The Wrap is a website that sells itself as “Your trusted source for entertainment breaking news.” But it’s just another liberal media site. They’ve just released a list titled “Changemakers 2025: 51 Women Who Made a Difference.” When you look at the list, these women didn’t actually have to succeed to make the list.
One duo of “Featured Changemakers” was NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger, who failed to stop the Republicans from rescinding their taxpayer funding in 2025. Kayla Cobb helped their furious spin:
“Defunded, not defeated.” That’s how Kerger described public media in this landmine of a year. In May, Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding to PBS and NPR. That attack on public media widened when CPB — an organization created in 1967 to fund public news stations — ceased operations in August.
At the center of this politicized storm stand Kerger and Maher, who in March defended public media before a House subcommittee against accusations that both PBS and NPR are “radical left-wing echo chambers.” After the defunding hit, Maher called Trump’s order “an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America.” That battle is still raging as both leaders adapt to one of the most difficult eras in the history of public broadcasting.
“I’m working on trying to make sure particularly our most vulnerable stations are able to get some funding pulled together,” Kerger told TheWrap....
As bleak as the future of this sector may seem, there are upsides. Throughout her travels, Kerger has seen “huge” turnouts from local communities supporting PBS. More than 8,000 people showed up for a screening of Ken Burns’ new doc series, The American Revolution, in Mount Vernon, Virginia, before its November premiere on PBS. Private individuals and organizations have also been stepping up to fill in the gaps left by CPB. Kerger pointed to the Knight Foundation as being especially crucial.
“I’m heartened right now,” she said. “People have been very generous, and I’m just really hoping that we can sustain some level of that. And I’ve not given up on federal funding.”
The Wrap also celebrated leftist heiress Laurene Powell Jobs, who’s now associated with PBS through Washington Week with The Atlantic. She apparently “made change” by….doing nothing! The site's founder Sharon Waxman gushed:
This year she proved herself to be a superhero after Atlantic EIC Jeffrey Goldberg disclosed that he was “accidentally” included in a Signal chat group of the top national security officials talking about an imminent attack on the Houthis in Yemen. Jobs stayed out of it.
While nearly every other billionaire media owner — from Jeff Bezos at The Washington Post to Patrick Soon-Shiong at the Los Angeles Times — has suddenly veered rightward to placate Donald Trump, Jobs—with an estimated worth of $15 billion — has stood firm in the journalistic principles espoused by her magazine. “Laurene is tough, smart, and brave,” Goldberg wrote TheWrap. “There are a lot of people at the publisher and owner levels who aren’t these things — brave, especially. I couldn’t imagine a better steward for The Atlantic. She honors our journalistic integrity and independence, and stands by us in hard times. What else could you possibly ask for?”
This list also honored executive Rebecca Kutler for leading the transition from MSNBC to MS NOW, CNN host and reporter Kaitlan Collins, and new CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss.
