Far-left documentary filmmakers are scrambling for funding after federal spending cuts ended the surging pipeline of taxpayer dollars that once made their projects possible.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is in the middle of an “orderly wind-down” across its operations after President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting funds to NPR and PBS earlier this month, meaning the well of public money is almost dry.
As Breitbart News reported, Congress passed a rescissions bill with the Senate releasing a FY 2026 appropriations bill that excluded CPB funding for the first time since its founding.
The shutdown followed Trump signing an executive order in May halting funds to NPR and PBS, denouncing the outlets for promoting political bias on the taxpayer’s dime.
The majority of staff will now find their roles terminated by the end of September.
“No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies,” the order confirming the end remarked. “At the very least, Americans have the right to expect fair, accurate, and nonpartisan coverage if their tax dollars are funding it.”
So what are the left’s favorite filmmakers doing now? Looking for money. Anybody’s money. Wherever it can be found, NPR reports.
“Can’t stop. Won’t stop,” promised documentarian Carol Bash, whose 2015 documentary about jazz musician Mary Lou Williams, Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band, was made with public funds.
“ We’re going to continue to find ways to think outside the box to get our films out there to audiences.”
Bash told NPR her colleagues are now trying to figure out how to make up for the lack of cash. “There’s going more international with your funding models,” she said. “And of course, there’s the streamers.”
“ Removing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting out of the media landscape means the world becomes much more impoverished, and the stories that get told will be much more anodyne,” NPR reports Robb Moss, a documentary filmmaker and professor in Harvard University’s department of art, film and visual studies, said.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris framed the end of federal support for documentaries as a blow against free speech rather than being made accountable for existing on other people’s money.
“Worrisome to anybody who values an independent media, who values the First Amendment, who values freedom of expression,” the Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line director said. “The pursuit of truth is not a political issue. It’s a moral imperative that’s now being questioned daily.”
Despite the despair of documentary makers who have long lived on taxpayer support, Republicans maintain subsidizing a left-wing echo chamber is not in the wider public interest, and they are glad to be finally pulling the plug.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) declared after the House vote: “The woke and weaponized NPR, PBS, and USAID have been ELIMINATED. Promises made, promises kept.”
