Get the latest gossip

Moby Is Matching Donations to Los Angeles NPR Affiliate KCRW Amid Threat of Trump Budget Cuts

KCRW's chief development officer Jill Smayo says the station is at risk of losing $1.3 million in annual funding.

This special effort happens amid KCRW’s annual spring pledge drive, which this year has been titled “Mission Critical” due to an executive order signed last week by President Trump that directed the board of directors at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS,” the nation’s primary public broadcasters. As reported by Billboard last week, this move follows a pattern of Trump leveraging executive powers to defund or dismantle institutions he deems oppositional, including cultural and educational organizations like the Kennedy Center and National Endowment for the Humanities. In any case, KCRW’s chief development officer Jill Smayo tells Billboard that “the funding for public media, both NPR and PBS, is in flux right now… We’re not exactly sure what’s going to happen at this point.

Get the Android app