The NPR Story: Why the US Interior Department is Set to Lie with the Government, and How Congress Will Ensure It’s Eliminated

It was reported by NPR Correspondents David Folkenflik and Scott Neuman. It was edited by the deputy editor and the Managing Editors. Under NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

The White House is proposing that virtually all federal funding for public media – so NPR and PBS – that it be eliminated. The Trump administration has drafted a memo to Congress outlining its intent to cut that money, a move that the broadcasters say would be devastating to American communities nationwide. Here at NPR, we report on ourselves just as we would any other organization, and my colleague, NPR’s Scott Neuman, has been working this story today. Hi, Scott.

Fired USIP employees are now suing the Trump administration. The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters will soon be leased to the U.S. Labor Department, according to the US Justice Department attorney. The judge overseeing the case has, to date, declined to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the transfer of assets to the government, although she said the administration has adopted a “bull in a china shop” approach.

The White House succeeded in previously unimaginable ways by the help of Washington D.C. police officers who forced their way into the U.S. Institute of Peace. The Institute is funded by Congress but it is not an independent nonprofit like the CPB.

The Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and the Alaska Public Radio Network: a lawsuit against the Trump administration in the early March congressional hearing

Those lawsuits argue that Trump has exceeded the powers of the presidency, eroded due process and violated free speech rights.

A judge in New York has placed a temporary restraining order on the attempt to shut down the Voice of America. In Washington, D.C., another judge ruled the government had to keep sending funds that Congress already had committed to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The agency and Congress encourage them to increase their share of private financial support. For years they have worked with the FCC to make sure their spots fall within guidelines. Other news organizations supported by the U.S. government have also moved into the crosshairs in the early months of the Trump administration.

In making the move, the president appears to be drawing impetus from a House Oversight subcommittee hearing in late March. NPR and PBS’ chiefs were summoned to testify by the panel, which accused the networks of being biased against conservatives.

Over its five and a half decades of existence, public broadcasting has mostly enjoyed bipartisan support, allowing it to survive periodic conservative pushes to strip the system of taxpayer dollars.

Both PBS and NPR provide locally grounded content and reach more than 99% of the population, at no cost to viewers and listeners. In many states and communities, the stations serve as a key component of emergency and disaster response systems.

The chiefs of public broadcasting testified that removing financial support would wipe out smaller stations and leave areas that are otherwise serviced by corporate-owned media out in the cold. It would also weaken the broader public media system. The funding was vital to Alaska Public Media’s network and to ensuring his reporters’ stories found a broader audience, testified the chief executive.

NPR gets a bit more funding from the federal government than its member institutions, who get 8% to 10% of their funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In turn, they pay NPR to air its national shows. By contrast, PBS and its stations receive about 15% of their revenues from CPB.

A recent stop-gap bill passed by the Republican-controlled US House and Senate affirmed the amount of money Congress allocated for the current fiscal year. The CPB’s budgets are approved by Congress on a two-year cycle in large part to insulate it from political pressures; Congress has appropriated funds through Sept 30, 2027.

A White House Response to Kerger and Maher’s “Memory on National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting Service, and the PBS News Hour”

This comes in the wake of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing in late March, which called PBS CEO Paula Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher to testify on what Republican lawmakers say is biased and woke programming. The heads of public broadcasting emphasized their mission to give free news and programming to America.

Maher talked to Mary Louise Kelly about the memo. NPR’s policy is to cover itself as we would any other organization. NPR newsroom or corporate executives, including CEO Katherine Maher, had no input on the questions for this interview.

Some Republicans felt that the reporting was biased. The chair of the subcommittee that held the hearing said that people can hate us all on their own dime. The chair of the Oversight Committee complained about howNPR covered his investments with a shell company.

“We serve the public interest. It is our mission and isn’t just in our name. Across the country, locally owned public media stations represent a proud American tradition of public-private partnership for our shared common good,” it said.

NPR produces the award-winning news programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered, while PBS is best known for its nightly PBS News Hour and high-quality children’s programming, such as Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

In a statement on Monday that did not refer to the memo, the White House said: “For years, American taxpayers have been on the hook for subsidizing National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.'” The statement includes examples of what the White House said is “trash that passes as ‘news” and “intolerance of non-leftist viewpoints.”

The memo will be sent to Congress when the Senate and the House return from their winter break on April 28, which will give them 45 days to approve or disapprove the changes to the budget.

Why do you think you can’t hate anybody in public media? And that is exactly what you should do about it, Ms. Greene

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NEUMAN: Yeah. Congress has already appropriated $1.1 billion over the next two years for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. NPR and PBS receive some funding from the nonprofit, congressionally chartered body. So essentially, the federal funds for public broadcasting would be cut immediately and then the next two years, so through 2027, the end of the fiscal year.

Maher: We don’t hate anyone in public media. We encourage you to reach out to people from all walks of life by reporting on the news. The voices of the American public are reflected on public media in the same way.

Kelly: Just to put the question to you quite bluntly, to quote the words of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who was running the subcommittee hearing where I know you were just summoned to testify last month, she said, “look, you can hate us on your own dime.” To which you say, what.

Does Public Finance Hold NPR Back? An Anthology for the Future of Public Radio Radio: What Does Public Funding Really Hold Us Back?

Would we be able to thrive as a national network? That is what I am focused on is we get so much value as public media by being part of a 50-state network that covers 99.7 percent of the American population. If federal funding goes away, that network is absolutely at risk, the quality of service, the ability to cover everyone, people who live in what would otherwise be news deserts. If those local newsrooms were to publish national coverage, then NPR would not be able to pull it off.

Kelly: Just to put one more challenge question to you, because this is a question I get and I want to let you respond to it. Does public funding hold NPR back? And to explain that question, I mean, we are editorially independent. We’re speaking, you and I, right now in the newsroom. I know that. Why don’t you walk away from the money if the main goal is to avoid government influence?

That’s correct. We receive a small amount of our budget. It goes to support things like body armor for journalists covering conflict overseas, extra support for our presidential national elections, all the sorts of things that we want to invest in to ensure that we’re able to report on issues that matter to the public. But generally speaking, most of our operating budget comes from our membership fees, and that’s what allow our members to be able to receive programming. It comes from the support given by the insurance companies. It comes from private donations, individual audience member donations. The same is true for member stations with federal funding making a bigger percentage of their budget.

The biggest effect would be on the NPR network, which is where our audience is most likely listening to right now. There are 100 million of the over one hundred million that goes to public radio each year received by those stations. Rural stations that are quite large or complex in order to be able to receive broadcast or infrastructure costs are very high. You could see that some stations were having to cut back their services.