Thursday, 17 April 2025

All things considered, NPR and PBS face death sentence


by WorldTribune Staff, April 3, 2025 Real World News

During congressional testimony last month, NPR CEO Katherine Maher proclaimed: “I do believe that we need to have journalists who represent the full breadth of the American society so that we can report well for all Americans.”

Apparently, the “full breadth” of American society at NPR does not include Republicans.

NPR CEO Katherine Maher, left, and PBS CEO Paula Kerger / Video Image

Uri Berliner, an NPR editor with 25 years experience, published a piece in The Free Press last year alleging that NPR has deep political leftist biases and that the Washington, DC bureau employs 87 registered Democrats and zero registered Republicans.

Berliner resigned after NPR suspended him for publishing the piece.

Republicans on the House’s DOGE subcommittee weren’t buying what Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger attempted to feed them in an effort to keep their publicly-funded outlets away from Elon Musk’s wood chipper.

President Donald Trump has urged Republicans to defund NPR and PBS.

Following the DOGE subcommittee hearing, Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson introduced the “No Partisan Radio and Partisan Broadcasting Services Act” to pull all government funding from the “chronically biased” outlets, which he claims have been “pushing Democrat talking points under the fake banner of ‘public media.’ ”

South Carolina Republican Rep. William Timmons said to Maher during the hearing: “You’re a rabid progressive, and do you not think it’s a problem that your political leanings make it seem to the American people that you’re not biased?”

“Let’s talk about the newsroom. You have 87 registered Democrats, not a single Republican in your editor board. I mean, how does that work to give us the perception that you’re doing your job of actually delivering unbiased information?” Timmons continued.

“Well, I would agree with you that that number is a concern if it is accurate,” Maher replied.

Stu Burguiere of Blaze TV’s “Stu Does America” noted: “I’m stuck on the fact that she thinks this is a ‘concern,’ that there’s 87 Democrats and zero Republicans. You know, like 60-40 would be a concern, 55-45, maybe a little bit of a concern, 65-35, a real concern. 100-0 is a plan. You’re doing that intentionally.”

DOGE Subcommittee Chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia invited Maher and Kerger to testify about what Greene called their “blatantly ideological and partisan coverage” and have them defend the federal funding they receive.

When Greene asked Maher about her past public statements that Trump is a “deranged, racist sociopath,” she said that she would not post such views today. She similarly brushed off her statements that America is “addicted to white supremacy” and denounced the use of the words “boy and girl” as “erasing language” for non-binary people.

Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social:

NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms (Networks!), should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY. Republicans, don’t miss this opportunity to rid our Country of this giant SCAM, both being arms of the Radical Left Democrat Party. JUST SAY NO AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!

Berliner wrote in a March 25 analysis for The Free Press: “NPR should regain its respect by doing something no one ever does in American life: Turn down government support. Get ahead of the game and say, We’ll survive without it. In other words: Become truly independent.

“If Congress does ultimately kneecap the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its $545 million annual budget that supports public television and radio, NPR will largely have itself to blame. The broadcaster’s claims about considering all things and its mission of creating ‘a more informed public’ were demolished when it unquestioningly repeated the talking points of the Biden Administration and the public health establishment during Covid.”

Legal analyst Jonathan Turley noted: “NPR’s audience declined from 60 million weekly listeners in 2020 to just 42 million in 2024 — a drop of nearly 33 percent. This means Democrats are fighting to force taxpayers to support a biased left-wing news outlet with a declining audience of mainly affluent white liberal listeners.”

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