NPR loses sugar daddy CPB

OPINION:

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer should take heed: Even NPR’s sugar daddy has cut the purse strings.

Enough is enough for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which for decades has been the most vocal defender of forced taxpayer subsidies for National Public Radio. CPB’s support has ended with the kind of dramatic abruptness that would make Shakespeare stand in awe.

Late last month, CPB reversed course and canceled a $30 million grant for NPR to operate the Public Radio Satellite System, the technology platform used to share broadcast content with 1,216 public radio stations throughout America. CPB will instead give that money to a new custodian that, unlike NPR, is not burdened by NPR’s radical and controversial CEO, Katherine Maher.

For decades, CPB has told Congress that the pompous and smug reporters at NPR are indispensable. Sipping their $9 lattes and putting middle America under their noses, these reporters are the front-line defenders of democracy — at least that’s what we have been told to believe.

Congress created CPB as the legislative pass-through for congressional earmarks, totaling around $15 billion since congressional Democrats first authored the legislation in 1967 to establish state-funded media for the first time in our nation’s history.

After five decades, we now have scores of cable news outlets, thousands of independent online media options, and a bazillion podcasters and social media creators to choose from. Better yet, almost all these options are free.

Americans are also free to choose the kinds of news coverage and perspectives they prefer. That, of course, is not true for anyone who tunes into NPR. That propaganda outlet provides no options or alternative voices, just a steady stream of accusations against President Trump (and his supporters), the state of Israel (and its supporters), gun owners (and Second Amendment supporters), Christians (and Zionist Jews), pro-life Congress members (and their supporters), and everyone else outside the left-wing bubble. Basically, about three-fourths of Americans.

Over the decades, NPR became increasingly unhinged in its reporting, even refusing to acknowledge the obvious motives of Charlie Kirk’s killer. Despite that, CPB has staunchly defended NPR’s left-wing content. CPB CEO and President Patricia Harrison laughably said NPR prioritizes editorial integrity and provides “fact-based journalism” as she appeared before the House Appropriations Committee begging for your tax dollars.

After NPR whistleblower Uri Berliner exposed his employer for being a radical left-wing outfit that had 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans working out of its D.C. headquarters, CPB tried to stop the hemorrhaging and awarded NPR a nearly $2 million grant to overhaul its reporting so that the news that NPR produced would have the “highest standards of editorial integrity — accuracy, fairness, balance, objectivity, and transparency, and the obligation to include diverse viewpoints.”

The problem of NPR’s bias is so blatant that even CPB can no longer ignore it. However, just throwing money at the problem failed.

Even under intense congressional scrutiny, NPR became more biased in the months after accepting the grant. For the first half of this year, one of its leading national radio programs, “Fresh Air,” featured zero conservative guests, according to an MRC study.

As recently as July, Ms. Harrison was desperately trying to drum up support for NPR as Mr. Trump’s rescissions package was being debated. Highlighting whatever virtues she could find, she failed to deny that NPR was biased, fair or even trying to comply with the law.

In exchange for massive, one-of-a-kind taxpayer subsidies, NPR was always supposed to ensure “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programming.” Its refusal to comply with this statutory requirement was not only a choice but also its fundamental mission.

That is why Mr. Trump and Congress finally said, “Enough!”

In July, in response to Mr. Trump’s request, Congress clawed back an unprecedented $1.1 billion in appropriated funds for PBS and NPR. Undeterred, NPR kept up the bias. Since NPR lost the money, the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters has documented the continued shutout of conservative guests and viewpoints on its programs.

NPR has no one but itself to blame. After receiving nearly $2 million to add diversity of viewpoints, it doubled down on liberal propaganda.

NPR’s recalcitrance has cost Ms. Harrison her job because the CPB must now wind down its operations. Her message to Mr. Schumer is clear: NPR has abandoned journalist integrity, and taxpayers should not be forced to fund the left’s favorite radio broadcaster. We agree, and Congress should too. Not one penny more.

• Dan Schneider is the vice president for free speech at the Media Research Center, and Jerris Jackson is the Media Research Center’s external affairs manager.