Colbert, Remnick and Darren Walker were honored at the event, which is seeking to put public media on sounder footing after being defunded by the Trump administration.

(L-R) LaFontaine E. Oliver, Darren Walker, David Remnick, Evelyn McGee Colbert and Stephen Colbert attend the New York Public Radio Gala at the Glasshouse on November 18, 2025 in New York City. Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting may have been shuttered, but public media isn’t going anywhere.

New York Public Radio on Tuesday night hosted its Stand With Public Media gala, imploring attendees to help fund public media, while honoring CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert and his wife Evelyn McGee Colbert, outgoing Ford Foundation chief Darren Walker, and New Yorker editor David Remnick.

“Make no mistake, the elimination of federal funding was absolutely meant to bring about an ending: the end of unbiased journalism, without fear or favor. The end of independent voices, who raise a mirror so we can see ourselves more clearly, and the end of mission-driven institutions and individuals who work to protect and advance human dignity,” declared NYPR CEO and executive chair LaFontaine E. Oliver, in a stirring speech to attendees. “But if you’ve been listening to the radio lately, you know what we think about that, You can defund public media… you can cancel the grants, zero out the line-item, shut down the CPB. But you can’t defund the truth.”

Indeed, attendees were given tote bags (of course), with the “You Can’t Defund the Truth” tagline emblazoned on them, and filled them with books, mugs and shirts from a “marketplace” NYPR says the event raised $1.7 million (and counting, with the silent auction still open), with free speech a recurring theme.

Actor and comedian Richard Kind served as the evening’s host, with performances by Jon Batiste, Ana Gasteyer, Conrad Tao and Ben Platt, and an after-party DJed by Questlove.

The Trump administration successfully rescinded $1.1 billion in funding from PBS and NPR, resulting in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting shutting down.

But a lot of the love was spent on Colbert, who will end his CBS late night show next year under questionable circumstances.

“I’m absolutely sure that when winter turns to spring and Stephen’s unbelievable run on late night television comes to an unjust close, a ridiculous close, but a triumphal close, I’m absolutely sure that he’ll find another way to enrich our lives, to make us laugh and to make us a great deal smarter,” Remnick told the crowd.

Colbert, meanwhile, was grateful for the honor, sharing stories about their family’s obsession with public radio (both WNYC and WBEZ Chicago).

“Wherever we are in the world, on radio or streaming, our kitchens are still permanently tuned to WNYC,” Colbert told the crowd. “We make breakfast to Morning Edition. We make dinner to Marketplace, and if we find ourselves brushing our teeth to the sounds of Indian or Indonesian jazz gamelan, we know that’s New Sounds and we have stayed up past our bedtime.”

“We are so grateful that New York Public Radio continues its mission of fostering curiosity and joy,” Evelyn McGee Colbert added. “There are fewer and fewer places where we can all meet outside of work, our home, and for us, New York Public Radio remains that vital third space. It informs us, it entertains us, and it unites us.”

It was a speech that was optimistic, even as many of the others were dripping with some doubt or concern.

“It is easy, on any given day, in our country, to be depressed, dejected, disgusted, dismayed, by what we are confronted with on a daily basis… And we sometimes find ourselves challenged to find hope,” Walker told the crowd. “And then we come to rooms like this. And we are reminded that there is hope and goodness in this country.”

But as Remnick noted, the battle is just beginning, and the fight for public media is just one part of that bigger story.

“It’s a privilege to be in a room filled with people who are so deeply devoted to the free word, to freedom of the press, to fair recording of the news, and to rigorous argument and disagreement,” Remnick said. “As Stephen and others in this room have learned first hand, we live in a dark time, a threatening time. It’s moving to me to be anywhere in the same room with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and as Misha knows very well, when Vladimir Putin came to office… first, they came for the comedians.

“We cannot kid ourselves about the era that we are living in,” he added. “This is a test, a test, you could say, of the emergency broadcast system. This is a test of all of us in this room to stand up for what we say that we believe in. We’ve all been at dinners like this before…where we sing the song of freedom of the press. But right now is the time to show that we have backbone, endurance, and will not put up with the shit.”