March 26 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has proposed ending federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which House Oversight subcommittee members discussed with CPB officials on Wednesday.
National Public Radio Chief Executive Officer and President Katherine Maher and Public Broadcasting Service Chief Executive Officer and President Paula Kerger appeared before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency to address concerns about potentially biased news coverage and programming, WBUR reported.
The hearing was titled “Anti-American Airwaves:Holding the Head of NPR and PBS Accountable,” and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., accused the public broadcasters of political bias in their news reporting and programming.
“NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical, left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy, White, urban liberals and progressives,” Greene said as reported by ABC News.
Democratic Party subcommittee members Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., accused the House Oversight Committee of partisanship while targeting PBS and NPR.
Lynch accused the DOGE subcommittee of stooping “to the lower levels of partisanship and political theater.”
Garcia engaged in sarcasm when he asked if Sesame Street mascot Elmo has “ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
The CPB receives about $535 million in federal funding in addition to donations by corporate and member donations, but the Trump administration is rethinking federal financial support for the public television and radio broadcasters.
Trump, members of his cabinet and many congressional members have accused PBS and NPR of left-wing bias in their respective programming.
“I think it’s very unfair. It’s been very biased,” Trump told media on Tuesday regarding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“The kind of money that’s being wasted,” Trump said, “and it’s a very biased view.”
During his first term as president, Trump tried to defund NPR and PBS and last year referred to NPR as a “liberal disinformation machine.”
Entrepreneur and Department of Government Efficiency Director Elon Musk in a Feb. 4 post on X said NPR “should survive on its own.”
Musk’s X social media platform labels PBS and NPR as “state-affiliated media.”
Musk’s post includes a clip of Maher saying, “Our reverence for the truth might have become a bit of a distraction that is preventing us from finding consensus and getting important things done.”
A plurality of U.S. adults surveyed support continued federal funding of PBS and NPR, the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday.
About 43% of those surveyed support continued federal funding versus 24% saying they favor removing federal funding and 33% who are unsure.
A proposed congressional bill would eliminate the $535 million in annual federal funding allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The CPB allocates 70% of its annual federal funding to more than 1,500 local PBS and NPR stations versus less than 5% for administrative costs.
The federal funds in 2023 accounted for nearly 11% of PBS television stations’ total revenue and about 6% for NPR radio stations.
For every federal public dollar received, PBS and NPR stations raise about $7 from donors and other sources, including state and local governments, universities, foundations, businesses and individuals, according to the CPB.
The CPB funding hearing comes as a federal judge on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order to force continued funding of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty due to insufficient reasoning for ending its funding by the Trump administration.
