Trump executive order axes funding for NPR, PBS
The president accused the taxpayer-funded outlets of failing to present a “fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events”
President Donald Trump has issued an executive order instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to halt funding to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
“The CPB Board shall 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,” the order states. “The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.”
“Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,” the order stated. “Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
NPR and PBS have long been known for shockingly biased coverage; NPR has included trigger warnings before readings of the Declaration of Independence and once broadcast audio of a woman getting an abortion.
President and CEO of NPR, Katherine Maher, once said that “Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.”
“We all have different truths,” she continued, speaking at a 2022 TED Talk. “They are based on things like where we come from, how we were raised, and how other people perceive us.”
PBS, meanwhile, has captured attention for incidents such as broadcasting a Drag Queen Story Time for young children or the infamous gay wedding episode of the animated series “Arthur.”
It doesn’t take much time listening to NPR or watching PBS to pick up on the subtle but overpowering undercurrent of progressive, left-leaning values, a feature that is not uncommon among legacy media platforms in 2025.
NBC News, for example, weakly insisted in its coverage of the Trump funding cuts to publicly-funded media, “Trump and his loyalists…have long complained that NPR and PBS are biased and promote left-wing causes, an allegation staunchly denied by executives at both organizations.”
Oh. Well. That’s convincing.
The thing that makes NPR and PBS different from NBC, of course, is that its funded by our tax dollars.
As the Trump order stated, “At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage.”
“No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize,” it declared.
Do you agree?
While I very much dislike both of these outlets being done away with, the EO is correct that tax dollars should not go to support bias - either way.
I do wish a “warning” would have first been issued to allow the outlets to circle back and start being an example of what journalism should be in the US. For all I know, this might have been done.
While I very much enjoy classical music, I have to turn the radio off when their "news" broadcasts start. VERY biased!! It's gotten so bad that my closest public radio station, WITF, has abandoned music completely, with an all-talk format! I used to enjoy their classical music, their "simul-casts" (remember them?), celtic and ambient/"space" music. All gone...along with my membership!