The arrangement resolves litigation filed by NPR accusing the corporation of illegally yielding to Trump's demands that the network be financially punished for its news coverage. The argument, part of a broader lawsuit by NPR and several stations against the Trump administration, focused on CPB funding for NPR's operation of a satellite distribution system for local public radio stations. The judge in the case had explicitly told CPB's legal team he did not find its defense credible.
NPR executives are scanning the horizon for storm clouds even as they are planning a stand-pat budget for the upcoming fiscal year: they don't yet know how badly NPR local member stations have been hurt by the July vote by Congress to cease all federal funding for public media. NPR CEO Katherine Maher told the board of directors in an open session Friday that the network's $300 million annual budget would be balanced. Like that of the federal government, NPR's fiscal year begins Oct. 1.