NPR and PBS heads address lawmakers’ allegations of bias
Why Do NPR, PBS, and the FCC Care about ‘Sesame Street’ and the FOX News Report? A Statement by Greene
“I want to hear why NPR and PBS think they should ever again receive a single cent from the American taxpayer,” Greene said in a statement ahead of the hearing. “These partisan, so-called ‘media’ stations dropped the ball on Hunter Biden’s laptop, down-played COVID-19 origins, and failed to properly report the Russian collusion hoax. It’s time for their CEOs to publicly explain why their coverage is biased.
Will stated in a recently published column that “CPB is like the human appendix, vestigial, purposeless and susceptible to unhealthy episodes.”
The line lands differently now. Late last year, HBO dropped the deal for new episodes with Sesame Workshop, striking a far smaller licensing arrangement for back episodes. Sesame Street recently laid off roughly 20% of its staff as a result. No other streamer or broadcaster has yet stepped forward to pay for its new shows.
Gonzales approvingly cited the conservative columnist George Will, who wrote in 2017, “If ‘Sesame Street’ programming were put up for auction, the danger would be of getting trampled by the stampede of potential bidders.” Gonzales added, “Indeed, ‘Sesame Street’ is on HBO now, which shows its potential as a money earner.”
“As the CPB uses a membership model and gets funding from corporations and foundations, it’s possible that others can help pay for their programming,” he wrote. The FCC is challenging the legality of corporate revenues through Underwriting, a pincer movement on the finances.
Much of the Trump agenda has been covered in the section of the group’s plan written by The Heritage Foundation’s Gonzalez. He wrote that to stop public funding is a good policy and a good politics.
Trump White House rules barring it from some events for refusing to conform to the president’s decree renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. And FCC chief Carr has embarked on investigations of every broadcast network save Fox — whose controlling owner, Rupert Murdoch, is an ally of the president.
A U.S. House subcommittee has called the chief executives of the nation’s two largest public broadcasters to Capitol Hill to testify on Wednesday, with an eye to wiping out the federal funding their institutions receive.
Kerger, who became the longest serving executive in PBS history, went up the ranks at New York City’s WNET before taking over at PBS.
Maher, 41, was a tech executive who took over NPR one year ago this week in what was her first job in journalism, though she has no direct role in the network’s newsroom. She almost immediately became engulfed in the uproar around an essay critical of the network written by a veteran NPR editor, and a dissection of her past progressive political beliefs posted online years before joining the network.
Even so, Kerger and Maher’s fates are tethered together, as they seek to maintain long-standing bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for funding public broadcasters around the country. President Trump’s allies have repeatedly assailed the two networks.
“This could be a perfect storm,” Kerger said in an interview. That is the reason this moment feels different. It feels as if this is a time that we really do need to step up and make as clear a case as possible.”
Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable? Kerger, Maher, and Greene
The hearing, entitled “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable,” appears arranged more to score points than to find facts. The subcommittee will be led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a supporter of the Trump administration. She has accused the two networks of profound liberal bias.
The effort to cut funding to NPR has a strong supporter in Musk, who also owns the social media site X, previously known as Twitter. NPR ceased posting on X in 2023 after Muskdesignated the network as a “state-affiliated” site, similar to the propaganda sites in China and Russia. NPR considers that a broad overstatement and has not returned to the platform.
In the separate interviews, Kerger and Maher both said they are proud of the coverage that PBS and NPR offer and the service that public media has to offer.
PBS, for example, now has a new series called “Carl the Collector” focusing on a friendly racoon with autism. Kerger believes it to be a perfect example in which the network serves audiences of various interests and challenges and also fulfill its educational mission.
Morning Edition and All Things Considered are the flagship programs of NPR. Its programming is distributed by 230 member stations around the country, which together hold the licenses to 1,300 local public broadcasters. The News Hour and Daniel Tiger are among the children’s programs on PBS.
The public radio landscape is not always simple to navigate. NPR stations collectively reach 43 million listeners each week, the network said. Its programming is distributed by 246 member institutions operating more 1,000 stations around the country, which together have about 3,000 local journalists.
Lobby lobbyists are fighting for the continuation of public media funding: The case of the Alaska Public Radio Association and the Citizens’ Voice of America
Ed Ulman, the head of Alaska Public Media and two others are scheduled to testify Wednesday after being requested by subcommittee Democrats. A fourth panelist, Michael Gonzalez of The Heritage Foundation, is a critic of public media.
Congress allocates money to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: $535 million in the current fiscal year. Three-quarters of the money is spent on TV and one quarter on radio. In aggregate, local stations receive far more than the national networks.
“For them, a reduction in federal funding — or more importantly, the elimination of federal funding — would be an existential crisis,” PBS’s Kerger said.
The work we do and the reporting we do informs the national discourse. “And you don’t want that to disappear. You want to make sure that the service we provide remains something that is robust and vital to the country.”
“It’s easy to feel like public media has always been there and therefore will always be there,” Maher said in an interview. It is a constant request of our readers and their Listeners to know that their support makes the case to Congress that this is the right use of taxpayer money.
Political fire has also been drawn by public media. The “No Propaganda Bill” was introduced by Senator John Kennedy and Rep. Scott Perry this winter.
Both networks have said they have scrupulously followed regulators’ guidance over the course of decades to stay well within the law. Those spots cannot, for example, make a call to action, such as telling their audiences to buy a car or insurance policies.
This week there are two lawsuits in Washington, D.C. and New York that are trying to keep the federal government from ending its funding of Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. A federal judge issued a restraining order against Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Tuesday. The Associated Press is seeking a reversal of