Corporation for Public Broadcasting President Patricia Harrison is hitting back against NPR claims that the agency caved to political pressure in reassigning control of the Public Radio Satellite System, calling the suit a distraction from CPB’s legal duty to protect public media.
Harrison’s statement, issued to the public media system on Monday and obtained by Radio Ink, marks her first direct response since NPR filed suit in federal court on September 30. The network’s complaint accuses CPB of “a last-ditch attempt to carry out the President’s desire to defund NPR,” arguing that the agency unlawfully diverted satellite funding to a newly created nonprofit consortium, Public Media Infrastructure.
“When I became President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting more than twenty years ago, I could not have imagined that I would one day stand here, defending not just an institution, but the very idea of public media itself,” Harrison wrote. “But I have also never seen more courage or resolve from this system than I have over the past year.”
At the center of the dispute is CPB’s late-September decision to award a five-year, $57.9 million grant to PMI, made up of American Public Media Group, PRX, New York Public Radio, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and the Station Resource Group, to manage the satellite interconnection system and expand digital delivery.
CPB says the decision followed years of consultation with independent technical advisors and the agency’s Board to modernize public media distribution before its federal funding fully ended. “PMI made clear its intent to work with NPR and CPB supported that partnership,” Harrison wrote. “NPR could choose to collaborate with PMI and receive funding support. Instead, NPR chose to file a lawsuit against CPB – a lawsuit without merit that has delayed the distribution of essential interconnection funding.”
NPR’s emergency filing asks the US District Court for the District of Columbia to block CPB from transferring the funds, arguing that the move violates the Public Broadcasting Act and endangers hundreds of local stations dependent on the NPR-managed Public Radio Satellite System. NPR told the court that CPB had previously approved a three-year extension of NPR’s existing grant in April before “suddenly changing course” under political pressure from the White House.
CPB, meanwhile, contends that its decision was made “out of principle, not politics,” citing the agency’s parallel lawsuits against the administration over defunding orders and FEMA’s cancellation of Next Generation Warning System grants. “In every case, CPB acted…to uphold the law, defend our independence, and protect the system Congress created to serve the American people,” Harrison wrote.
As the court weighs NPR’s request for a temporary restraining order, Harrison said CPB will continue distributing funds to the field and preparing for its federally mandated end on January 31, 2026. “Our duty has never been to any one organization,” she wrote. “It has always been to uphold the public trust, protect the independence of the system, and to ensure that every community continues to benefit from public media’s educational, cultural, and civic mission.”
Harrison closed with a message of unity for broadcasters caught in the political crossfire. “This system does not need more division or delay,” she said. “It needs leadership, accountability, and unity of purpose, qualities that have long defined the very best of our system.”
