Paula Kerger

Paula Kerger is president and CEO of PBS, the U.S. public media organization, and the longest-serving chief executive in PBS history. Since joining as CEO in 2006, she has led PBS’s expansion from broadcast television into multiplatform digital media, with a focus on public service, education, PBS KIDS, and PBS LearningMedia.

Federal Cuts Put Local Public Media Stations in Immediate Jeopardy

PBS chief executive Paula Kerger and filmmaker Ken Burns argue that the 2025 rescission of federal public broadcasting funds was not another routine funding fight but a sudden institutional crisis for local stations that had already budgeted for the money. In an Aspen Ideas Festival discussion, they make the case that public media’s future depends on treating it as locally rooted civic infrastructure: a system that supports education, emergency communications, long-form documentary work and communities the commercial market often does not serve.

The Aspen InstituteJun 30, 202619 min read