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Among the media institutions captured by Progressives in the last half-century or more, and turned into what Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene last week called “radical left-wing echo chambers,” are National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Both of these came under intense scrutiny in Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) hearings last week as Republican lawmakers exposed and humiliated the networks’ leadership for their taxpayer-funded, blatant political bias.
NPR CEO Katherine Maher, most notably, had the nerve to claim something no NPR listener alive could honestly believe, which is that her network delivered “unbiased, nonpartisan, fact-based reporting to Americans.” The committee countered her with the embarrassing revelation that the NPR editorial staff consists of 87 registered Democrats and a grand total of zero registered Republicans.
The lawmakers proceeded to present Maher with years’ worth of a damning litany of her social media posts reflecting the most extreme Left-wing, virtue-signaling perspectives, from support for slavery reparations to denouncing “whiteness” to promoting gender ideology and the use of personal pronouns.
It was stunning to watch her attempt to defend herself by alternately either lying (“I have never said that”), feigning ignorance (“I don’t believe that I read that book”), or backtracking (“I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the last half-decade.”) in response.
She was also overwhelmed by Republican Rep. Brandon Gill’s citations of far-Left editorials at NPR, claiming ignorance again: “I’m not on the editorial side, so…”
With the advent of the Trump administration, Republican leaders are finally finding the backbone to call out the Progressive activists who dominate public broadcasting and to take action on the GOP’s long-standing but previously toothless threat to pull federal funding from these Left-wing echo chambers – a move President Trump himself favors. “It’s a very biased view, you know that better than anybody,” he told a reporter at the White House on Tuesday, prior to the hearings, “and I’d be honored to see it end.”
That bias extends almost as far back as the very founding of these networks at the beginning of the 1970s, as anyone old enough can attest. Remember Left-wing propagandist Bill Moyers? Moyers was literally a key player in the very creation of the public broadcasting system. His first PBS series, This Week with Bill Moyers, began airing in 1971. NPR too began broadcasting that same year, at a time when America had already been sharply divided for years by the Vietnam anti-war movement, and the Left saw the opportunity to take to the airwaves, assisted by government funding, to foment subversion and push Progressive causes.
Indeed, the Left-wing bias at public broadcasting swiftly became so normalized over the decades that the intensifying of activism and propaganda in recent years makes the bias seem new, to some. On Friday, journalist Matt Taibi published a timeline of the NPR/PBS funding debate. In it he noted that former NPR editor Uri Berliner helped drive scrutiny of the network with an April 2024 essay about its lack of viewpoint diversity. The critical essay resonated with Taibbi, who also had become
increasingly disillusioned with NPR. For years, I used to say that I would have left journalism if it weren’t for public radio. It was the truth. NPR was a place for conversations with people of diverse viewpoints and, of course, rich storytelling. As Berliner notes, that started to change at NPR after Trump was elected in 2016.
What? NPR was fair and balanced until 2016, and began to change only after Trump was elected? Both Berliner and Taibbi are frankly dead wrong on this. They are ignoring many decades of NPR’s and PBS’ contempt for political even-handedness – which the David Horowitz Freedom Center has been challenging for over 35 years.
In 1988, back when the Freedom Center was known as the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, Horowitz founded COMINT, the Committee for Media Integrity, to hold the media accountable for political bias. The organization published a newsletter, also called COMINT, which in part strove to pressure PBS programs to have the editorial integrity, as public broadcasters, to maintain political neutrality.
The journal launched with a lead article called “Missing Balance in PBS History” and in subsequent issues continued to hold the network’s feet to the fire for what even then were its “well-known political and cultural biases.”
In “Perceptions of Integrity” from the Spring 1991 issue, for example, COMINT blasted PBS for steamrolling right over its own claims of high standards of editorial neutrality:
Where are PBS’ standards? Obviously standards that are inconsistently or intermittently applied are no standards at all. Because they are unfairly applied, they become instruments instead for hidden agendas, and thus a threat to the cardinal principles of balance and fairness. Because this issue of standards and practices is so central to the identity, integrity and mission of public television, the inconsistencies… ought to be the cause of considerable concern for public television officials.
