'Broadcasting' has its roots in agriculture. Here's how it made its way into media
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Broadcasters keep popping up in the news.
Commercial TV networks have made headlines: CBS announced the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert this summer. ABC drew ire in September when it yanked Jimmy Kimmel off the air, albeit briefly, under pressure from the Trump administration due to comments Kimmel had made after Charlie Kirk's death. President Trump has also set his sights on public broadcasters, accusing them of liberal bias and successfully pressuring Congress to rescind $1.1 billion in previously allocated funding for NPR and PBS.
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Broadcasting — distributing radio and television content for public audiences — has been around for a century, but is facing a uniquely challenging landscape today.
So it's only fitting that NPR's Word of the Week series is tackling the origins of the word "broadcasting" – whose roots aren't in radio or television, but in agriculture. It originally described a method of planting seeds, particularly for small grains like wheat, oats and barley.
"And it comes from the way that you would plant it
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