With federal funding already in flux, Indiana's public broadcasting stations are facing a funding threat from another angle: the state budget.
The final version of the state budget that lawmakers plan to vote on Thursday eliminates all funding for public broadcasting, all while President Donald Trump has floated plans to end federal funding for public media.
The public wasn't given a chance to testify on the 11th-hour change, quietly added to the 220-page budget bill just one day before lawmakers plan to vote on it and wrap up the 2025 legislative session.
These public radio and TV stations, like PBS, National Public Radio and their local affiliates, depend on a combination of state and federal dollars, grants and individual donors. Those percentages fluctuate: Central Indiana's WFYI station, for example, collects 11% of its funding federally and 4% from the state; but stations in rural areas, where there are fewer donors available and where public media may be the only source of news due to broadband issues, often rely on government sources for up to half their budgets.
"This is a lifeline for a lot of people," said Mark Newman, executive director of Indiana Public Broadcasting. "We’re here as a public service."
In the previous state budget and past budget proposals this legislative session, Indiana Public Broadcasting received $7.4 million to distribute to the state's eight television stations and nine radio stations. After last week's revenue forecast revealed a $2 billion gap lawmakers needed to fill, due in part to federal tariffs that affected the stock market, this line item was one of many that got the axe.
Public media has come under fire by conservatives who believe these outlets are overrun by liberal-leaning biases. These outlets dispute this, saying they represent diverse viewpoints in their coverage. Executives with PBS and NPR have been brought before Congress to testify on this. --->READ MORE HERE
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On top of its blackout of the Hunter Biden laptop story, here are 10 other times NPR proved it doesn’t deserve another taxpayer dime.
In a congressional subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, National Public Radio CEO Katherine Maher admitted the outfit’s blackout of the Hunter Biden laptop story was a mistake, acknowledged that NPR’s alleged 87-to-zero ratio of Democrats to Republicans in editorial positions is a “concern,” and stumbled through a defense of her publicly expressed views like “America is addicted to white supremacy” and calling the First Amendment “the number one challenge” to suppressing information.
As Republican members of Congress pointed out, one of NPR’s most infamous displays of corruption was its refusal to cover the Biden family scandal sourced to Hunter Biden’s laptop in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR Managing Editor for News Terence Samuel said in a statement explaining the blackout.
Wednesday’s hearing provided more than enough evidence that the outfit’s generous federal subsidies should be next on DOGE’s chopping block. But in case the Trump administration needs a few more reasons, here are 10 other times NPR proved its propaganda doesn’t deserve another taxpayer dime.
1. SCOTUS Maskgate
In January 2022, NPR’s Nina Totenberg wrote a fake story accusing Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch of forcing his colleague Justice Sonia Sotomayor into telework because he refused to wear a mask “despite [her] COVID worries.”
The following day, the justices released a joint statement debunking the invented drama, calling Totenberg’s story “false.”
“Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false,” they wrote. “While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.”
2. ‘Babies Are Not Babies Until They Are Born’
In May 2019, NPR publicly released a “reminder” of its terminology guidance to reporters for their abortion coverage. This “guidance” from NPR editor Joe Neel showed just how committed the outfit is to denying reality to suit its political ends:
“The term ‘unborn’ implies that there is a baby inside a pregnant woman, not a fetus. Babies are not babies until they are born. They’re fetuses. Incorrectly calling a fetus a ‘baby’ or ‘the unborn’ is part of the strategy used by antiabortion groups to shift language/legality/public opinion.”
3. Broadcasting an Abortion
In November 2022, NPR made the baffling decision to air audio of a child being vacuumed out of his mother’s womb by an abortionist. While the audio unintentionally drew attention to the horrors of the procedure, that clearly wasn’t the broadcaster’s intent, judging by the NPR narrator’s calm appraisal.
“[T]he lights are dimmed, there’s soothing music,” she says in the clip, with the sound of an 11-week-old unborn baby being aborted in the background. “It actually feels a lot like a childbirth — the medical gown, your bare legs in stirrups, and a person next to you saying, ‘You can do this.'”
4. Tear Gas Hoax
In June 2020, NPR — along with nearly every major legacy news outlet — falsely claimed demonstrators outside the White House were tear-gassed by U.S. Park Police.
“Park Police Tear Gas Peaceful Protesters To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op,” an NPR headline read, while a tweet from NPR Politics claimed, “Police in Washington, D.C. used tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters to clear them away from St. John’s Church, which suffered a small fire.”
The protesters NPR described as “peaceful” were actually “throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids,” according to acting Park Police Chief Gregory T. Monahan. Nor had Park Police or any “assisting law enforcement” used tear gas, Monahan confirmed. Rather, police had used smoke canisters, which lack the irritant used in tear gas.
As for the “small fire” at St. John’s Church, that was an interesting way to describe an act of apparent arson that left the church’s nursery gutted. --->READ MORE HERE
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