The headquarters of national public radio (NPR) is visible in Washington, DC
Charles Dharapak / AP
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Charles Dharapak / AP
President Trump published an executive decree on Thursday to the Board of Directors of the Company for the public distribution company to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS”, the main public broadcasters of the country, affirming ideological biases.
“None of the entities presents a fair, precise or impartial representation of current events to paying citizens,” said the order. “The CPB Commission must cancel the existing direct financing to the maximum extent authorized by law and refuse to provide future financing.”
It is not clear that the president has the power to return this orders to CPB under the law.
The president and chief executive officer of PBS, Paula Kerger, described this as an “executive decree, issued in the middle of the night”.
CPB is already continuing the Trump administration on its decree to draw three of its five members of the board of directors; Friday, he rejected the validity of the new president’s new order.
“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the authority of the president,” the company wrote in a statement published on Friday morning. “The congress directly authorized and financed the CPB as a private non -profit company entirely independent of the federal government.”
The CPB noted that the statistics congress had adopted to create it “expressly prohibited” any department, agency, officer or employee of the United States to exercise management, supervision or control over educational television or radio, or more (CPB) or one of its beneficiaries or entrepreneurs. “Congress said that beneficiaries of these funds” can be used at the discretion of the beneficiary “to produce or acquire programs to be put in the waves.
Trump’s new order seems to imagine a continuation of federal subsidies for public radio and television stations – outside of NPR and PBS. We do not know how it likes Trump’s commitment to ask the congress to cancel all the funds already approved for public broadcasting.
The congress allocates federal funding for CPB and specifies how it should be spent. Funding is made in two -year cycles, in advance, a structure designed to help protect the public media from political pressure.
Trump, on the other hand, waged a rhetorical war against her, fueling and channeling the distrust of his supporters with regard to the traditional management of newspapers.
On social media platforms, Trump recently castigated the two national public broadcasting networks, publishing in all the ceilings: “Republicans must finance and dissociate themselves completely from NPR & PBS, the radicals have left` `monsters ” which hurt our country so much!”
NPR promised to retaliate in a press release published Friday by Heather Walls, its main vice-president of communications.
“We will vigorously defend our right to provide essential news, information and vital services to the American public,” NPR said in the press release. “The order of the president is an affront to the rights of the first NPR amendment and stations locally held and operated through America to produce and an air program that meets the needs of their communities.”
He declared that the executive decree endangers the national dissemination of newspaper NPRs and programs like Morning edition And Little office radio.
Accusations of political bias
The leaders of NPR and PBS testified during a hearing of the chamber supervision committee in March on the allegations of ideological prejudices in public broadcasting.
Republican legislators assailed Maher for political messages that she had published on social networks of years before joining NPR in March 2024, as well as new decisions that the network made before his mandate.
Kerger de PBS found himself questioned on a video involving a drag interpreter by singing a variation on a children’s song for a young audience. (Kerger testified that the video had been published on the website of the PBS New York member station and has never been broadcast on television.)
Earlier this week, the Federal Electoral Commission unanimously rejected a complaint of bias and illegal elections against the NPR, concluding that the network is engaged in a “legitimate press function”.
How federal funds reach NPR and PBS
Federal funding for public media crosses the company in Charter at the congress for public broadcasting. The Congress allocated $ 535 million for the CPB for the current financial year – an amount asserted in a recent stop bill adopted by the Chamber and the American Senate controlled by the Republican.
According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the congress entirely funded it until September 30, 2027.
At the hearing at the end of March, the chiefs of the two networks talked about the mission of providing news and non -partisan programs to the American public, without charge. They said stations would be the most vulnerable if federal funding was cut for public broadcasting.
NPR generally receives approximately 1% of its funding directly from the federal government and a slightly higher amount indirectly; Its 246 member institutions, operating more than 1,000 stations, receive an average of 8% to 10% of their CPB funds.
On the other hand, PBS and its stations receive approximately 15% of their income from the Federal CPB funds.
Most funds for public media go to local stations; And most to subsidize television, which is more expensive than radio.
A government survey on public broadcasters
The assault of the Trump administration against public media began only a few weeks after its inauguration. The person appointed by Trump as the main dissemination regulator of the country, the president of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, launched an investigation into NPR and PBS, claiming that they seem that their places of subscription of a violent business of laws prohibiting commercial advertisements. Carr used it to question the federal funding for networks and their non -commercial status.
The networks say that they have been encouraged several times by the agency and the congress to develop private financial support and have worked assiduously for years with the FCC to ensure that the content is the responsibility of the FCC directives.
PBS offers a large amount of educational dishes; NPR is based more on news and music. Both provide locally anchored content and reach more than 99% of the population, at no cost. In many states and communities, stations also serve as key component of emergency systems and response to disasters.
While the CPB continues the Trump administration about the fire attempts of three of the five members of the board of directors, Trump has managed to do so, it seems that he would have erased the quorum necessary for the CPB board of directors to take any action. This probably includes the elimination of funds for PBS and NPR.
Disclosure: This story has been reported and written by the media correspondent NPR, David Folkenflik and published by the editor-in-chief Emily Kopp, the editor-in-chief Gerry Holmes and the editor-in-chief Vickie Walton-James. As part of the NPR protocol to account for himself, no manager of the company or the director of the news examined this story before its publication publicly.
