Will NPR and PBS Survive the Trump-Musk Era? Maybe Not
Doubt Musk can pull it off? Just remember how effectively he dealt with the pork-laden “bipartisan” spending bill last week.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is a private, nonprofit organization that allocates funding to over 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations across the country, according to its website. In 2023, the federal government appropriated $535 million to support its operations.
Since the CPB’s establishment by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the political content on most public media channels has leaned heavily to the left. As a result, every Republican presidential administration has attempted to defund it—and, by extension, the PBS and NPR-affiliated outlets it distributes funds to.
During his first term, President-elect Donald Trump tried – unsuccessfully – to keep funding for public media out of his administration’s annual budgets.
After one final, fruitless attempt in 2020, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger issued a statement defending “the vital role that public television plays in homes and communities across the country. For 50 years, PBS has served as a trusted source for educational and thought-provoking programming, including school readiness initiatives for children, support for teachers and caregivers, public safety communications and lifelong learning across broadcast and digital platforms.”
Children’s programming and public safety alerts aside, PBS – and NPR as well – present a distorted perspective on political matters. They are indistinguishable from the legacy media in that they offer readers only one side of every story.
So far, none of the Republicans’ efforts to defund the public media have succeeded. But that may be about to change.
According to The New York Times, the reason just might be Elon Musk. The Times sees the current threat to public media as being different from previous fights “because of the newfound passion and sudden ascent of Mr. Musk, who has made plain his deep distaste for traditional media.”
The Guardian reported that in April 2023, Musk referred to NPR as “state-affiliated media,” noting that is the same term they use “for propaganda outlets in Russia and China.” After NPR left Twitter, Musk wrote a post that read, “Defund @NPR.”
Following Trump’s victory, Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who together will run the Department of Government Efficiency, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. The two included the $535 million appropriation to the CPB in a list of line items they would like to see eliminated from the federal budget.
On Friday, the Times reported that Elon Musk is “gunning for the public media.”
One of the most concrete proposals on his [Musk’s] list is eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding that the government funnels to PBS and NPR stations, home to cultural touchstones like Elmo, Big Bird and “Fresh Air.”
For decades, NPR and PBS have overcome similar threats. But this year, “the attention and intensity” of the calls to defund public media seem greater, said Michael Isip, the president and chief executive of KQED, which operates NPR and PBS stations in the San Francisco Bay Area.
NPR and PBS stations are bracing for the fight. After the election, leaders of NPR’s biggest member stations circulated a report that warned “it would be unwise to assume that events will play out as they have in the past,” with regard to their federal funding. PBS received an update on the situation from political consultants at a board meeting in early December. And station directors in some states are already making their case to legislators.
Legacy media must die https://t.co/At02Y9lJKJ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2024
On the campaign trail, Trump frequently vowed to cut off government funding for the public media. Following accusations by then-NPR business editor Uri Berliner that left-wing bias at the outlet had negatively impacted its coverage in a scathing April essay, Trump took to Truth Social to write: “NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!”
There are currently two Republican-sponsored bills before Congress, the No Propaganda Act and the Defund NPR Act. The Guardian happily notes that “two details may slow those efforts: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is funded two years in advance and many local public media stations run emergency alerts, a crucial system that would have to be transferred elsewhere.”
The federal government, especially under a Republican administration, may lack control over legacy media, but it certainly isn’t obligated to fund what many view as propaganda disguised as “public media.”
Doubt Musk can pull it off? Just remember how effectively he dealt with the pork-laden “bipartisan” spending bill last week.
Defund NPR and PBS. pic.twitter.com/OjoT6N4QWs
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) December 27, 2024
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
PBS has survived on nostalgia of those who grew up watching Sesame Street, Mr. Roger and Captain Kangaroo. That nostalgia has faded and PBS is now known more as a leftist news source and the entertainment is more for snobbish “elites.”
It’s time is done.
With satellite tv/radio, streaming and youtube, is there any real need for NPR or PBS? I could understand the need 50-60 years ago, but not now
And think of the revenue that can be raised by selling the wavelengths used by NPR.
PBS came about in the 60’s because most television markets were the big three of ABC, CBS and NBC with maybe one or two independent stations and it was claimed that more viewpoints were needed. Once cable came onto the scene PBS should no longer have been needed but nostalgia saved it ( they shouted that conservatives wanted to kill Big Bird). Hopefully the nostalgia has faded enough for PBS to die.
