By MORGAN SWEENEY | THE CENTER SQUARE
President Donald Trump signed an executive order terminating government funding of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
As NPR and PBS have become “woke,” according to the administration, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, through which the outlets receive taxpayer funding, must abide by principles of impartiality, Trump directed the corporation and all agencies in the executive branch to stop funding the organizations to “the maximum extent allowed by law.”
Americans have many more news options today than in 1967, when the corporation was founded, and if tax dollars are going to go toward public broadcasting, it should be totally nonpartisan, according to the executive order.
“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,” the order reads. “No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.”
The administration described the outlets as “entities that receive tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news’” and listed “examples of the trash that has passed for ‘news’” at the organizations in communications it sent out Friday morning.
NPR said the Declaration of Independence contained “flaws and deeply ingrained hypocrisies” in 2021, a year before it replaced its typical Independence Day reading of the founding document with a conversation about equality, according to the administration. The administration also criticized the outlets for promoting “gender-affirming care,” featuring drag queens in children’s programs and certain views on race and “white privilege.”
The executive order will likely be challenged in court, as many of Trump’s executive orders have been so far, for breaches of executive authority.
The president has signed over 140 executive orders thus far in his second term.
Good. Cue lawfare in 3,2,1…
Excellent idea Like all legacy media they don’t report the news they try to make the news. I no longer want to pay for an entity that only tells me how bad I am , same reason I no longer watch the N F L ! I want President Trump to do 10 times what he is doing!!!!
Facts that the President doesn’t like being broadcast is not partisan. They are just facts.
Maybe the issue is, unlike the conservative media sphere, public broadcasting does not parrot the Trump’s continous lying.
Your delusion is obvious and terminal.
It’s at best only partly that.
1. Federal funding MUST be non-partisan. NPR and PBS have a long history of be the opposite.
2. Both corporations make millions in profit a year.
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Had the been conservative instead of far left, maybe Trump would have ignored them, but that’s speculation on my part.
If you watch the PBS Newshour, you will observe that it is pretty much straight down the middle and factual, devoid of the hair-on-fire hysterics of Fox, CNN, and the like. It’s a program for intelligent and objective people. And therefore Trump must cut it, right?
Many Alaskan villages will suffer if this is cut. Who will fill the void? The MRAK media empire? Heaven help us all.
Southeast stations banded together to form CoastAlaska 30-plus years ago. More recently, KRFF put together its own network, which shares programming over an area stretching from the upper Kuskokwim to Whitehorse, Yukon (and beyond in both directions when their translator networks are included). KUAC declined to bring many of those same stations together many years ago when it was suggested they do so by their consultant, because they felt it would diminish the position of their local donors.
Katherine Maher’s move from CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation to CEO of NPR rang huge alarm bells with me. I heard a recent quote suggesting that Wikipedia’s “mob rule” (they call it “consensus”) style of content building should be embraced by the MSM. One Google hit came up with this gem of a quote: “truth is a distraction from getting things done”.
So… one show is not a leftist mouthpiece and that means… what exactly? Pointing out the exception does not disprove the rule.
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As to the other leftist talking points, they are crap. Even the left leaning media watchdogs say Fox is more liberal than conservative. The only reason why Fox News is considered right wing extremist is the allow a conservative voice to be heard regularly.
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Now. Show me all the other publicly funded programs that are unbiased. Can’t? Didn’t think so
Whidbey – your praise of NPR reveals a lot of how your nonsensical comments on here are formulated! LMAO!
Let’s face it, people in congress are there to serve themselves and their bank accounts. Until that changes and the likes of Lisa Murkowski types are booted out of office then Trump is exactly correct to govern the country by executive orders.
Yes! Good news!
About time, why should taxpayers have to pay for leftist BBC, and the Atlantic to attack us and our president.
The question is, why isn’t the temporarily GOP controlled congress and senate passing legislation codifying the essential stream of Trump’s EOs?
Answer is the GOP congress is waiting to return to their comfort zone, being in the minority. Then they will make a public display of valiantly “fighting” for conservative “values”, but they can’t fulfill because the Dems are in charge again of their Uniparty circus acts.
We’ve seen this repeated for decades. Trump is an anomaly, his EO actions will be endured, and then overturned.
Congress doesn’t write bills, their large corporate donor/lobbyists write massive bills, pay the congressmen to co sign and pass.
Trumps’ agenda is not in the interests of our ruling class.
The sad truth well stated.
I love all the crybaby liberals who scream: “he’s taking away freedom of the press!” When he’s doing no such thing.
You point it out that they are only losing 1% of their funding. That’s it.
Somehow, that equates to shutting down a media outlet.
wonder when he is going to sign the executive order to stop his restaurants from selling foreign farmed fish.
The federal government shouldn’t be funding media. The federal government’s job is to ensure that there is no media censorship.
That’s just a dumb comment. It’s not right or left, it’s dumb.
The media can’t unhappen world events and they can’t cover every side of everything in the world that does happen.
If you just want the government of your choice to destroy whatever media group that you don’t approve of, then say so, and you can advance from idiot to jerkoff. At no point will you be a patriot so let that go.
Did somebody ghost write your illogical response? You can’t bear the intelligence required to compose a comment. Nowhere in my comment did I mention any of what you espoused. Jason represents the typical “useful idiot” that Lenin so loved to manipulate.
The federal government should NOT be funding ANY media.
