Episode 20 – Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me, It’s Katherine Maher!

Grüezi Amerika. Views from the Sister Republic

For Europeans, they are a staple of their media habits: public media. Whether it’s the grand old lady BBC in the United Kingdom, or the many different stations run by Switzerland’s SRG/SSR, many Europeans rely on public broadcasting for news and entertainment. According to the EU, 48% of its citizens select public TV and radio stations as a news source they trust most. While funding cuts are not unknown to European public broadcasters, few are subject to constant political battles as seen in the United States: since they went on air in the 1970s, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS; 1969) and National Public Radio (NPR; 1970) have always been under scrutiny by Republican presidents. Now, President Donald J. Trump has issued an executive order to withdraw federal funding entirely. What does this mean for public media in the United States? We discuss this with none other than NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher.

Katherine Maher has served as President and CEO of National Public Radio since 2024. She also worked for seven years as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, and before gained experience at Access Now, the World Bank, the National Democratic Institute, and UNICEF. Alongside numerous other engagements, Ms Maher is the Chair of the Board of Signal Foundation, and from 2022 to 2024 served as an advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State's Foreign Affairs Policy Board regarding issues of technology, governance, and human rights. In 2023, she was briefly the CEO of Web Summit and served on its Board of Directors. Katherine Maher holds a degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from New York University.

We thank the St. Gallen Symposium for making this episode possible.