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.
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.
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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