The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, better known as the parent body of NPR and PBS, along with thousands of local media stations, is beginning to cease operations. Very soon, it will no longer exist.
The CPB is a private, non-profit organization funded by the United States federal government. Two days ago, August 1st 2025, President Trump revoked the corporation’s $1.1 billion federal funding. Trump, and other Republican figures, have long criticized CPB governed NPR and PBS as coopting taxpayer dollars towards liberal-biased broadcasting. This isn’t the first time that the CPB has faced funding cuts due to political pressures. Since it’s founding in 1967, several attempts have been made by conservative leaders to partially or fully cut funding to its operations. But, this time is different. Trump actually did it. Within the next 12 months, much of the informational infrastructure built by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be gone.
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For remote, rural, and economically vulnerable communities in the US, the loss of the CPB will be devastating. For one thing, the programming offered by CPB affiliates is free. In an era of increased book bans, paywalled news, and reliance on monthly subscription services, the accessibility of the CPB is an enormous asset. For another thing, local stations are virtually everywhere. There are 1551 local media stations scattered nationally. Of these 1551 stations, it’s rural stations that rely most heavily on federal funding. Additionally, a 2025 press release from PBS reveals that
60% of PBS’ audience lives in rural areas
87% of households without internet watch PBS
56% of low-income households watch PBS
I got into this career because of my beliefs. I believe that the accessibility of information is the single most important facet of a free society. It is an enormous deciding factor between who is empowered and who is not. I believe that a caring for other humans involves this kind of empowerment. Luckily, there are others who feel the same way. In a time of anxiety about the accessibility and affordability of information, there are people out there fighting.
Enter, Nikki Griffz. For my own sanity, I don’t have TikTok downloaded on my phone, but Rowan does. We have a nightly ritual of watching it on his phone before bed like the weird Gen-Z equivalent of tuning in to a late night talk show (RIP The Late Show with Stephen Colbert).
It was during one of these joint scrolling sessions that we stumbled on Nikki Griffz. They were explaining how they built a micro server that can be pre-loaded with the entirety of Wikipedia, a medical encyclopaedia with videos, maps of the entire world, the entire Khan Academy curriculum, and the entire Project Gutenberg library of over 75,000 books. It can be accessed by 10-20 devices simultaneously, anywhere in the world, no internet required, for only about $14 USD.
Hearing about this made me unbelievably giddy. While the 404kit has not yet hit the market, it has enormous potential to bring accessible, affordable education to people who need it most: rural, remote, and economically vulnerable communities worldwide. In short, the kind of communities most served by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the United States.
That being said, the 404kit is not a replacement for the CPB. It is still limited in terms of data capacity. It is limited by the logistics of getting it to remote communities, and (as far as I know) there is no infrastructure for identifying the communities who want or need it. It contains essential educational content, but not the up-to-date news, entertainment, and kids programming that can be accessed from affiliates of the CPB. In short, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is leaving behind dauntingly huge shoes to fill. For nearly 60 years, it has been the gold standard of informational accessibility in the US. While the 404kit isn’t able to serve all of the functions of the CPB, it is still a valuable effort to continue the Corporation’s mission— to serve as many people as possible with the information they need most.
I’ll be keeping the 404kit and its development on my radar in the coming months. I’m incredibly privileged not to need a kit like this, but if the opportunity arises to fund the kit’s development and distribution, I would be honoured to help in that capacity. Despite its limitations, the 404kit’s existence brings me hope. In a time when access to information is increasingly strained, especially for people already in already strained material conditions, it represents the efforts that are being made to push back. People are pushing back on paywalls and censorship and exclusion. People are doing the work that needs to be done.