SRL Founder’s Note: Your questions about PBS

Update May 8, 2025

By: Leah Clapman, SRL Founder & Executive Director

Our team continues to field questions about PBS, and how PBS News Student Reporting Labs is impacted by new federal funding decisions. Since I last wrote, the entire public media ecosystem is facing serious threats.  

The Administration has proposed eliminating federal funding in its annual budget request, issued an Executive Order to block support for PBS and NPR, cancelled grants that support the creation of children’s educational programs, and has plans to claw back funding approved by Congress. 

Sharing your story about what public media means to you can help. Public media matters — send your message to Congress now to protect it. Learn more about what you can do at protectmypublicmedia.org.

How will the federal funding changes impact Student Reporting Labs? Student Reporting Labs will continue to serve students and teachers through our regular programs. The real impacts of federal funding changes to the public media system as a whole are not yet known; it is possible that the Student Reporting Labs team may need to scale back some of our program elements or shift priorities as we learn more. Most of Student Reporting Labs’ funding comes from non-federal foundation grants and individuals, but in April, a federal agency grant was terminated without notice, which was to be 10% of our yearly budget for the next three years.  

What about the executive order to “cease federal funding” for PBS and NPR? This is an issue that will continue to work through the courts and Congress. The head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides funding to PBS, NPR, and local stations, responded “CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.” Read the rest of the statement here. 

What we know about the executive order at this time:

  • It targets federal dollars only. Private donations, foundation grants, etc., for local stations and Student Reporting Labs remain unchanged. 
  • It does not close local public media stations. However, because most stations rely on federal funding through  federal funding through Ready to Learn grants and Community Service grants to pay for infrastructure, emergency‐alert services, education and local journalism, the financial ripple effects could be significant, especially for smaller stations that serve more rural communities.
  • Read PBS’ CEO Paula Kerger’s response. 

P.S. The links above enable you to contact your member of Congress and donate to your local station. If you are interested in donating specifically to Student Reporting Labs and our youth journalism programming, please use this donate button.

 

April 8, 2025

By: Leah Clapman, SRL Founder & Executive Director

Dear Student Reporting Labs community,

Amid the flood of news in the past few weeks, our team has been fielding a stream of questions about PBS, SRL’s funding and what we’re hearing from educators and teens. In my quarter-century here at PBS News, I’ve never seen so much uncertainty, and yet, we’re seeing the community come together, students eager to understand what is happening through storytelling and organizations recommitting to collaboration. I hope this message provides some answers and sparks conversations about the path forward.

SRL was founded on the premise that some stories are best told by young people. Teens have important perspectives, experiences, and insights that help newsrooms tell more nuanced and complete reported stories about the issues that are uniquely impacting students — from education and the economy to immigration and mental health. And with so many people purposely avoiding the news these days, we’re working to rebuild trust in public media and awareness of how issues affect individuals by starting with youth. That’s why the Student Reporting Labs team works so hard to provide tools and support for students and their educators to publish local stories in their communities.

With that in mind, here are some answers to questions that have come up recently:

  • What exactly is public media? Public media is a system of independently managed and operated local public radio and television stations, created through the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967 (more on that history here) because, as congress then asserted, “it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational, and cultural purposes.”

  • PBS stands for the Public Broadcasting Service, a non-profit, non-commercial, American corporation that distributes programming to its over 350 local member public television stations across the country, offering free educational, cultural, and local news content. Find your local station here.

  • Founded in 2009, PBS News Student Reporting Labs is a department within PBS News, which is a part of the DC-area local PBS station, WETA. PBS News ranked #1 most trusted, credible, and objective among daily media organizations according to the 2024 Erdos & Morgan Opinion Leaders Survey, and outside research demonstrates that PBS News Hour’s broadcast audience is nearly evenly split among conservatives, moderates, and liberals.

  • We are also part of the larger public media system that meets local educational, informational, and emergency communications needs, and depends in part on public funding to do that work.

  • Student Reporting Labs’ funding comes from mostly non-federal grants, foundations, families and individuals. This month, a federal agency grant was terminated without notice, which was to be 10% of our yearly budget for the next three years.

At moments like this, we navigate challenges by focusing on SRL’s values and mission: listening, curiosity, intentionality, respect, equity, collaboration, representation, and a vision of a world in which young people’s voices are heard and valued, and free expression meets journalistic integrity.

What keeps me and the SRL team energized are the students and educators who care about journalism and the many stories in their communities. For example, an upcoming PBS News broadcast will include a story from a student who interviewed his grandfather about being deported to Mexico in the 1950s. Reporting helped him learn about his own family, reflect on the current moment and share an otherwise untold story with a national audience. Our new co-hosts and student producers are poised to launch Season 5 of On Our Minds, focused on connecting with their community to tell stories about people who inspire them.

Our in-person projects continue to create space for joy and sense of purpose, as illustrated in this post from Sarah Magallanes who is part of SRL’s college climate and environment reporting fellowship. Student producer Ethan Rodriguez shared that talking about his gun violence story on a panel at SXSW EDU, “only strengthened my love for media education and reminded me of why I make media in the first place. Media programs like SRL are extremely impactful to students, and I know I wouldn’t be where I am if it weren’t for the support provided by SRL over the years.”

The support provided by SRL continues to evolve. We know that video journalism builds critical thinking, media literacy, teamwork competencies and civic engagement skills — vital life skills. But we also know that teachers are feeling frustrated, overstretched and underresourced. That is why the SRL team is focusing on listening to teachers and finding ways to make their jobs easier. For those who face censorship and legal issues, we shared a conversation with the Student Press Law Center about the rights and resources for student journalists (see article here), and for those who want to hone their skills and recharge their batteries, we’re holding our annual Teacher Workshop. 

The work we do is built upon feedback and communication with teachers. Our doors are always open, so please send your concerns, suggestions and wild ideas so that we can effectively meet the needs of those we are honored to serve.

All my best,


Leah Clapman created Student Reporting Labs (SRL) as an experiment to engage middle and high school students with current events and reimagine public media for young people. Under her leadership, SRL has grown to include a network of over 9,500 educators in all 50 states bolstered by collaborations with local and national media organizations, civics efforts, and youth education initiatives.