"Drain The Swamp" Committee Now Focused on NPR and PBS

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee announced that it is now looking at waste in both National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

In two letters sent to the CEOs of the outlets - Katherine Maher and Paula Kerger - Marjorie Taylor Greene, the DOGE subcommittee chair, called on them to testify on Capitol Hill to defend the government funding they use to share 'systematically biased content.'

Greene said that the department plans to address its concerns about the station's 'blatantly ideological and partisan coverage' at the hearing, scheduled for either the week of March 3 or March 24. 

Be informed, not misled.

In each letter, the subcommittee gave examples of 'biased' reporting done by both NPR and PBS against Elon Musk - the head of DOGE - and cited NPR's decision to not report on Hunter Biden's laptop scandal. 

In the one sent to Kerger, the subcommittee said: 'Recently PBS implied that Mr. Elon Musk made a fascist salute while addressing an inaugural celebration hours after President Donald Trump was sworn into office,' referring to the Tesla CEO's hand gesture that's sparked major controversy online. 

'The characterization was clearly false,' it continued, turning to a statement made by the Anti-Defamation League that said Musk 'made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.' 

The letter sent to Maher cited NPR's decision to not report on a laptop belonging to the former president's son, which contained data critics claim implicates members of the Biden family in a corruption scandal. 

The subcommittee then cited a statement made by NPR in October 2020 in regard to the laptop, stating: 'We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions.' 

The Washington Post is worried.

The Post says, "President Donald Trump’s newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS over their alleged 'airing of commercials,' and suggested that the public broadcasters could be at risk of losing their federal funding."

“I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” Brendan Carr wrote to the heads of both organizations Wednesday. “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”

In the letter, Carr said Congress is “actively considering whether to stop” funding NPR and PBS programming, which it has done since the 1967 passage of the Public Broadcasting Act. The query into the broadcasters could be relevant to such funding considerations, he said.

According to NPR, the broadcasting organization receives about 1 percent of its annual budget directly from the federal government; its member stations, on average, get 10 percent of their funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which stewards congressional money. PBS told The Washington Post that 16 percent of its budget comes from the government.

Last week, Carr revived a trio of complaints from the law firm Center for American Rights aimed at NBC, ABC, and CBS. The center alleged bias in the networks’ coverage of the 2024 election, including accusing NBC of violating equal time rules when Vice President Kamala Harris made a cameo appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in the lead-up to Election Day. (Carr’s predecessor, Jessica Rosenworcel, recently dismissed these complaints.)

The Post quotes Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a public interest media lawyer who has brought cases before the FCC, who says, "Carr’s letter was concerning."

“This is rather obviously intended to be a message to intimidate local broadcasters and their politically sensitive boards of directors,” Schwartzman said, adding that the letter gives the appearance that Carr is “acting as if he is under the command of the Trump administration."

It's ironic that the so-called "progressive left" has become so concerned and offended over the bias of the press being exposed after years of lounging in their cover.

Conservative Media Research Center agrees: Cut the funding.

MRC published this a few years ago:

Congress has debated this year whether taxpayers should provide a half-billion dollars for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which in turn, funds PBS and NPR). House Republicans  proposed on September 29 that the federal funding for CPB should end. Fiscally, it’s an obviously non-essential expense in an era of trillion-dollar deficits – not to mention hundreds of programming choices on cable TV, the Internet, and satellite radio.  But there is another reason for defunding: the absolute refusal of the taxpayer-subsidized public-broadcasting empire to attempt balance and objectivity in all “programming of a controversial nature,” as it says in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Instead, PBS and NPR programmers continue to lurch hard to the left to please liberal Democrats and radical-left activists.

Takeaway

This past May, MRC published an argument they made to a Congressional committee regarding whether NPR should continue to receive tax dollars.

We are here to tell you this has been a problem for a very long time,” MRC’s NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham told members of congress on Wednesday.

“NPR legal reporter Nina Totenberg. Destroyed the Douglas Ginsburg nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987. Then she tried again with Clarence Thomas in 1991,” Graham told members of the Energy and Commerce committee Hearing on ‘Examining Accusations Of Ideological Bias At NPR, A Taxpayer Funded News Entity.’

“NPR is supposed source of civility. Didn't demonstrate they cared one bit about this potential political violence. But in March, between Morning Edition and Fresh Air. Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, was granted an hour of taxpayer funded airtime to reproduce her unproven charges of teenage sexual assault.

Now, most of us what we remember best, as has been mentioned, the exhibit 'A' here of NPR's biases, the New York Post series on Hunter Biden's laptop in October of 2020. Most of the so-called mainstream media tried to dismiss this story falsely as Russian disinformation, but NPR stood out. NPR's so-called ‘public editor’ Kelly McBride quoted Terrence Samuel, NPR's managing editor for news. 

He said, we don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.