President Trump issued an executive order on Thursday to end all federal funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
“Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence,” the order reads. It says the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is supposed to remain impartial and unbiased — and Trump argues that the CPB funding NPR and PBS at all violates that.
“Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
While the order itself only accuses NPR and PBS of having bias, Trump recently posted on Truth Social that “REPUBLICANS MUST DEFUND AND TOTALLY DISASSOCIATE THEMSELVES FROM NPR & PBS, THE RADICAL LEFT ‘MONSTERS’ THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!”
Earlier this year, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr launched an investigation into NPR and PBS for violating FCC guidelines by airing commercials — an allegation that NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher publicly refuted, saying the broadcaster had worked with the FCC for decades to ensure compliance with federal regulations.
The executive order is sweeping in that it calls on the CPB to stop both direct and indirect funding to NPR and PBS, as well as cancel any future funding. According to NPR, it receives about one percent of its funding directly from the government, and slightly more than that indirectly. Local stations receive somewhere between 8 to 10 percent. It reports that PBS and its stations receive roughly 15 percent, as television is more expensive to produce than radio.
While the executive order argues that taxpayer funds shouldn’t be used in support of biased news, the Trump administration has also launched the White House Wire. The wire is a Drudge Report–style news aggregator of positive Trump media coverage. Axios reports that White House officials say the wire’s purpose is to give Trump supporters a “one-stop shop for news.”
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