I watched Captain Kangaroo in B&W. It wasn’t on PBS… unless they brought it back there later. It was on the local CBS affiliate — the closest PBS outlet was 50 mi away in Boston and it was 90% OTA static.
I’d love to see PBS and NPR finally put out to pasture. It’s too bad the effort is going to be complicated by being driven by a direct competitor. It’s extra stress we don’t need.
I watched him on PBS. That was then, and this is now. Time to defund PBS and NPR.
NPR is one of the most dishonest news organizations,
there is a vacation area in colorado where the only station that comes through is NPR so I get stuck listening to it on vacation (though only in the car driving to hiking trailhead)
1 – last week of march 2020 – series of one hour daily segments with “experts” explaining why a covid lab leak was impossible.
2. Nov 2019, constant coverage of house impeachment procedings discussing the improprity of investigation of political opponent with nary a mention of biden’s ukranian corruption.
3. Nov 2021- Day following Rittenhouse acquital, several retired judges and prosecutors/ attorney’s discussing the judges biased rulings favoring the defense, but nary a mention of the frequent prosecution misconduct.
I get my UK content 6 months sooner, and un-censored, by going to the source instead of waiting for PBS to bring it here. There is no need for PBS anymore. It is pure leftist propanganda.
Fresh Air is not a cultural touchstone. Terry Gross is a nasty, lying, hyper-partisan. The local NPR affiliate falls back on BBC world service radio midnight to 5am. The science programming is uber-left nonsense.
Car Talk was a cultural touchstone, and that ended 30 years ago.
Click and Clack Tappet were awesome!
A friend of mine took one of their 1-hour broadcasts and eliminated everything they had to say and left only them laughing at their own jokes. There was still 32 minutes of tape left. There was nothing but laughter. As for the quality of the show, much of the advice they gave was just plain wrong. Yes, it was a cultural touchstone but it was more a joke than anything else.
It’s 2042 already? Where does the time go?
Car Talk did their last show in 2012. Maybe it just feels like 30 🙂
I hear that the broadcasts can be heard on some pod cast services.
Could not possibly agree more.
I recall one episode of Fresh Air in which Gross (aptly named) attempted to interview Burt Reynolds. Now, I’m no fan of Reynolds (egomaniac) but he was having none of her nonsense. The tension was loud and clear.
I’d also say “A Prairie Home Companion” achieved cultural relevance. A comic and musical variety show, harkening back to the radio’s early days. Garrison Keillor is a talented wit and performer, but, he was excommunicated and exiled by the Dhimmi-crats during the “Me Too” purges.
There’s always tote bags.
Is there a way to replace the jerks running pbs and npr with hard core repubs and lock them in with lifetime appointments like the dems do?
Be fun to see programs called There Are Only Two Genders and The Liberals Always Try to Steal Your Tax Dollars.
Why replace them at all? I don’t care the viewpoint or which part of the spectrum somebody is on, I don’t believe the taxpayer should be footing the bill.
NPR and PBS are the buggy-whips of today. Necessary to have at one point, but functionally useless for at least a decade now, and you look stupid carrying one around. If you really want to still carry one, you can buy it yourself.
Congress has to cut off funding and the national GOP are a bunch of cowards. NPR and PBS will be fully funded for the foreseeable future.
Pull the plug. License and all. Turn the license over to Kari Lake.
The licenses themselves are not held by cpb. They’re held by the local affiliates themselves.
100% leftist propaganda can be accessed through the democrat-MSM 24/7. There is no honest necessity for NPR/PBS, as it spouts the same manufactured leftist drivel as the government-run “universities of indoctrination.”
The NPR downward slide to the Left just became unbearable some years ago. I used to try to listen to them in my car during my commutes but one day I had a whim and started to play what I call “The NPR Game”. It is pretty simple: You can listen until one of the Regular Liberal Issue Words is spoken: abortion BLM, global warming, LBQ etc etc. Then you must turn the radio off. It got to where I was averaging something like 45 seconds. It sounds like I’m joking but it was really happening.
Don’t forget the word empowerment, and the constant verbing of nouns.
Hopefully, it has been the Democrats Propaganda Ministry for decades
When I was much younger I’d listen to NPR all the time but eventually the cognitive dissonance was just too much.
If their product is as good as they claim (it isn’t) then a transition to a for-profit model should be rather seamless.
They already accept “advertising” in the form of donations. Any philanthropic foundation should be more than willing to follow them into the dreaded private sector.
