President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday ending the taxpayer subsidization of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for alleged left-wing bias and partisanship.
Funding for NPR and PBS comes primarily through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The order instructs the FCC to investigate both outlets for “unlawful discrimination.”
The White House fact sheet lists several alleged areas in which both PBS and NPR promoted left-leaning causes. The White House claims that “NPR management asked its editors to avoid the term ‘biological sex’ when discussing transgender issues.”
Citing the FBI and CIA’s vindication of the lab-leak theory of the origins of COVID-19, the White House states: “NPR repeatedly insisted COVID-19 did not originate in a lab and refused to explore the theory.”
The order also mentioned that a “PBS station featured drag queen Lil Miss Hot Mess on a program meant for kids ages 3-8.” This drag queen, whose name is Harris Kornstein, is also a professor at the University of Arizona.
Another claim concerns the 2024 US Presidential election. According to the order, “PBS’s coverage of the 2024 Republican National Convention was 72% negative, while its coverage of the 2024 Democratic National Convention was 88% positive.”
Patricia Harrison, CEO of CPB, reacted to the order in the following statement, alleging the order is unconstitutional:
“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government,” Harrison wrote. “In creating CPB, Congress expressly forbade ‘any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees or contractors…’”
Similarly to Harrison, NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher countered the notion that NPR and PBS being defunded is an effort to save tax money and balance the budget:
“NPR and PBS, represents less than 0.0001% of the federal budget,” Maher stated. “The President’s order is an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America to produce and air programming that meets the needs of their communities. It is also an affront to the First Amendment rights of station listeners and donors who support independent news and information.”
However, the executive order states the contrary to both claims: “No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.”