As usual for a radical leftist extremist, your little incoherent diatribe here is long on emotions and short on reason.
Did somebody ghost write your illogical response? You can’t possibly bear the intelligence required to compose a comment. Nowhere in my original comment did I mention any of what you espoused. Jason represents the typical “useful idiot” that Lenin so loved to manipulate.
The federal government should NOT be funding ANY media.
Associated Mental Image: Whidbey frothing at the mouth.
Then that dogcan be sent for. Rabies testing, just like Peanut the Squirrel
I never bite first, but I might bite back.
Associated mental image: a very mean person who kicks his dog and keeps it chained.
Woohoo! 🙌
US Communists radio and TV can now reset their transmission towers in Beijing. God is Great!
You really think any divine entity cares about media? Get a grip.
What in RonD’s comment set you off? A declaration of his personal belief in God? Cman needs to get a grip.
Know how to read? Guess not.
Or even really exists at all? People her seriously believe that stuff.
Maybe Jane Fonda will come to the rescue with her $billions and pay for blow torch capability transmissions towers from Beijing. Shouldn’t American commies use their own money to talk to each other?
Good, it’s about time.
PBS Npr should have been defunded & no longer paid by Taxpayers 30 years ago. It was always an unfair advantage over private television. It has always been biased. The amount of tax $$’s was outrageous wile all along they were doing fundraising on the programs they were running. Not only were they being paid to run those programs the producers of those programs continued to own them and receive royalties off of those programs from the taxpayers.
I generally don’t watch PBS but every time I land on their channel, there’s someone badmouthing Trump. I have never, ever, heard anyone on PBS say something positive about him. It’s about time taxpayers quit paying for this garbage.
He’s earned every bit of derision he’s received. He is a horrible human being. And you know it.
Whether President Trump earned derision or not is irrelevant.
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A tax payer funded media outlet cannot and must not demonstrate any partisanship at any time. In fact, your response is exactly why they got defunded. A clueless belief that they are OK with saying whatever they want because “they are right…”
I predict that 90 percent of the participants in the anti-Trump demonstrations are dedicated NPR listeners. It is like a cult. NPR shapes the worldview of a fashionable segment of US citizens. Many of these folks were Left-leaning from the start but after many years of listening the Leftist/NPR group becomes a self-congratulatory echo chamber. And, returning to my first sentence, 90 percent of NPR listeners voted against Trump.
NPR and PBS can go find money other than taxpayer money. Maybe Soros can fund it.
I voted for this. Many times over many administrations. It’s always been bark, but no bite. PBS and NPR serve only have the country by design and have limited their editorial and news content to the left for the past 30 years. And they tell Americans that their content is the best. Well, let them sell advertising and let their foundations provide the funding. We’ll see how they sink or swim and if they change their views to be more inclusive. See what I did there. They deserve this.
The END of free liberal dog whistles over the air waves. Trump forces the commies to pay their own way.
Where do we send our campaign donations for Trump”s third term?
As it should be. The government is not needed to fund ” public” broadcast used to spread propaganda, particularly lefty. It’s been abused. There are enough private actors to do this. Free enterprise. 🇺🇸
40 years late. Damage extensive… but not permanent.
Thank you President Trump.
Keep it coming!!! Short of a complete do-over the only option we have is to incrementally chip away at a government that never stops expanding & spending MASSIVE amounts of money on things that most taxpayers don’t even know about, much less want! NPR & PBS are just 2 examples of monsters created to control narratives & expand power- at taxpayer expense & without taxpayer consent! Keep on keepin on DJT!
Hope this de-funding includes the “Ad Council” which funds media messages to non-functional ignorant people. It must be a tax write-off scheme that promotes an LCD mindset. Good riddance CPB!
Mourners will still have the same mimicking manure spreading liers (abc, CBS, NBC, CNN) available for now.
National Propaganda Radio. The choice of useful idiots.
Thank, thank, thank! Never understood why tax dollars were used for one sided info.
It’s about time — no, it is LONG past time — that the whispering leftoid fembots on National Propaganda Radio were taken off the air, and put out of our misery.
Won’t happen, Jeffy. Just watch – the courts won’t let it, like so many of Trump’s other mean-spirited and vengeful funding cuts. I look forward to enjoying PBS for years to come, and at YOUR expense.
Oh look! A leftist spending other people’s money for their own benefit.
What a surprise!
The corrupt, co-opted and hyper-partisan judicial system — the last refuge of the repudiated radical leftist extremists.
I look forward to hearing the last program of National Propaganda Radio very soon.
And I will think of you when I do, and I will laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Excellent! 🇺🇸
Entertainment News is Propaganda:
‘https://donnliston.net/2023/08/demise-of-the-fourth-estate/
Oh my! Talk about missing the point!
The issue here is one of separation of powers and whether the executive can refuse to execute what Congress has mandated. I understand that our cultists have a difficult time with the concept, feeling that the President has been elected dictator like Sulla (or perhaps Caesar, lol). Alas, we have not come to that yet, and under the laws of this Republic, the Administration can not unilaterally defy Congress.
If the public wants NPR or PBS, the public can call into their telethon and make a donation.
I don’t watch TV or listen to the radio, so I should not be responsible for paying for those that do.
It would be like being held responsible for paying for Facebook or X.
Time to cut spending. USA is trillions of dollars in debt. I support these cuts 100%.