As reported by my colleague Rusty Weiss, on Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to cut off taxpayer funding to public broadcasting stations PBS and NPR. This decision affects the approximately amount allocated by Congress to public broadcasters for the current fiscal year and any appropriated funds until September 30, 2027.

Not taking this lying down, NPR CEO Katherine Maher issued a press release decrying Trump’s actions.

Cue the tiny violins.

NPR remains steadfast in its dedication to integrity, editorial independence, and the mission to serve the American public in collaboration with NPR Member organizations. Last night, the President issued an Executive Order aiming to halt all federal funding to NPR and PBS.

What is there to debate? If the cultural elites who enjoy NPR’s programming enough to fund it want it to continue, they can redirect their financial support from organizations like USAID to NPR. If the service, providing “essential news, information, and life-saving services to the American public,” is indeed vital, then its supporters will ensure its funding. However, Maher is more interested in joining those who resist and oppose Trump in a public display. There’s no denying Maher still wants to tap taxpayers’ funds, but above all, she seeks to challenge Trump. Her verbal assault metaphorically showcased her defiance.

America’s founders knew that an informed public is essential to a functioning democracy, and that commitment to serve an informed public is the heart of NPR’s mission. With the creation of the Public Broadcasting Act, Congress explicitly forbade ‘any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting.’ This independence has informed the role of public broadcasting in the American interest for more than half a century, and is core to our relentless commitment to editorial independence and integrity in our service today.

Where has NPR shown editorial independence and integrity of late? Was it in the total blackout of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020? 

“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR Managing Editor for News at the time, Terence Samuel, said when the laptop first surfaced.

Or was it in following the legacy media herd to gaslight about former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline? NPR’s hard-hitting, essential journalism included writing softball garbage about how Biden uses a CPAP machine at night and has added a new acid reflux medication.

Maher went on and on about the growth of the organization and how many people they employ. She also slammed Congress, saying this is not about appropriations, pointing out the small amount that NPR and PBS collect. So, Maher basically makes the argument for defunding here. Those well-heeled donors can make up that amount easily, and the national deficit will be 0.0001 percent less. Then Maher, who could not have cared less about the First Amendment when NPR whistleblower Uri Berliner pulled back the curtain on the news organization, now cares about First Amendment rights being violated.

This is not about balancing the federal budget. The appropriation for public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, represents less than 0.0001% of the federal budget. The President’s order is an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America to produce and air programming that meets the needs of their communities. 

Of course, NPR responded by making it a free speech and First Amendment issue. It’s not. The liberal outlet isn’t shut down. It’s not being muzzled. It just won’t get our money to shovel insufferable woke nonsense down our throats. 

But what is woke nonsense to the rest of us is considered “beloved programming and essential news” to NPR. Maher doubled down on the necessity of NPR to maintain editorial independence and to tell the stories that are important to Americans with accuracy, objectivity, and fairness.

We have no problem with that; they just don’t need our taxpayer dollars in order to do it. 

NPR stands by the excellence and commitment of our journalists, staff, and Member organizations to seek out stories that matter to the American public, that reflect every part of the diversity of our nation, and that bring affairs of the world to our audiences. We stand by our high standards and our colleagues in their pursuit of factual reporting, their work to present issues fairly and without bias, and our effort to seek the humanity and human consequence of every story. We will strongly defend our work and our editorial independence and will continue to tell the stories of our country and the world with accuracy, objectivity, and fairness.

Maher really does think very highly of herself and NPR, as if they are feeding the poor and curing cancer all at once. The elitist attitude that they are the only ones who can do what they do shows they exist in a bubble that the pinprick of defunding would burst. If defunding does nothing else but cut these people down to size, it will be well worth it.

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