Forcing taxpayers to bankroll the left-wing propaganda machine that is PBS and NPR is not just a slap in the face — it is flat-out illegal. President Trump’s rescission package, yanking back $1.1 billion in taxpayer funds earmarked for these media behemoths, is precisely the gut punch these broadcasters have had coming for decades.
For nearly 40 years, the organization I run has documented PBS and NPR thumbing their noses at the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which demands “strict adherence to objectivity and balance” in controversial programming.
Objectivity? Balance? They tossed those out the window faster than you can say “state-run media.”
The liberal media’s howling about “censorship” and waving the First Amendment like a shield is pure theater. The First Amendment protects free speech, not your right to a government handout. PBS and NPR are not entitled to a dime of hardworking Americans’ money to amplify their one-sided narratives.
For years, we have documented endlessly the seemingly infinite segments framing conservatives as villains, the soft-ball interviews with progressive darlings, and the relentless push for narratives that align with the far-left playbook.
This is not journalism — it is activism masquerading as public service. Our archives are bursting with examples of their flagrant disregard for fairness. Trump’s rescission is the first step toward dismantling this abuse of public trust. If PBS and NPR want to keep preaching to their choir, they have an audience already — let them do it on their own dime, not ours.
Take PBS. A recent Media Research Center study found that liberal Democratic guests on “PBS NewsHour” outnumbered conservative Republicans by more than four to one. Remove elected officials, and the gap grows to 6.5 to one. Even then, only anti-Trump Republicans were invited.
That is not public broadcasting — it is taxpayer-funded activism.
Consider PBS’s “On Democracy” series launched under Trump. It claimed to examine threats to democratic institutions. Yet the ratio of liberal to conservative reporters on the guest list (which featured Jeffrey Goldberg and Brian Stelter, for example) was a staggering 22 to 1. Even when the guest lineup appeared balanced, the conservative voices were merely used as straw men.
And NPR? Its managing editor dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as a "pure distraction," even as the New York Post uncovered clear evidence of Biden family influence-peddling. Meanwhile, NPR ran sympathetic profiles on Hunter’s addiction and ignored all the core allegations.
Time and again, we found NPR promoting the left’s agenda without pushback. In a 2022 interview with Biden HHS official Rachel Levine, NPR called "gender-affirming" care “lifesaving” and failed to include a single opposing voice, since this is a very controversial claim.
By 2023, 67 percent of NPR’s audience identified as liberal. Far from making itself an asset to the public generally, it had created a bubble for adherents of just one ideology. Former NPR editor Uri Berliner blew the whistle on NPR bias last year when he revealed that in its Washington headquarters, he found “87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None.”
Following that revelation, NPR took a $1.9 million grant to make “editorial enhancements,” which supposedly included improving its objectivity. In awarding the grant, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced that the funding "provides increased oversight to ensure objective, balanced, transparent, fact-based journalism.” Seven months later, the leftist bias of the taxpayer-funded public radio content organization lives on.
Our Free Speech America division recently exposed how Google and Wikipedia helped sanitize NPR’s mishandling of the laptop scandal. If you search "Did NPR hide the Hunter Biden laptop story?" on Google, its AI Overview confidently answers "No," citing Wikipedia. That entry conveniently omits NPR’s own admissions — coming both from former editor Terence Samuel and current CEO Katherine Maher — that the outlet failed to properly report the story.
Such pervasive bias is not without consequences. A poll we conducted in 2020 suggested that the deliberate suppression of the news had acually changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Forty-five percent of Joe Biden voters were unaware of the New York Post’s story about the Hunter Biden laptop, likely due to Big Tech censorship and news outlets such as NPR refusing to report the story. Had these Americans been fully aware of it, our analysis suggested that as many of 9.4 percent of Biden's voters would have abandoned him, likely flipping all six of the swing states he won to Trump.
Congress now has a unique chance to act. Rescinding these funds will send a clear signal: if you want to push a partisan agenda, don't ask taxpayers to fund it. If NPR and PBS believe in their product, let private donors or advertisers fund it.
We will not stop calling out their bias, but exposure alone is not enough. Lawmakers must act. Trump’s rescission package is a practical, principled reform. Republicans have fought to defund these institutions for more than 30 years. Now, that goal could finally become a reality. Congress must follow through.
This fight is not only about fairness and protecting taxpayer dollars from waste and abuse. It is about ending PBS and NPR lawlessness. Trump and Congress are duty-bound to strip these left-wing media mouthpieces of every taxpayer dime.
David Bozell is president of the Media Research Center.
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