Corporation for Public Broadcasting is officially shutting down months after GOP funding cuts

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which helped fund NPR, PBS and many local radio and TV stations — is officially shutting down, months after Congress passed spending cuts that stripped the organization of more than $1 billion in funding.

WASHINGTON — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which helped fund NPR, PBS and many local radio and TV stations — is officially shutting down, months after Congress passed spending cuts that stripped it of more than $1 billion in funding.

CPB's board of directors voted to dissolve the private, nonprofit corporation after 58 years of service, the organization announced in a news release Monday.

“For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans—regardless of geography, income, or background—had access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling,” said Patricia Harrison, CPB's president and CEO.

Harrison added that when President Donald Trump signed into law last summer a measure to rescind funding by Congress, CPB's board "faced a profound responsibility: CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks.”

CPB said its leaders determined that "without the resources to fulfill its congressionally mandated responsibilities, maintaining the corporation as a nonfunctional entity would not serve the public interest or advance the goals of public media."