Public broadcasting didn’t die of old age. It was defunded.
With PBS and NPR announcing shutdown plans after the federal cuts, a trusted public commons is being dismantled in real time. That creates a wide-open lane for a privately funded, ideologically driven replacement and the frontrunner is already advertising itself as the “new PBS”: PragerU.
The point isn’t just that one outlet is closing and another is eager to step in. The point is that a whole system, with interlocking money, media, and political arms, is ready to occupy the space that public media once protected.
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PragerU calls its product “edu‑tainment”: sleek “5‑Minute Videos,” kids’ cartoons like Leo & Layla’s History Adventures, and bite‑size explainers with high production value. The presentation is friendly and fast; the purpose is not. By their own account, the goal is to “change minds” and “bring doctrines to children.” That’s not neutral civic education. It’s catechism.
Here’s how it works. First, PragerU floods the places people already are—YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, where 60% of viewers are under 35. Then it uses paid distribution and SEO to win the search results on neutral topics: history, economics, civics, climate. When a student (or a parent) looks up “Reconstruction,” “minimum wage,” or “carbon taxes,” PragerU’s take is often the first thing they see.
The framing is predictable: recast historic abuses as misunderstandings, flatten systemic harms into “two sides,” and wrap it all in a morality play about “freedom” versus “tyranny.” A slick style and short runtime lower the guardrails; repetition and emotional triggers do the rest.
You can see the pattern in the curriculum forensics: slavery minimized by blurring modern, race‑based chattel slavery with pre‑modern practices; the 3/5 compromise reframed as “anti‑slavery”; “Southern Strategy” denial; Frederick Douglass misquoted; Native dispossession softened as “assimilation” and “inevitability.” These aren’t academic debates… they’re narrative edits aimed at making a hard history go down easy. And in a world without PBS/NPR to counterprogram with slow, sourced reporting, that edit spreads faster.
None of this scale happens for free. PragerU’s budget rocketed from $17.9M (2018) to $65.1M (2022). Much of that flows through donor‑advised funds (DAFs) like DonorsTrust and Bradley Impact Fund, which keep benefactors’ names off the marquee. We do know some: Dan and Farris Wilks (fracking billionaires) have been major backers while PragerU amplifies climate‑denial messaging that dovetails with fossil‑fuel interests. The model is straightforward: use anonymous pipelines to bankroll “education,” buy precise digital reach, then cite that reach to raise more money for the next wave.
Zoom out and you see why this moment matters globally, not just nationally. The Atlas Network—a federation of 500+ aligned think tanks in ~100 countries—runs a “franchise” model for pro‑market, anti‑regulation narratives. It seeds local‑sounding institutes that share tactics, frames, and sometimes staff, letting the same story wear different accents. That’s the connective tissue: when U.S. public media is weakened, it doesn’t just change one country’s information balance; it strengthens an international message machine that already knows how to fill the void.
You can watch the replication in the open:
PragerU fits neatly into that grid. It isn’t only publishing in English. PragerU Español targets Spanish‑speaking audiences with localized videos that port the same frames. Interviews and collaborations with figures like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Brazil’s Paulo Figueiredo aren’t just content, they’re signaling: a cross‑border bloc aligning nationalism, anti‑“globalist” grievance, and deregulation. Meanwhile, PragerFORCE, their student ambassador program (~6,500 members), acts like a distribution swarm, pushing videos into local feeds and campus spaces far outside the U.S.
The money story also travels. Atlas‑aligned outfits routinely tap the same DAFs and corporate‑adjacent foundations used in the U.S., obscuring donors while synchronizing outputs. That’s why you’ll see the same climate talking points and “parental rights” bills pop up continent to continent with only the nouns swapped. It’s not an accident; it’s a network.