When President Trump issued an executive order to defund NPR and PBS, he sparked a firestorm. Out of the long list of contentious policy fights since taking office, this one was refreshingly low-stakes but symbolically very important. Though budgetarily small, it was a cultural gut-punch to the “radical left monsters” pushing biased narratives on the public dime.
After some budget tricks in Congress, the deed was done. Congress canceled $9 billion in various funds, with $1.1 billion earmarked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over a 24-month period. A couple weeks later, the corporation announced that it would wind down its operations and cease to exist entirely.
Now comes the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. “Big Bird will die!”
Let’s review some facts.
NPR claims only 1% of its budget is federal; PBS says 15%. But dig deeper and you’ll see that government cash flows through member stations and various backdoors, totaling about 10% for NPR and 15% for PBS.
If it’s so insignificant, why the panic? Because it’s not just money—it’s 100% about control.
The White House and Republicans are always happy to call out NPR and PBS for liberal bias, and it’s hard to argue against.
NPR’s newsroom had 87 registered Democrats to zero Republicans in 2017—an infinite partisan skew.
PBS’s 2024 RNC coverage was 72% negative, while the DNC got 88% positive spin.
NPR dodged the Hunter Biden laptop story, calling it a “distraction,” despite its election relevance.
PBS aired a drag queen, Little Miss Hot Mess, for kids ages 3-8 and pushed a transgender teen’s story in Real Boy.
This isn’t neutral education; it’s propaganda, from critical race theory on Arthur to Elmo shilling COVID vaccines for toddlers.
A Censorship Industrial Complex
NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher embodies the elite groupthink Matt Taibbi calls the “censorship industrial complex.”
Her past tweets—calling Trump racist, musing about white supremacy, and praising The Case for Reparations—reveal a worldview steeped in neo-Marxist clichés. At Wikipedia, she oversaw a platform woven into Siri and other tech, often spreading left-leaning misinformation.
Her take on truth? It’s a “distraction” from finding “common ground.”
Translation: accept the “right” ideas, or you’re out. This is the Sylon war on thought, funded by taxpayers.
That’s about as vacuous as the AI interviewed by Jim Acosta about gun control, saying that his proposal for gun violence was to create a loving culture… or something.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funnels $500 million yearly to NPR and PBS, was created in 1967 to control narratives, not amplify independent voices. It crowded out private networks like National Educational Television, funded by the Ford Foundation, which aired hard-hitting documentaries without government strings attached.
A 1969 memo revealed the goal: a Nixon White House-picked CPB head to steer the narrative. This isn’t public media—it’s state media, and that’s why Elon got flak for calling NPR “government-run.”
It is. Obviously.
Parents, Raise Truth-Seekers
I worked at Nickelodeon 20 years ago, in the tame days of Blue’s Clues. Today’s PBS pushing drag queens and anti-racist dogma on kids would horrify Mr. Rogers, who taught love and truth, not ideology.
This fight isn’t just about defunding something we don’t like—it’s about freeing our culture from thought-suppressing bureaucracies.
NPR and PBS won’t die without federal funds. They’ll just have to compete in the vibrant media ecosystem and find a few donors. This should be no problem for a liberal sacred cow.
George Clooney can fund it.
Parents, we can’t let our kids grow up swallowing this stuff without any awareness of who funds it and why. Sorry, but gone are the days of sitting your kids in front of the TV and assuming it’s just wholesome, well-intended programming that’s safe enough to keep selling cereal ads.
Teach them to question and to seek truth, not receive ideas.
My son is learning to challenge narratives, not parrot them.
Ask your kids: Who’s shaping what you think and why?
What are their objectives?
We want our children to flourish and live virtuous lives. It’s safe to assume government-funded media organizations want something else entirely.
What does pbs have that the internet doesn't?
The federal funding may be gone, but NPR and PBS will still largely be able to move on despite some of their member stations being sacrificed since many of them are rural stations where their budgets are more dependent on federal funding to keep afloat.