Posted on Friday, May 2, 2025
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by Alan Jamison
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35 Comments
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday night cutting all federal funding to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Both public broadcasting organizations, which are supposed to remain nonpartisan, have received criticism for blatant liberal bias and malicious attacks against conservatives.
NPR and PBS receive both federal and private funding. The executive order only targets the federal funding that the entities receive through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which was originally created when Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Trump’s executive order instructs the CPB to “cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my Administration’s policy to ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage.”
CPB, which received $535 million for fiscal year 2025, will cancel current funding that NPR and PBS receive as well as decline to provide future funding.
Trump explained in his executive order that tax dollars should only fund “fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage” and that “no media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies.” He cites law that the CPB may not “contribute to or otherwise support any political party.”
“The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS,” he said. “Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
The White House shared examples of biased reporting and news coverage from NPR and PBS on X. In the past few years, NPR published stories that called cannibalism “perfectly natural,” stated the Declaration of Independence was a document with “flaws and deeply ingrained hypocrisies,” and promoted “queer animals” with the idea that “some deer are nonbinary.”
Examples of biased coverage from PBS included the broadcaster showing a children’s program that featured a drag queen, hosting a panel on what it “mean[s] to be woke” and “white privilege,” and accusing Trump of “white resentment.”
The president is also instructing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to ensure that both broadcasters are complying with the statutory mandate that “no person shall be subjected to discrimination in employment… on the grounds of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.” If the broadcasters are not compliant, Kennedy will take the “appropriate corrective action.”
Alan Jamison is the pen name of a political writer with extensive experience writing for several notable politicians and news outlets.
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