Free Republic

Champions of the almost entirely party-line vote in the U.S. Senate to erase US$1.1 billion in already approved funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting called their action a refusal to subsidize liberal media. “Public broadcasting has long been overtaken by partisan activists,” said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, insisting there is no need for government to fund what he regards as biased media. “If you want to watch the left-wing propaganda, turn on MSNBC,” Cruz said. Accusing the media of liberal bias has been a consistent conservative complaint since the civil rights era, when white Southerners insisted news...

For decades, Republicans have argued that if supporters of NPR and PBS were so fond of keeping the purported “news” organizations operational, then they should have no problem forking over the donations needed to keep them going. As it turns out, that is exactly what is happening, with the New York Times reporting that in the aftermath of NPR and PBS losing their federal funding thanks to the GOP-controlled Congress, donations from private citizens have “exploded” at “unprecedented” levels: scoop: donations to NPR and PBS stations have exploded, with donors across the country giving in unprecedented numbers since Congress cut...

It's striking how similar NPR's situation is to that of Planned Parenthood. Both organizations have an affiliate model and both just had a lot of federal money cut from their budgets. That means both are now hoping to find new sources of funding to keep the doors open. The NY Times reports there has been an increase in donations to PBS and NPR but so far the amount isn't nearly enough to offset the cuts.Over the last three months, as the prospect of the cuts intensified, roughly 120,000 new donors have contributed an estimated $20 million in annual value, said...

It’s bad enough that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had been funneling millions in tax dollars to leftist propaganda mills NPR and PBS over the decades. But what if we were to tell you that the CPB funded one of America's "fact-checking" giants backed by George Soros responsible for censoring conservatives on social media platforms for years? Because that’s exactly what we’re about to tell you. MRC Business discovered that the CPB, which is fully funded by tax dollars through federal appropriations, gave $599,330 to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in 2023. Poynter, which runs the left-tilting International Fact-Checking...

NPR's top editor has tendered her resignation days after the radio station lost $500million in federal funding for an alleged bias against conservatives. Edith Chapin, who serves as editor-in-chief and acting chief content officer at National Public Radio, announced her departure on Tuesday. Chapin told an NPR reporter she quit rather than being fired and that she was not leaving due to the funding cuts. She also said she handed in her notice two weeks ago ahead of the cuts, which Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail. NPR has long been blasted by conservatives, former listeners, and even former...

MASERU, Lesotho —Crowds of women, bundled up in wooly hats and mittens against the sharp winter chill, wait every morning at the gates of a garment factory in Lesotho's capital, hoping that a few among them will be called in to work a shift. But no-one comes out and the factory gates – which bear the name of the Taiwanese company that runs it in red Chinese lettering – remain firmly shut. It's one of the few factories in what used to be called "the Denim Capital of Africa" that's still operating after U.S. President Donald Trump announced in April...

The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion in funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday. The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won't be the last. Some Republicans who indicated they were uncomfortable with the cuts,yet supported them anyway. “The money that we're clawing back in this rescissions package is the people's money. We ought not to forget that,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the House Rules Committee....

NEW YORK, NY — Along with NPR and PBS, a state-run propaganda program hosted by Stephen Colbert announced it would be shutting down due to a loss of funding. The Late Show, filmed at the historic Ed Sullivan Theater, transitioned from late-night comedy to officially sanctioned state-run propaganda in 2015 with the hiring of Colbert. Though known for his comedic work at the time, Colbert was reportedly eager to promote government-generated information initiatives in exchange for money. "I thought maybe our ratings were down, but CBS informs me that's not why they fired me," Colbert said, addressing the cancellation on...

Ken Burns has made more than 30 documentaries and won multiple Emmys.But without funding from public television, his educational programming such as "The Civil War" and "Baseball" might never have existed, he told "PBS News Hour" in an interview Thursday.Even today, the acclaimed filmmaker whose works — including his upcoming project "The American Revolution" — are broadcast on PBS, said his films get around 20% of their budgets from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, the body Congress recently voted to defund.

To hear National Public Radio (NPR) CEO Katherine Maher tell it, the loss of federal funding for the public network is as close to nuclear armageddon we can get without, you know, actually experiencing a nuclear attack. No matter. It's really, really, really bad, says Maher. "There's a real understanding of the need there, as well as for emergency alerting, in which public media plays an extraordinarily important role," she said. We absolutely have to have this 19th-century technology to warn rural Americans of an "emergency"? ... As Robby Soave points out, cutting off NPR and PBS from federal dollars...

