Back in 1969, television personality Fred Rogers famously convinced a group of skeptical senators to continue funding public television to the tune of $20 million. “Well, I’m supposed to be a pretty tough guy,” ranking Sen. John Pastore from Rhode Island told Mr. Rogers near the end of the testimony, “and this is the first time I’ve had goosebumps for the last two days.” The short speech was allegedly so convincing, it’s often heralded as an illustration of how to use emotional intelligence to connect to an audience.
At the time, public television was relatively new. The 1964 Democratic Party platform was the first to promise “educational television” programs funded by the federal government. Then again, there were only 82 channels in the entire country. A major metropolis had, if they were lucky, five stations that only ran programming a few hours a day. I can remember such a world myself. So perhaps then it made sense to offer Americans the neglected educational programming rather than just Bonanza or Bewitched. Though, to be honest, public television doesn’t seem to have made us much smarter.
In any event, just as large swathes of society were handed to the state, Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which argued that it was in the common good “to encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational, and cultural purposes.” (I’m certainly not a public media aficionado, but it’s difficult to think of a single program offered by PBS or NPR that is indispensable to the public.) By that time, the Federal Communications Commission had already allocated over 200 stations for “noncommercial educational television.” National Public Radio was created in 1969. Since then, Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio have championed the American Left’s political and societal ideals.
Every now and then, the GOP would threaten to cut spending for public media. And Democrats would attempt to recreate Mr. Rogers’s magic by trotting out victims like Cookie Monster and Big Bird to manipulate a public that grew up watching or relying on public television shows like Sesame Street. Yet, even by 2000, there were already a handful of full-time stations aimed at children. There are now tons of choices for any kind of programming one desires, making government funding superfluous. Today, Sesame Street, late of HBO-Max, is barely financed by “public” money.
The newest threat to public television and radio comes from President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization Of Biased Media” last week. Public media, of course, will challenge the order in the courts. And they may well win, considering that funding emanates from legislation and can’t be overturned by edict. None of that, however, will change the underlying truth.
The president is right that PBS and NPR fail to reflect the “public” mood in any honest way. Trump, whether you like him or not, is the president of the United States, and yet PBS and NPR can barely find a guest to explain the outlook of a large segment of the country. When Uri Berliner, a former editor at NPR, complained that over 80 registered Democrats were editors at the Washington, D.C., office but not one Republican, he was driven from his job. It’s not merely news, though; it’s also cultural programming that largely appeals to educated, affluent, upper-middle-class white audiences. There’s, of course, nothing wrong with that content, but it’s strongly skewed against social conservatives.
Now, NPR and PBS could surrender and placate Trump and probably keep the money. And that would be just as big a problem. Neither the news nor cultural preferences should be dictated by the government.
Katherine Maher, president and CEO of NPR, claims that defunding her company is not merely bad for business, but “an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America to produce and air programming that meets the needs of their communities. It is also an affront to the First Amendment rights of station listeners and donors who support independent news and information.”
During a recent PBS Newshour, David Brooks, who speaks nominally from the right, also argued that Trump uses “executive power and the levers of government to target institutions, media, cultural, academic, that he disagrees with.” The other panelist, left-winger Jonathan Capehart, agreed. “I think what the president is doing,” he explained on a panel featuring zero Trump defenders, “it is a fundamental attack on our Constitution, on the foundation of this country. People need to understand and remember, there is only one profession that is protected in the Constitution, and it is the free press. It is the press.”
There’s simply no good-faith interpretation of the Constitution that says taxpayers have a responsibility to fund political media. Indeed, to do so is stratospherically beyond the scope of constitutional governance. Any pressure that the president can bring to NPR only exists because these outlets are reliant on the state. Though the First Amendment exists to protect the press, not bankroll the newest Ken Burns documentary. Capehart, who blames “racism and misogyny” for the Democratic Party losses in 2024 — and virtually everything else — is free to give his “unfettered” opinion as often and as aggressively as he likes. But it takes a special kind of arrogance to demand taxpayers prop up your opinions.
Moreover, the notion that defunding public stations is a uniquely fascistic Trumpian act — “right out of the authoritarian playbook,” as one MSNBC columnist recently argued — is undercut by the fact that Republicans have talked about doing it for decades. I’m not sure if they always meant it, but it’s a wholly rational position for the GOP to take. It is impossible to even imagine Democrats allowing a conservative media organization to be backed by taxpayer funds for 55 years.
Maher, who’s spread virtually every trendy progressive dogma imaginable (“America begins in black plunder and white democracy,” she once tweeted), points out that the executive order has nothing to do with balancing the federal budget. “The appropriation for public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, represents less than 0.0001% of the federal budget,” she notes.
Hey, every penny helps, right? But it’s not about the money. It is a matter of principle.
Since she brought it up, however, let’s talk about money. Biased or not, NPR is a highly successful venture with millions of affluent consumers who can easily afford to pay for their own content. NPR’s radio shows average around 26 million listeners on over 1,000 stations across the country. It’s podcasts — many of them I find quite entertaining — attract 17 million users. NPR would immediately become one of the top radio and podcast networks in the country if it monetized its business. The same goes for PBS, which has 350-member television stations across the United States, reaching 100 million viewers monthly. That’s twice as many viewers as streaming services such as Hulu or Apple+.
TRUMP CUTS FEDERAL FUNDING FOR NPR AND PBS OVER ‘BIASED’ COVERED
And if NPR and PBS want to remain non-for-profit, they can always ramp up their donations, sponsorships, and grants from foundations. As it stands, somewhere around 8-10% of public media funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As Maher explains, this isn’t really a very big number. However you look at it, there’s simply no practical reason taxpayers should have to pony up a half-billion dollars to ensure that upper-middle-class urbanites can watch BBC period-piece melodramas without polluting their eyeballs with down-market fast food commercials.
Public media was concocted by Democrats, run by Democrats, and features programming that appeals to Democrats. That’s a big problem. But it’s not the only one.