The COMINT article concluded that,
from top to bottom, public television executives speak with a single voice. They are either aware that the very standards which justify the existence of their medium are regularly ignored and inequitably applied and just don’t care, or they are unable to recognize the unpleasant reality of their own arbitrary, one-sided and capricious governance, which would be more unfortunate still.
Last week’s Congressional hearings demonstrated for the world to see that the above description of Progressive public broadcasting executives still holds true.
Neither network is going to fold without taxpayer dollars. PBS gets only 16 percent of its funding from the federal government; NPR a mere 1 percent. They’ll do just fine without taxpayers being obligated to pay for propaganda.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
imagine , a group of feckless individuals and propagandists being paid to destroy the country they hate and suck the life out of but wont leave ! am i missing something here ?
I knew there was a reason I always hated those channels, or programs or bandwidths, or whatever they’re supposed to be called.
So good that I helped pay for that inundation of suck.
Nazi Propaganda Radio(NPR) and the Propaganda Broadcasting System(PBS)no one should bother watching or Listening to it Period Go Cold Turkey on the whole thing
Done and done.
I have to admit though, NPR used to play good classical music at night or on the weekends or whenever they stopped nattering about HIV, women’s lib and Donald Trump is the Devil. The DJs were dorks and chose obscure pieces just to seem cool and edgy but I liked the music because it wasn’t the stuff I already had on my CDs.
But Hell, yes. De-fund that shit. I can go to my local library if I want to check out some obscure classical music, or just use the menu on my Samsung TV. And I don’t have to hear some steel gray haired woman in sensible shoes go on about how wonderful Hillary is and pant suits are cool.
The PBS of earlier days did not promote and honor the Black Panthers as they did lately. PBS has become far left.
” Finding the backbone to call out the progressive activists ” Jim Jordan and his committee are going to tangle with
NPR and PBS this week-lets see if they just wave their arms around and tango with them or not. I’m not holding my
breathe.
I’d like to hear more from Congressman Gill please!
Boy, that is one ugly, liberal, woman. You can always tell. Leftist women all have “dead eyes”, you can see the demonic evil inside of them. Pick any leftist women in Congress, or, that they call to testify. ALL of them have evil eyes.
Just an observation.
I noticed that too. Could you imagine waking up next to something like that and have it looking at you? Fuck that shit. The tramps and whores I prefer are mostly cheap but they aren’t psychos.
Jews have horns, right ? You are a modern genius. Any other bits of uncanny wisdom?
The committee grilling Comrade Maher was unnecessary and a waste of time. The historic record of what NPR and PBS has been doing goes way back. They are another Leftist propaganda outlet that has been bashing Republican’s and conservatives none stop for decades. Using the tax money of the people they hate to assist spewing their hate is deeply insulting to Normal American’s. Cut off the government funding immediately. Something that the useless republicans should have done a long time ago.,
Well said. Leftists are parasites. They can’t live without a host, which they always eventually kill. Leftists are evil people. Period. Debating otherwise is not an intelligent conversation, given history is littered with hundreds of millions of dead leftist’s have gleefully murdered.
And , for some reason GWB just kept giving Michelle Obama candy ..
Ugh. Did he have her sit on his lap?
All Things Considered, said no one ever.
catching up? really. once it was said every man a king.
Now it is only one man a king. That is the state of your folks. sadly.
I so much appreciate how David Horowitz came over to our side from the far left. His thoughts on political and societal issues have great value to many within his immense sphere of influence.
The federal government should not be paying for such biased, dishonest and radical views. God bless President Trump and Elon Musk for actually doing something about it. Their personal bravery is astounding.
Mr. Horowitz was even ahead of me on the curve…..
Quote from my article below.
“*Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It is editorial policy that virtually every historical program on Public Television include some racial aspect, even if it is largely irrelevant to the subject and has nothing to do with America today. This is part of the dumbing down of America, required to cause race relations to deteriorate to the point we now see with unfettered attacks on Whites by Blacks and the rise of Communist organizations like Black Lives matter. This is a key part of the destabilization required to bring Communism to America.”
The Save Elmo idiots have proven their total idiots