The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump’s request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda. The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won’t be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda. The House passed the bill by...

It’s finally passed and heading for President Trump's desk for signature. The recissions package has made it over the finish line in a 216-213 vote in the House. It had to be bounced back from the Senate, which passed it on a 51-48 vote, as the upper chamber had made slight adjustments to it during the vote-a-rama process. The GOP has slim majorities in Congress, but they’re getting the Trump agenda through. 216-213:House approved the Trump WH's 1st round of DOGE spending cuts, $9B in foreign aid & public broadcasting from previously approved funding by Congress. Republicans Fitzpatrick (PA) &...

NPR CEO Katherine Maher challenged critics to show her a story that would prove the radio network is biased on Wednesday. Maher defended her organization on CNN's "The Situation Room" as it faces efforts by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to remove its federal funding. Though Trump and other conservative critics have accused NPR of being politically biased towards Democrats, Maher insisted that they "serve all Americans" and seemed to deny any bias. "It doesn‘t help anyone to take this funding away," Maher said. "As far as the accusations that we‘re biased, I would stand up and say, ‘Please...

Early Thursday morning, the U.S. Senate passed its version of the $9 billion rescission bill, bringing the country one step closer to ending the most egregious and indefensible federal spending in the modern era. Public broadcasting. The $500 million a year that taxpayers are forced to fork over for government radio and TV is such a small slice of the $7 trillion spending total, it’s more like a spending “scrape” than a cut. But what these federal funds lack in volume, they make up in stupidity. Whatever the merits of a government-funded radio and TV network in the era of...

Senate Republicans blasted through Democratic and internal opposition to pass President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package early Thursday morning. The final vote tally was 51-48, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining every Democrat in voting against it. The package will now be sent to the House, which has until Friday to pass it. The $9 billion rescissions bill tees up cuts to "woke" spending on foreign aid programs and NPR and PBS that Congress previously approved. Republicans have pitched the bill as building on their quest to root out waste, fraud and abuse...

It takes the undeveloped ego of a toddler to pout this long. But if Elmo on Sesame Street can learn how to share, surely these three can too. For all its concern about a peaceful transfer of power, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are probably not planning a story about the three board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) who have refused to leave the board after Trump removed them in April.Not so long ago — in 2020 and 2021 — PBS and NPR were spreading propaganda that President Donald Trump was going...

The New York Times leadership actually attempted to sell readers on the dimwitted notion that stripping tax dollars from leftist public media is just as nutty as defunding police departments. This is the same newspaper that largely rationalized nixing police funding across a number of stories over the past few years. The Times editorial board went to bat for lefty outlets NPR and PBS, which are on the verge of possibly getting $1.1 billion cut from their mothership Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The newspaper had the utter audacity to argue in a June 16 editorial that continuing literal government-funded...

PBS and NPR stations are on the verge of losing the federal funding that has helped keep them on the air for decades. The Senate is preparing to vote on a rare measure called a “rescission,” which would claw back money that was already budgeted by Congress, including nearly $1.1 billion in funding for public media. Here’s what will happen if lawmakers zero out the funding for PBS and NPR. What will viewers and listeners notice? Over time, some local stations may be forced off the air, while other stations may have fewer shows to broadcast. Stations may have fewer...

The clock is ticking on our tax dollars going to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). They aren’t risking closing, unfortunately, but they are on the verge of facing the exact same pressures as every other television network out there: the ability to pay their own bills by attracting an audience and advertiser or donor dollars. The President’s rescissions package is awaiting passage by Congress to cut a modest $9.4 billion from the federal budget, with most of the funds coming from USAID and the remainder from PBS and NPR. The catch is, it has to...

The X account of Elmo, a Sesame Street hero, posted antisemitic content on Sunday night, calling to "kill the Jews." The content was quickly deleted. In its tweets, Elmo posted, "Kill all Jews." "Elmo says ALL JEWS SHOULD DIE. F-K JEWS. DONALD TRUMP IS NETANYAHU’S PUPPET BECAUSE HE IS IN THE EPSTEIN FILES. JEWS CONTROL THE WORLD AND NEED TO BE EXTERMINATED. “RELEASE THE FILES @realDonaldTrump CHILD F-KER.” Reports said that ten minutes prior to the antisemitic incitement, the hacker posted a photo of Elmo on the moon, wishing readers, "Happy crypto all-time high day, everybody! From Elmo and @onchainstudios....