Republicans are calling for National Public Radio (NPR) to be defunded following a heartfelt article on the organization’s liberal bias by longtime NPR journalist Uri Berliner.
Berliner, a liberal himself, published the detailed exposé in The Free Press on April 9, which has garnered national attention. Berliner points out that NPR has gone from an open-minded organization with a slight “liberal bent” to a fully biased source cherry-picking its stories and opinions to fit a political narrative, rather than relying on uncovering the truth through journalism.
And this bias isn’t limited to news coverage or All Things Considered; NPR’s agenda has leaked into seemingly nonpolitical productions like The Splendid Table, who seem to find a way to use food as a lens for liberal ideologies in every episode.
Berliner points out that NPR’s audience used to be pretty evenly split between political parties, with only slightly more Democrat listeners than Republicans and modarates. Now they cater almost exclusively to liberals. People just don’t trust NPR anymore.
The Harris Poll found that “3-in-10 audience members familiar with NPR said they associate NPR with the characteristic ‘trustworthy.’ ” While that score is higher than many news outlets — Americans trust the media less than ever before — it’s a more concerning statistic when ten out of ten audience members are forced to financially support NPR through their taxes.
Many Republicans, most notably Donald Trump, claim that NPR needs to lose national funding. While it’s easy to agree that we should stop funding biased media, taking away NPR’s funding would require the restructuring of old and interconnected laws.
When the issue comes up, NPR is quick to claim that they only receive about 1% of their funding from the government. In reality, taxpayer dollars pay for a significant portion of NPR’s revenue, just not directly. A complicated process brings taxpayer dollars through local news and radio stations and back to NPR.
Even NPR’s own website says that “Federal funding is essential to public radio’s service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR.”
Sen. Ted cruz called for defunding in a podcast
Pro-Hamas Protestors Sweep America & Dems Yawn plus Bombshell Whistleblower Exposes Radical Bias at NPR–join @benfergusonshow and me for the latest episode of Verdict!https://t.co/kCZaflXjcI
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 12, 2024
Former Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has made comments praising Berliner for his courageous exposé, and calling for an end to .
Berliner, despite the calls to defund his organization, remains hopeful that NPR can change.
“With declining ratings, sorry levels of trust, and an audience that has become less diverse over time, the trajectory for NPR is not promising. Two paths seem clear. We can keep doing what we’re doing, hoping it will all work out. Or we could start over, with the basic building blocks of journalism. We could face up to where we’ve gone wrong. News organizations don’t go in for that kind of reckoning. But there’s a good reason for NPR to be the first: we’re the ones with the word public in our name.”
