here to do the work. So yes,”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think I've persuaded everyone, but I think that being willing to listen to concerns is one piece of it. At the end of the day, I think our success is whether we serve the public well. And if anything, one way to think of me is competitive. Whatever my personal views are, they don't enter into my work. My work is really around achieving our mission. And the thing that would give me greater joy and satisfaction is that we demonstrate our relevance in such a way that a large percentage of the American population puts credibility and trust in our work. That to me is what success looks like. And that is not partisan. That's just public service. So, you know, I've had those conversations with legislators. I've had those conversations with critics. I think that they're something that people can respond to there at the end of the day. Also, you know, I'd be the first to say those tweets were more than five years ago, more than half a decade ago.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think, look, I went to my editor in chief and I said, tell me what you need. This is an opportunity for us to talk to friends and allies about how we invest in our work. Tell me what you need. And she huddled with her leadership. And this is what they came back with. They said, this is what we've been wanting to do for a while. Was the timing optimal? No, it wasn't. Was it something that has brought value to the organization? Absolutely. Would I do it again? I would. As I said, you can't, there's not always a right time to do something for optics. And I think, unfortunately, that's what DC runs off of is a lot of optics. And that has held us back as an organization at times. And that's just not where I want us to be.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Modifiers myself. No, but I mean, I think that of course I knew that there was going to be pushback. There was pushback in our own newsroom. But the editors that we've brought in have been not just accepted. They're recognized now that they are very, very thoughtful people. They're adding value to the work. The content analysts help us understand the type of programming that we're producing. For example, we do a lot more sports than I think anybody would have guessed. The additional standards and practices editors mean that we have the capacity not only to give guidance to our reporters and better training to younger reporters, but also to the sort of farm team of reporters that comes up through our local station system. So I reject that particular characterization.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I would start by saying you have to do the right thing. What the optics are of the situation is it's not that it is not important, but I think if you're living in DC and all you're thinking about are optics, you're not going to do the work that needs to be done. The reality is that NPR as it grew out of just being all things considered in morning edition into radio digital podcasts, video production, we did not have the sort of centralized oversight or capacity from the standards and practices perspective to be able to see everything that was coming out the door. This was something that we should have done previously. It was something that we were resource strapped around. And like many mission-driven organizations, when we had more resources, we just put them into more reporting and more production and more programming. So I don't think it is an act of epic.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A tough spot. Here, what I'd say on the sort of response and mobilization is I wasn't there for some of the things that are referenced around Me Too, around racial bias or discrimination. I'm aware of the stories and I can't speak for my predecessors as to why something was handled one way or another. My view is that were those things brought to my attention, we would move with similar alacrity. I have very low tolerance for any sort of abuse in the workplace or”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a whole, we recognize there aren't many journalists who identify as conservative. There aren't many. Most journalists identify as independent. So that is not necessarily the most salient point. But I would have welcomed that conversation because I think that when there is legitimate criticism, it's our duty to hold a mirror to ourselves. We have to take it on board. We have to integrate it. And that would have been a good conversation. We never were afforded that opportunity. Meeting with me. There was no conversation with his managers. There was no discussion of this internally. And instead, it has become something of a grenade without a pin, or maybe the grenade exploded, being passed around in the broader narrative around where NPR's priorities.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So factually, we would agree, right? The stories that he cited was misleading in the way that he presented those stories. Other media organizations took a look at that. I think Eric Wen pulled the Washington Post, wrote a really good piece in review of our coverage. So I would agree with you that it is sort of cherry-picking in a way that appealed to certain narratives about media independence. That being said, I mean, the story that he wrote or the piece that he published in the free press was two weeks into my tenure. If anything, I would have preferred that he seek out a meeting with me, the new CEO, in order to share with me some of his concerns culturally editorially or otherwise, and offered us the opportunity internally to address what those concerns might be. I'm cognizant of the criticism around the lack of conservative viewpoints in media.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, there are challenges over time with continuity of relationships in Congress as a whole. I can't even remember the number of freshmen legislators this year in the House, but there's a constant sort of renewal of conversation. And there's a lot of confusion of how we work. People think we're PBS. People think PBS is NPR. People don't know the difference between public broadcasting and just turning on the airwaves. There are some embedded challenges here that we could have been working to resolve, to clarify our function, demonstrate our value, be able to speak to that more effectively in ways that resonate with conservatives and with liberals.