NPR cuts jobs, restructures newsroom after federal funding loss

NPR is cutting newsroom jobs and overhauling its organizational structure as the public radio network grapples with the loss of federal funding and a rapidly shifting media landscape.

NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher announced the changes in a memo to staff, saying the network must close an $8 million gap in its $300 million annual budget. The shortfall stems from Congress’ vote last summer to claw back all $1.1 billion it had committed to public media, which led member stations to pay NPR less in programming fees — an expected $15 million reduction this year — compounded by softening corporate sponsorship revenue.

The network is offering buyouts to roughly 300 employees, primarily on newsgathering desks. Program hosts and other news show staff are not eligible. NPR officials say they expect to accept no more than 30 buyouts, but targeted layoffs will follow if too few employees accept voluntarily before the May 26 deadline.

Despite the financial strain, NPR recently received two private donations totaling $113 million — the second- and third-largest gifts in the network’s 56-year history. The bulk of that money, however, is earmarked for technological innovation rather than operations.

“The extraordinary generosity of donors across the nation has really mitigated some of the hardest impacts of the loss of federal funding,” Ms. Maher said. “Now it is our responsibility to ensure that we take that gift that they have given us and use this time to get to a place where we are sustainable for the future.”

NPR Editor-in-Chief Thomas Evans, a CNN veteran who joined the network last September, said the cuts are deeper than he would personally favor but called the restructuring necessary. The newsroom currently employs 425 people; seven open positions will remain unfilled.

“My hope and my drive for this is that the journalists in the newsroom at the end of this will be able to still cover the stories that make us uniquely NPR,” Mr. Evans said. “More quality over quantity. Less content for the sake of content. I want to focus our newsroom on ’capital-J journalism.’ That’s the foundation of NPR.”

The restructuring also includes significant desk consolidations. NPR’s National and General Assignments desks will merge next month, focusing on in-depth reporting, natural disasters and underserved news markets. Culture, education, religion, addiction and sports coverage will be folded into a new society-and-culture desk. Science and climate reporting will be unified, and the global health team will move under the International desk. The Washington desk will expand to cover power and policy at the local, state and national levels.

Mr. Evans also said NPR’s Business desk could grow, as the network plans to launch a new daily business podcast alongside its existing programs “Planet Money” and “The Indicator.”

The overhaul comes amid broader industrywide pressures on digital traffic. Google search referrals to publishers dropped by roughly a third globally in the year to November 2025, according to Chartbeat data cited by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, with U.S. publishers seeing an even steeper decline of about 38%. The trend is linked in part to the spread of AI-generated summaries atop search results, which some in the industry have taken to calling “Google Zero” — a shorthand for a scenario in which Google sends little or no outbound traffic to news sites. NPR officials have cited declining web referrals as a compounding pressure on the network’s finances.

On the leadership front, Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez is transitioning to a consulting role and will be replaced by Chief Washington Editor Krishnadev Calamur. Dana Farrington will take over the new politics and policy desk. NPR is also searching for a chief content officer to oversee both the newsroom and programming.

Pat O’Donnell, executive director of SAG-AFTRA’s Washington-Mid Atlantic Local, which represents hundreds of NPR journalists, said the network was handling the cuts fairly. Separately, NPR is negotiating with the union over a new in-office requirement — three days per week beginning this fall — a policy change that could prompt additional employees to accept buyouts.

The cuts mark NPR’s second significant round of job reductions in recent years. In early 2023, then-CEO John Lansing ordered a 10% staff reduction to address a roughly $32 million deficit. Ms. Maher said those cuts largely spared the newsroom, reducing legal services and other functions instead. This time, she said, the budget situation leaves no choice but to reduce newsgathering capacity. NPR had initially projected a shortfall of $30 million to $45 million from the federal clawback; the $8 million target reflects private donations and membership revenue that partially offset the damage.

NPR’s moves come during an especially brutal stretch for American newsrooms. In February, the Washington Post eliminated more than 300 journalists in a single round of cuts, roughly one-third of its 800-person newsroom, shuttering its sports section, books desk and flagship podcast. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution cut about 50 positions, or roughly 15% of its staff. CBS News laid off more than 60 employees, about 6% of its workforce, and shuttered its nearly century-old radio division. And the Associated Press offered buyouts to more than 120 U.S.-based journalists before laying off an additional 20 as part of a strategic pivot away from print.