President Donald Trump has fought plenty of political heavyweights, but now he’s up against a foe far tougher than Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris: Big Bird.
The president is ordering federal agencies and the taxpayer-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop supporting National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
His May 1 executive order is titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media.”
How biased are NPR and PBS?
They mostly appeal to members of one political party, according to Pew Research: 32% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents surveyed say they regularly get news from NPR, and a similar number — 31% — say the same about PBS.
Only 11% of Republicans and GOP-leaners report they get news from PBS, and the figure for NPR — 9% — is even worse.
Something about NPR is three times more agreeable to Democrats than to Republicans.
Should everyone be taxed to pay for radio and TV programming that caters primarily to Democrats?
Public radio and TV executives hide behind yellow feathers whenever they’re criticized.
“Big Bird Taken Off Death Row,” announced a Washington Post headline in June 1995 when Newt Gingrich, the first Republican speaker of the House of Representatives in 40 years, backed down from attempts to defund CPB.
“Sesame Street” was just too popular with parents.
Today’s face of public broadcasting, however, isn’t Big Bird or Elmo — it’s Katherine Maher, NPR’s outspokenly progressive CEO.
“America is addicted to white supremacy,” Maher — who is white — claimed on Twitter in 2020.
But she didn’t make NPR woke — just the opposite: Maher’s in charge because she perfectly represents NPR’s preexisting institutional bias. --->READ MORE HERE
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President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.
The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and further requires that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ’news.’”
It’s the latest move by Trump and his administration to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with. Since taking office, Trump has ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to artists, libraries, museums, theaters and others, through takeovers of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Trump has also pushed to withhold federal research and education funds from universities and punish law firms unless they agreed to eliminate diversity programs and other measures Trump has found objectionable.
The broadcasters get roughly half a billion dollars in public money through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and have been preparing for the possibility of stiff cuts since Trump’s election, as Republicans have long complained about them.
Paula Kerger, PBS’ CEO and president, said in a statement last month that the Trump administration’s effort to rescind funding for public media would “disrupt the essential service PBS and local member stations provide to the American people.” --->READ MORE HERE
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