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wasn't there in 2011. I do think that there are ways in which we could have stepped into that conversation. I think that there are ways in which we could have worked on our own communication about our value to the public as a whole. I recognize that not that you think of nonprofits as marketing, but the amount of funding that we allocate to telling our own story and communicating our values is negligible. And so, you know, that's very much at odds with the way that other organizations communicate why they exist.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Said, I think there are totally legitimate policy discussions to be had. Small government conservatives are always less likely to want to fund public service programs. That's what we are. We are a public service program. We can make the arguments as to why there's value. Fun fact, where local news exists, municipal bond ratings are better. You know, there are economic advantages to the work that we do that we're down to a community. And I think that's a great conversation for us to have.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That does allow us. Yeah, we have different considerations here. And so I see our responsibility here is far more akin to some of the challenges that the law firms and universities have taken up about maintaining freedom of inquiry and freedom of association. I always think it's, you know, the law firms, it's really interesting. Every member who passes the bar is required to swear an oath of duty to the constitution, which means defending it. You know, we are not required to do that as journalists, but historically that has been the role of the press. And so ICS as part of a pushback right now and a broader downward pressure on open space for inquiry in American public life.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I recognize that one of our advantages is that we are not part of a broader holding company. We're not part of a listed corporation. Shareholders.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Essentially, I view our responsibility as being able to maintain that integrity and independence and clarifying that for anybody who would look and listen, that we are not allowing ourselves to be compromised by political pressure. I think once you allow for some negotiation around demands from anybody, any elected official, what you are essentially doing is saying that the firewall is down and that we have space for influence. That is not that is anathema to our responsibility under the public broadcasting act, our mission and responsibility to the American public. It would be a violation of our statutory duties, but it is also unconstitutional. And so that's why we're taking this step.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it is, but it's an adversarial posture in response to an adversarial action. And that adversarial action is one that we believe to be unconstitutional. So, I mean, if anything, I would say it's our patriotic responsibility to defend the First Amendment as a media organization”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My concern is that this makes this feel as though we are in some way in an adversarial posture to the administration, which is not the intent.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, my greatest worry was the further politicization of the conversation around public media. We know already that there is significant criticism of public media and our intent and our purpose at this time. And we've been working at NPR and across our network to address some of those concerns, to demonstrate the relevance to a broader range of the American public to ensure that we're reaching a representative portion of the American public. I think much of the criticism of NPR as either partisan in some sort of way or our audience as being overtly left is blown very far out of proportion to the actual reality of what we know of our data and our reporting. But it is the case that that is a narrative in the public that we have an obligation to address.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's acts authority. Exactly. We don't believe that this is a lawful order on a number of levels. The second is that it engages in retaliation, right? We have been told essentially that the work that we do is something that the president doesn't approve of. And so therefore, he is going to defund us or ensure that we can't receive federal funding. And then from a First Amendment standpoint, it means that the stations themselves are deprived of their association rights to be members of NPR. They're also deprived of their editorial rights to be able to choose that programming on behalf of their communities. The fact that the president has stepped in and so explicitly tied this defunding order to bias or his perceptions of bias is a clear indication that this is not in fact a government efficiency argument. This is really meant to silence an organization that he does not appreciate and silence the ability of our local stations.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Has appropriated these funds. The executive is not in the position to tell anyone that those funds can't be used to acquire our programming.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wasn't something that we came to lightly, and my first choice would not have been to get into litigation with the administration. Our job is to report on it, not to fight it. We didn't want to sort of step up to the plate as activists per se. I think that what our goal and objective was here was to clarify our First Amendment protections. If we did not challenge this order, it would stand and it would stand in ways that would create confusion. It would stand in ways that could create a chilling effect around association and editorial choices. And on behalf of the independent press, we felt as though any time that there is a threat to the First Amendment, it is part of our duty and obligation as members of the press to be able to challenge that. And so the order from our perspective has a number of issues. So the first and foremost is that it's a separation of powers issue.