 A rally outside NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., on March 26. |
NATIONAL PUBLIC Radio filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, challenging President Trump's executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding NPR and PBS.
In its complaint, NPR argues that since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is neither a federal agency nor part of the executive branch, Trump cannot tell it to freeze spending Congress has approved. "The president has no authority under the Constitution to take such actions," the lawsuit said. "On the contrary, the power of the purse is reserved to Congress."
NPR is absolutely right about that.
Trump's executive order, titled "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media," began by noting how much has changed since the CPB was established in 1967. "Today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options," the order observes. "Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence."
Trump is absolutely right about that.
The president is also right when he describes NPR and PBS as "biased" and says they fall short of "fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage." To be sure, conservatives have complained about the leftist slant in public broadcasting for decades. But even NPR loyalists and insiders have acknowledged the problem. In a much-discussed essay last year, former senior editor Uri Berliner, a 25-year NPR veteran, recounted how the organization shifted from reflecting a "liberal bent" to relentlessly promoting a rigidly progressive worldview on everything from race to climate to the Middle East; especially pronounced, he wrote, were NPR's "efforts to damage or topple Trump's presidency."
Yet for all that, public broadcasting's leftward tilt is not a good reason to pull the plug on its government funding, which in fiscal year 2025 will total $535 million in direct and indirect payments. There is nothing surprising or outrageous about the fact that NPR's programming reflects a distinct political outlook. Virtually all news media have an ideological leaning. The Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Vox, and CNN are generally liberal, while Fox News, National Review, the New York Post, Daily Wire, and The Wall Street Journal opinion pages are generally conservative.
Certainly people in the news business have strong opinions about the stories and people they cover — it would be strange if they didn't. The ideal of objective, unbiased journalism may be admirable in the abstract. But in the real world, media companies attract employees who tend to share a similar worldview, and that worldview makes its way into their coverage. The Constitution guarantees the right of every media organization — including NPR, PBS, and their local affiliates — to publish or broadcast as they see fit. What it does not guarantee is the right to do so with government dollars.
In a democratic society with a cherished tradition of an independent press, the very idea of government-underwritten media should be anathema. When news organizations depend on largesse from the Treasury, there is bound to be a price paid in objectivity, fairness, or journalistic clarity.
But that's only one of the objections to using taxpayer funds to sustain public broadcasting.
Other radio and TV networks, from SiriusXM to Bloomberg Radio to Univision to the Food Network, must survive in a competitive market. They prosper only if listeners and advertisers value what they do. Congress doesn't keep them afloat with millions of dollars in annual subsidies. If they can operate without government welfare, NPR can too.
When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967, it may have been plausible to argue that public broadcasting provided access to news and educational programming that listeners couldn't get anywhere else. But with the internet revolution, that argument lost all validity. Today, programs of every description are made available via a dizzying array of outlets: terrestrial and satellite radio, internet broadcasting, podcasts, on-demand services, YouTube channels, and audio downloads. NPR and PBS — like thousands of other broadcast operations — can be streamed or downloaded from anywhere on earth. Over the past 30 years, as audiences surged online, the justification for subsidizing local stations with federal funds has crumbled.
In any case, such subsidies are unaffordable. With the federal budget running a $2 trillion deficit and the national debt nearing $37 trillion, there is no justification for continuing to funnel public funds to NPR. That's especially true when public radio attracts a fortune in private funding, from the donations made by innumerable "listeners like you" to the $101 million it reaped in corporate sponsorships last year. According to NPR's latest balance sheet, it has roughly $818 million in assets, as against $263 million in liabilities.
I oppose any government funding of radio or TV on First Amendment grounds: To my mind, neither Congress nor any state has a legitimate reason to control, influence, or sponsor domestic media. (I distinguish broadcast services like Voice of America and Radio Liberty, which are tools of foreign policy.) Public broadcasting would be healthier and happier if it overcame its craving for taxpayer dollars once and for all.
Trump's executive order can't overturn NPR's subsidy, because the funds were appropriated by Congress. But a bill working its way through Capitol Hill would end the funding of public broadcasting, and it ought to be passed.
This has nothing to do with NPR's lefty tilt, grating though it can be. Some of my best friends, to coin a phrase, work in public broadcasting, and much of what they produce is first-rate. NPR and its affiliates have broken no end of significant news stories and generated countless hours of intelligent, absorbing, informative content. The same is true of innumerable other media outlets, including the one you're reading now. Those outlets function every day of the year without tapping the federal Treasury. National Public Radio can too.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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