WASHINGTON, D.C, (May 2, 2025) — Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), issued the following statement today regarding the President’s Executive Order on public media:
“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.
“In creating CPB, Congress ex
30 Comments
hadrien01
I suppose this is in response to this executive order: ENDING TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZATION OF BIASED MEDIA https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/endi…
I would add that PBS has this to say about public media funding:
> The U.S. is almost literally off the chart for how little we allocate towards our public media. At the federal level, it comes out to a little over $1.50 per person per year. Compare that to the Brits, who spend roughly $100 per person per year for the BBC. Northern European countries spend well over $100 per person per year.
> And it really shows in the health of their of their public broadcasting systems. They tend to view those systems as essential democratic infrastructure. And, indeed, data show that there is a positive correlation between the health of a public broadcasting system and the health of a democratic governance.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-look-at-the-history-of-p…
bhouston
The US is so weird right now.
You have a President who is ordering the defunding of tons of groups (universities, media, aid, institutes) while not clearly having that authority and often doing so for what he views as ideological crimes.
Also arresting and trying to deport people for things that are not clearly crimes (newspaper op-eds, etc) and without due process.
Very strange times.
Right now I have some faith the courts in the US will stand up to this and get the US back on track but I worry that dam may not hold forever.
Saving grace is that his is not widely popular, although that is more for his tariff moves than for the others.
mmastrac
This is quite sad. PBS and NPR were jewels of the American system. The right-wing has latched on to the message that all public-funded media that isn't right-wing-biased is _bad_ and are trying to kill it everywhere.
We are constantly fighting the same battle in Canada where the right-wing accuses media of being left-leaning, while most major news outlets are actually American-owned and slant right a lot of the time.
We are truly in a post-fact world now.
jmclnx
I heard of a study done in trump's first admin. It said this will hurt rural communities far more than urban. So as usual Trump supporters will be punished more than non-trump supporters.
JSR_FDED
When I first moved to the US (Bay Area) and discovered NPR in my first week there I almost couldn’t believe that there was such a source of high quality and thoughtful programming.
The value destruction of the last few months has been astonishing.
cyberlurker
Is it unusual for an executive order to claim something like this without any citation or reference?
> The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS.
> Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter.
> What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.
jeffbee
Funny because PBS and NPR bend over backwards to coddle Trump and his circle and to not seem oppositional. NPR national daily shows in particular cover Trump's shenanigans like the are reviewing the new BTS singles.
breadwinner
The way to fight Trump is to form mutual defense pacts. For example, the Big Ten schools are forming a mutual defense pact [1]. All media should form a similar pact. Trump is attacking CBS 60 Minutes, New York Times, PBS, etc. Instead of giving in (big mistake, bully demands more), or fighting alone, they should form an alliance.
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/big-ten-michigan-schools-moves-11…
erkt
Not much of a quote.
> “CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.
“In creating CPB, Congress expressly forbade ‘any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees or contractors…’ 47 U.S.C. § 398(c).”
I listen to NPR every day, have for over fifteen years. There is a lot more yelling at the radio these days. They are very open with their bias. They only promote programing that services the lefts cultural position. There is not a shred of balanced coverage here. They treat their economic and moral theory as accepted and undisputed fact. This isn't news anymore.
Congress is forbidden from exercising editorial control, but is China? Love when they choose to push articles like this, or focus on Tik tok "stealing data" rather than "shamelessly influencing our children" with that data.
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5260742/tiktok-china-re…
Eextra953
Another lame attempt at ruling by decree. The CPB was deliberately designed with guardrails to avoid partisanship – the president appoints board members, and no more than five from the same party.
If you've listened to NPR or watched PBS, you know they're about as neutral as you can get while still covering both mainstream sides.
This style of governance is so lazy – instead of working through Congress to change the law, he tries to bully an independent board into doing what he wants. It's also so easy to oppose, the board can just ignore it.
diego_moita
From the perspective of outside democracies it is almost laughable (or "cryable") to call the U.S. a democracy.
Some of the most fundamental traits of an healthy democracy that the U.S. doesn't have:
* the US doesn't have real alternation in power: only 3 other democratic countries in the world have the same duopoly of political parties the US has: Japan, Mexico and South Korea. These 2 parties have an absolute control of the political process. Democrats have all the means to block the rise of any socialist or Green party. Republicans have all the means to block the rise of a Libertarian party. Healthy democracies are not like that; parties rise and fall according to the changes of worldviews.
* the US doesn't have real separation of powers: in a democracy the courts of law are supposed to work independently of the other branches. But in the US, judges are political agents loosely affiliated to the parties duopoly. They are elected to lower courts by party affiliations, with campaigns financed by the political parties. They rise in the courts' echelons by cultivating and nurturing this partisan loyalty. They are partisan agents in disguise. No other country practices this corruption of democracy principles.
* bribing politicians is legal in the US. It is called "campaign financing" and it is ok and stimulated. No other country in the world accepts that.
ujkhsjkdhf234
If he actually cared about unbiased media, he would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine which he won't do because that would kill Fox, Newsmax, and the rest of the Republican propaganda outlets.
whodidntante
I watch/listen to a variety of news sources – CNN, Fox News, NPR, NYTimes, WSj, as well as a number of smaller podcasts and substacks.
