The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) have landed in the crosshairs of congressional Republicans. In a hearing organized by Marjorie Taylor Greene, titled “Anti-American Airwaves,” the country’s two largest public media networks were accused of being “anti-American,” close to the radical left, publishing fake news, and indoctrinating younger people with programs that support the LGBTQ community.
PBS and NPR executives said such claims were false, arguing that their stations were a key source of accurate information and educational programs for millions of Americans.
The hearing, organized by a new congressional subcommittee, Delivering on Government Efficiency, represented yet another attack on the media in recent months. The Federal Communications Commission questioned the objectivity of major news organizations, and ordered an investigation of PBS and NPR. In fact, public broadcasters and the federal funds that support them have been targeted by Republican lawmakers for decades.
On Wednesday, NPR and PBS executives defended their programming and their importance to listeners and viewers, also pointing out how over the years they have been able to cover news in the nation’s most remote and rural areas.
During the hearing, Greene harshly attacked Katherine Maher, NPR’s current CEO, for her social posts in which she called Trump a “racist” and a “sociopath.” Republicans also cited the experience of Uri Berliner, a veteran NPR editor who argued in an essay last year that the organization was now marked by liberal bias.
During the hearing, moreover, Republicans lost no opportunity to criticize the “communist propaganda” carried out, in their view, by the two networks. The accusations in question drew some hilarity from the ranks of the Democrats, who defended the work done by the organizations, and especially their children’s programs.
Losing the support of federal funds would be no small problem for the two networks. It would mean weakening local news, especially in the nation’s more decentralized areas.
On Monday, the Pew Research Center said a poll conducted this month showed that 43 percent of Americans believe NPR and PBS should continue to receive federal funding.
