All things considered, NPR should pay its own way
Trump's executive order, titled 'Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,' began by noting how much has changed since the CPB was established in 1967. 'Today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,' the order observes. 'Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.'
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Trump is absolutely right about
that
.
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The president is also right when he describes NPR and PBS as 'biased' and says they fall short of 'fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage.' To be sure, conservatives have complained about the leftist slant in public broadcasting for decades. But even NPR
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Yet for all that, public broadcasting's leftward tilt is
not
a good reason to pull the plug on its government funding, which in fiscal year 2025 will total
Certainly people in the news business have strong opinions about the stories and people they cover — it would be strange if they didn't. The ideal of objective, unbiased journalism may be admirable in the abstract. But in the real world, media companies attract employees who tend to share a similar worldview, and that worldview makes its way into their coverage. The Constitution guarantees the right of every media organization — including NPR, PBS, and their local affiliates — to publish or broadcast as they see fit. What it does
not
guarantee is the right to do so with government dollars.
In a democratic society with a cherished tradition of an independent press, the very idea of
But that's only one of the objections to using taxpayer funds to sustain public broadcasting.
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Other radio and TV networks, from
When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967, it may have been plausible to argue that public broadcasting provided access to news and educational programming that listeners couldn't get anywhere else. But with the internet revolution, that argument lost all validity. Today, programs of every description are made available via
In any case, such subsidies are unaffordable. With the federal budget running a $2 trillion deficit and the
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I oppose any government funding of radio or TV
Trump's executive order can't overturn NPR's subsidy, because the funds were appropriated by Congress. But
This has nothing to do with NPR's lefty tilt, grating though it can be. Some of my best friends, to coin a phrase, work in public broadcasting, and much of what they produce is first-rate. NPR and its affiliates have broken no end of significant news stories and generated countless hours of intelligent, absorbing, informative content. The same is true of innumerable other media outlets, including the one you're reading now. Those outlets function every day of the year without tapping the federal Treasury. National Public Radio can too.
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
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