There are no longer "unbiased" news sources, all sources have moved to either the left or right.
I used to have respect for NPR, today it is, to me, the Fox News of the left, and no different than other sources. I do not have a problem with that, it is what it is. But it should not be funded with taxpayer money.
Try listening to the president of NPR at the congressional hearing and then her interview on NPR done shortly after that hearing. For the former, she was unable/unwilling to express any opinions, nor was she able to recall anything she personally said/posted for the past two years. For the latter, she was fed a series of flattering softball questions clearly made to make her and NPR look good. That is not news or reporting, it was NPR doing PR for NPR.
LightBug1
RIP USA. Probably.
cryptoegorophy
15% from federal funding? Doesn’t sound too bad? I thought it was more like 95%. They will survive.
EcommerceFlow
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m2024
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philk10
Seen on Bluesy "The NPR/PBS executive order is a sign of weakness.
Republicans were going to put that cut into a rescission bill, which has been delayed as reconciliation took precedence. The likely story is that Republicans found that they didn't have the votes for it, so Trump had to go it alone."
cnxsoft
That tweet from NPRPublicEditor has probably something to do with this:
https://x.com/NPRpubliceditor/status/1319281101223940096
HamsterDan
I guess you can applaud Trump for taking the high ground here, but what he should have done is fired NPR and PBS's leadership and replaced them with rightwing equivalents. Maybe then Democrats would finally understand why it's so offensive to use taxpayer money to fund political propaganda.
DudeOpotomus
We elected the dumbest man in history, and let him pack his cabinet and administration with the dumbest people in society.
All while Congress has completely usurped their duty and bowed down to a man, who now considers himself King.
Trump has 15 months before he is neutered politically and 20 before he is impeached and replaced or passes away (he is not a healthy man). What happens in that timeframe depends on what YOU let happen. What are YOU going to do?
throw7
I'm fine with U.S. pulling back funding for CFPB. I always found it ironic that corporate supported CSPAN has done a great job of informative programming while CFPB/NPR is barely listenable/watchable.
IMO, it really goes to show, it's not necessarily funding sources, but a matter of leadership/authority. The captain steers the boat so to speak. I've always been impressed with Brian Lamb.
jmward01
People love the idea that the pendulum always swings back but that is survivor bias. The graveyard of history is filled with civilizations where the pendulum failed to swing back the last time. I have no faith that the US is exempt from history, but that doesn't mean we can't at least try to defy it. No reason we can't at least try to push the pendulum back one more time and put in place better safeguards. Get out there. Vote because you still can. Write your representatives because you still can. Boycott because you still can. Tell people they are wrong when they spout hate and lies. Do the things you still can because it is now clear that there are things you can't do freely and that list, unfortunately, is growing.
vjulian
All news organizations come with an editorial perspective or bias. Why is this so difficult for news organisations to admit? (I’m an NPR listener, by the way.)
ncr100
It is a shame the US Presidency is arguably hurting the US by reducing its soft power, education, national defense.
It has failed to argue that it is in a National Emergency of Invasion as justification for deporting citizens and aliens without Due Process.
golemotron
The idea that Congress can set up agencies that are outside the control of the Executive needs to be revisited. It leads to rogue, unaccountable bureaucracy.
ck2
He keeps doing illegal things because there is absolutely no penalty for being unlawful
Congress fully funded CPB (NPR, PBS, etc.) through September 2027
in the Continuing Resolution PASSED THIS YEAR BY THIS CONGRESS
smeg_it
From my understanding other presidents, on both sides, have pushed the boundaries/limits of executive orders but, as far as I understand it, his use is unprecedented. I had to read the wiki on them, but it's not supposed to be used outside of the executive branch unless supported by law or the constitution. I guess the grey area is "implied" in the below portion from Wikipedia.
"The delegation of discretionary power to make such orders is required to be supported by either an expressed or implied congressional law, or the constitution itself"
If something were to be de-funded, it should be done by the congress as that's where it was initially funded right?
It seems to me the our checks and balances are failing. The judicial branch, at least at the highest level, seems to be mostly supporting him, even when they don't have much or any constitutional ground to do so.
arctics
I find the whole discussion here that Trump is Hitler propagated by our government is quite amusing, yet again reaffirming 1960s, 1980s, 2000s were inconsequential. Asch paradigm still dominates our reasoning after so many years of grinding for liberal values.
thebiglebrewski
You can say all you want about NPR or PBS being "left-leaning". But isn't this just a symptom of them telling the truth vs the lies that are spouted out of this administration every single day? If you report the truth now, I guess you're "left-leaning" or "biased" vs reporting whatever the admin says as fact with no comment or fact checking.
NPR and PBS fact check their reporting and have real journalists. Fox News lies all of the time on the air and has media personalities as hosts. Yes, of course, there's no absolutes and some hosts or shows are more biased than others, and people make mistakes. Hosts show their biases unconsciously sometimes too. If your host lives in New York for instance, their views are shaped by that, vs if they live in Kentucky.
But this politicization of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service is ridiculous and just shows how much this administration is trying to get us into a post-truth world. Facts matter!
Don't succumb to this Culture of Fear.