The reality is that they are not viable outside the current government-funded model. If they were somewhat balanced and nonpartisan I’d be ok with that arrangement.
But unfortunately for PBS/NPR they are nothing more than the Völkischer Beobachter of the progressive left (Nazi analogy intended – if their product jackboot fits…)
Let them all learn to code…
not a fan of NPR or PBS I do like
listening in on election night listening
to them weep and gnash their teeth.
that said ..there is music programing I like but pretty sure I can find it on you tube.
classical and big band and old time Jazz. (and I dont mean hotair Jazz either :D)
Below is what one study says about NPR’s demographics. Since no one is going to read through all that and then see my comment, I’ll put it first:
One of the subliminal attractions of NPR is its calm and quiet nature compared to commercial radio…no one is shouting at you to buy things, or indeed, shouting at you at all. The spoken content is pretty much intellectual background music. You hear it, but don’t really listen to it unless something you like pops up.
I believe that NPR has enough of an audience, and an affluent one at that, to support itself. However, it is the lack of commercial interruptions that make it popular rather than the content per se, and going commercial would destroy it.
Generally speaking NPR’s
Age: NPR listeners are generally older, with a significant portion being 50 years old or older. However, NPR has been working to attract younger audiences, particularly through podcasts and digital platforms.
Education: NPR listeners are highly educated. A large percentage have at least a college degree, with many holding advanced degrees.
Income: The typical NPR listener has a higher-than-average household income. Many listeners fall into the middle to upper-middle-class income brackets.
Occupation: NPR listeners are often professionals, including those in fields like education, healthcare, technology, and the arts. There is also a notable representation of listeners in managerial and executive roles.
Political Leanings: NPR’s audience tends to lean more liberal or progressive, though the network strives to provide balanced reporting that appeals to a broad audience.
Location: NPR listeners are often concentrated in urban and suburban areas, with fewer listeners in rural regions. The audience is spread across the U.S., but there is a strong base in coastal states.
Cultural Interests: NPR listeners generally have a strong interest in culture, arts, science, and current events. They are more likely to engage in activities such as reading, attending cultural events, and consuming content related to these areas.
fwiw – I listen to WRR 101.1 in Dallas which carries the NPR news due to the excellent classical music. furtunately the NPR news is only carried in the 6pm news time slot, so I miss all the NPR crap.
“However, it is the lack of commercial interruptions that make it popular rather than the content per se, and going commercial would destroy it.”
What they are selling is subliminal socialism. As for “non-commercial”… every “brought to you by a grant or finding from Honda, or KitchenAid or whatever is still a commercial if it were played on a commercial station.
When aggressive, they are public broadcasting… when caught with fingers in the cookie jar they tout “educational” broadcasting. Aside from true volunteers, everyone there is for personal profit. If you go back to the 50’s, plenty of commercial networks did what Public Broadcasting now does as if they invented it.
It’s unequivocally wrong for NPR and PBS to receive taxpayer dollars to espouse only a leftist point of view. I would say the same thing if they only espoused a conservative point of view.
Not 1¢ of taxpayer dollars should go to NPR and PBS; let it survive in a free marketplace. If it survives, great; if not до свидания (do svidaniya).
Disclosure: I watch PBS amd support my local affiliate, in spite of their onesidedness.
We all know Congress will hold one of its famous hearings that result in no solutions, but expect to see Elmo, Ernie, and Big Bird appear as victims. None of the woke nonsense or transgender propaganda will be discussed or the blatant lies spouted on PBS but the harm to our children will. The small group of RINOs will vote with the Dems to keep it.
~50% of the population is paying taxes that help support a state-run media organ that dutifully and exclusively carries water for Dhimmi-crats, their views and their agendas,
It’s galling as hell. No state media funding, period!
Two state-run media organs, to clarify — NPR, and, PBS.
I don’t care about the politics of “publicly-funded media”; I don’t watch them:
I do care that they’re teaching my grandchildren Ebonics, the slave-talk/street-speech of the current millenium.
My parents, of mitteleuropäisch origin, worked very hard to make certain I spoke a neutral American, as I did for my children (as did public radio and TV at that time)
No more today – I do not want my tax dollars supporting programs that teach Ebonics and Spanglish (as the proper means of communication) to my grandchildren.
The Age of Aquarius is also the Age of the Left-Wing Billionaire. Let them fund their own propaganda.
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