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have, I mean, just based on broader market conditions, but there has been no conversation about there's been no conversation about the FCC investigation, and I personally had the chance to sit down with a number of the agencies that we work with across the country.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it is a way to put pressure on us. And I'll say that two things can be true. One is that the market for support for news is challenging. It's always challenging, but it's particularly challenging right now. All media organizations that do news production will tell you selling against news is hard. The second thing that I would say is that the macroeconomic conditions of this concern about the stability of the economy is something that is also challenging. And we, like all other media organizations, are looking at that. Underwriters, however, have been remarkably supportive throughout this period. And so we have not yet seen any significant pullback because of the FCC threat.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The immediate, it would be tough, right? I think some cuts to the type of programming that we do, you know, a reduction in some parts of service, those conversations are what we're having right now is that do I know what that's going to be? I don't at this point. And it's looking at a bunch of puzzle pieces to say, well, can we do this with that? Can we do that with this? I was on a call today with some international public broadcasters, and the questions were, well, what could we do around international coverage? How would we sustain that? Recognizing that many of them also face downward pressure. And so is there opportunities to work together?”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That ability to ensure coverage of 99.7% of the nation where we are today. So we're looking at what those opportunities would be. We're also looking at how we can continue to do the sort of news gathering that we do, but really thinking about what are the opportunities for greater efficiency, cost savings in both news gathering but also distribution right now in order to maintain that level of service. We use satellite distribution, which is expensive. And so how might we be able to produce some savings there, not just for us, but for our stations? We're also talking to our stations about what it is that they can contribute to the bottom line of the network in terms of local coverage reporting expertise. So I think that they're in all times of threat, you, well, hopefully in many times of threat, you see communities try to come together. And that's the spirit that I'm seeing across the public media sector is really around how do we make sure that this remains something”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is, of course, we are speaking to members of the House. We are speaking to senators about the value of all of this. I don't want to speculate too much because I think that there are so many unknowable factors in what would actually transpire. But essentially, the facts of the matter are that our funding would end in the third quarter of this year. So that would be October is when the government's fiscal year begins. That would be when we would normally receive or our stations would normally receive their funding. That would force a contraction very quickly in the network. We are looking at how we sustain and support that. I think one of the critical pieces here is I've mentioned universal service a number of times, is how do we ensure that that service remains? It's tempting for organizations to put those licenses for broadcast up on the market. There are buyers for them. We would hate to lose.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Big government, small government, should we fund public media, not fund public media? It's really the question is whether we are biased. And in raising that question, the administration is beginning to step on the independent editorial preferences of our local stations by denying them the ability to use their funding to purchase our programming to serve their communities, which is, of course, an infringement on their First Amendment rights. So to come back to Vivian's point, I understand her concerns and I certainly, I think that people over time have made valid points around the tension there, but you would not have the ability to maintain universal access without federal funding. There's a reason why more than a third of American newspapers have collapsed and 20% of Americans live in news deserts. It's because there is no market that will sustain them. And that's certainly true when it comes to ensuring broadcast for rural, remote, topographically challenging areas.”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not a new thing, and I completely understand the argument from a policy perspective that we could be having around should the federal government pay for public media. I would make arguments around the importance of universal access. I would make arguments about the fact that we have do not have universal broadband in this country. Last mile has not been achieved. These sorts of news resources are critically important to many communities around the world, or sorry, not around the world, around the country. We operate emergency services and next gen the government's next-gen warning system for natural disasters. I would make the argument even that public media as a public good is critically important to civic identity and to the ability for us to have civic engagement as an American public when increasingly we're all sort of siloed off to our commercial media preferences. That's a legitimate conversation. What's happening under this administration is not a question of whether”
2025-06-09 · On with Kara Swisher · NPR CEO Katherine Maher on GOP Attacks, Editorial Criticisms & Digital Evolution · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT