Timeline: The NPR/PBS Funding Debate
Can taxpayer-supported media exist in a heavily partisan political climate? Should it? After extensive controversy over NPR and PBS, the rubber is finally about to hit the road
Research assistance by James Rushmore
The timing of Wednesday’s congressional hearing to debate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was probably perfect, for public radio stations.
It’s spring: fund drive season. The potential loss of federal funding is a big pitch point in encouraging listeners to pony up. It always worked in my 23 years working in public media. This week I tuned in to my former NPR station’s on-air fund drive just to make sure nothing had changed. It didn’t disappoint.
NPR is taking advantage of the moment, which Congressman Jim Jordan noted in this exchange with NPR CEO Katherine Maher during Wednesday’s hearing:
NPR and public media in general have had a higher level of scrutiny in the last year. Former editor Uri Berliner’s critical essay on NPR, published in The Free Press in April 2024, has helped drive that scrutiny. Berliner while still at NPR wrote about the lack of viewpoint diversity within the station, and its bias in its coverage of topics like Covid-19 and allegations that President Trump colluded with Russia. From the piece:
By my count, NPR hosts interviewed [Adam] Schiff 25 times about Trump and Russia. During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.
But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.
Berliner’s essay and revelations about past statements and tweets made by NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, were manna from heaven to longtime critics of public broadcasting.
Berliner’s piece struck a chord with me, as I too 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.
In my case, things took a turn for the worse after the death of George Floyd. All of a sudden there were ridiculous DEI trainings, and I had to help implement an absurd tracking system to document the race and gender of people our reporters interviewed (Berliner writes of a similar system at NPR). That’s not to say we didn’t still do good work, but the illiberal ideals of the mothership had filtered down to local stations.
That’s why I left my station to work for, coincidentally, The Free Press, before coming to work for Racket. Even before Uri’s piece, however, I long believed that NPR and its member stations should lose federal funding. As a journalist, the last thing I wanted was to be dependent on the government.
I also believe federal funding hurts public radio. I’m confident that its fans will give more, or be more likely to give for the first time, if they know that access to the federal teat has been cut off. Why mention all this? Transparency. Although the timeline below is straightforward, it’s something readers should know. Like Berliner, I have a past in public media.
What follows is a timeline of some key moments in the history of NPR, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as well as controversies and debates over federal funding and content involving those organizations.
November 7, 1967
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. The legislation establishes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is charged with providing funds to public radio and television networks.
Upon signing the law, Johnson says:
While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit. That is the purpose of this act.
It will give a wider and, I think, stronger voice to educational radio and television by providing new funds for broadcast facilities.
It will launch a major study of television's use in the Nation's classrooms and their potential use throughout the world.
May 1, 1969
Fred Rogers gives pivotal testimony to the Senate Subcommittee on Communications. President Nixon had proposed cutting funding for public broadcasting in half, from $20 million to $10 million. Contrary to the congressional hearings of today, the committee's chairman, Democratic Senator John Pastore of Rhode Island, let Rogers speak without interrupting him. It took Rogers a little more than six minutes to convince an initially disinterested Pastore to come to his side. Pastore famously concludes by saying, “Looks like you just earned the $20 million.”
November 3, 1969
The CPB establishes PBS and roughly a year later and takes over most functions of National Education Television.
November 10, 1969
Sesame Street debuts with funding from CPB.
February 26, 1970
National Public Radio (NPR) is founded by the CPB.
June 30, 1972
President Richard Nixon vetoes House Resolution 13918, which provides additional funding to the CPB. Nixon criticizes the structure of public broadcasting, arguing that it is too centralized.
There are many fundamental disagreements concerning the directions which public broadcasting has taken and should pursue in the future. Perhaps the most important one is the serious and widespread concern – expressed in Congress and within public broadcasting itself – that an organization, originally intended only to serve the local stations, is becoming instead the center of power and the focal point of control for the entire public broadcasting system.
Nixon’s veto leads the CPB to play a less active role in programming decisions, although its budget grows in later years.
Nov. 5, 1979
Morning Edition premiers on NPR with Bob Edwards as the show’s host.
August 29, 1984
President Ronald Reagan vetoes the Public Broadcasting Amendments Act, which would allocate more than $760 million in funding to the CPB during the three fiscal years between 1987 and 1989. He argues that the bill increases federal funding for public broadcasting “by too much too fast” and asks Congress to send him a more conservative budget.
"Public broadcasting constitutes an important national resource and contributes to the diversity of news, information and entertainment choices available to the American public. Under S. 2436, however, federal funding for public broadcasting would be increased by too much too fast."
March 4, 1992
Senate Republicans attack PBS for its “liberal bias.” The critics include Senators Bob Dole, John McCain and Jesse Helms.
“I have never been more turned off and more fed up with the increasing lack of balance and unrelenting liberal cheerleading I see and hear on the public airwaves,” Dole said.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Helms and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized as unbalanced and inappropriate a PBS series called “P.O.V.,” or “Point of View,” which broadcasts films and documentaries that express opinions.
McCain charged a leftist bias in “Maria’s Story,” a film about a Salvadoran guerrilla, and Helms criticized the film “Tongues Untied,” saying it supported homosexuality.
Defenders included Senator Al Gore, calling critics “a willful band of ideologues.”
“Leave ‘em [public broadcasters] alone. . . . They’re doing a great job,” Gore said.
Republican senators threaten a filibuster on a three-year, $1.1 billion spending plan for CPB, but lawmakers invoked cloture to prohibit that from happening.
Again, from the Los Angeles Times:
The Republicans, led by Dole, reportedly plan a number of amendments, including a so-called anti-smut amendment and a proposal to review CPB funding each year, instead of every three years.
June - August 1992
The Senate approves a $1.1 billion three-year reauthorization for CPB - a 50% increase — but with provisions for more accountability.
President George Bush had threatened a veto, but issued a statement on June 2 that he would support the bill if it had three provisions, including one to “require CPB to take steps to ensure balance and objectivity in its programming.” That amendment prevailed.
The House approves the bill on August 4 with that provision.
December 6, 1994
Incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he plans to “zero out” funding for the CPB.
"One of the things we're going to do this year, I hope, is to zero out the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has been eating taxpayers' money," Gingrich said.
January-August 1995
It appears there is momentum to make cuts to CPB. In January, The Washington Post under the headline Funds Cuts Seem Certain For Public Broadcasting, reports that it’s not a question of whether funding will be cut, but how much.
"The American people do not have to come to the forefront necessarily and underwrite Big Bird and Barney," said House Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston.
Critics at a subcommittee hearing include representatives of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, the Family Research Council, Accuracy in Media, the Media Research Center, and the NRA.
But by August, the House leaves a $240 million appropriation for CPB in place. It was an 8% cut but was considered a victory by supporters of public broadcasting.
September 2003 - November 2005
President George W. Bush appoints Kenneth Tomlinson chairman of the CPB board in September 2003. His tenure is tumultuous as he criticized NPR and PBS for liberal bias. He resigned from the board in disgrace in November 2005.
Tomlinson hired a consultant to research the political leanings of guests on PBS’ Now With Bill Moyers and NPR’s The Diane Rhem Show. He resigned from the board in November with the release of the CPB’s Inspector General’s report that found he broke the law as chairman. From an NPR report:
Tomlinson had demanded that PBS broadcast a show built around the conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, and then dictated the show's structure. As a member of the board, he's prohibited from doing that. CPB is a not-for-profit corporation that distributes federal money to NPR and PBS member stations. The CPB is supposed to insulate public broadcasters from political pressure, but also ensure balance on their news programs.
October 17, 2010
NPR accepts a $1.8 million grant from the Open Society Foundations, an organization headed by George Soros, the billionaire backer of liberal causes and candidates. The money is for a project called “Impact of Government” to add “at least 100 journalists at NPR member radio stations in all 50 states” over a three-year period. NPR’s announcement of the grant did not mention the Open Society Foundations’ ties to Soros.
The grant ignites controversy within and outside the public radio system, as NPR’s ombudsman reports several months later. For example, WBEZ, the NPR station in Chicago, refuses to apply for funding because “this is a very clear crossing of the line.”
December 2010 - 2011
The National Commission for Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a bipartisan group created by President Obama, presents a budget reduction plan that includes a recommendation to eliminate CPB funding
But Obama’s budget includes a slight increase in CPB funding, to $445 million a year.
October 3, 2012
During his first debate with President Barack Obama, Republican nominee Mitt Romney tells moderator Jim Lehrer that he will eliminate taxpayer subsidies for PBS. Romney states that he would end funding for any nonessential program that requires the government to borrow from China.
I’m sorry, Jim. I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m gonna stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not gonna keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.”
June 20, 2012
At the request of Congress, the CPB completes a report that investigates alternative funding sources. The report concludes that “there are no new or alternative sources of revenue, alone or collectively, that could replace CPB‘s annual appropriation.”
April 12, 2015
Sesame Workshop, which produces Sesame Street, reaches a five-year deal, with HBO. Sesame Workshop lost $11 million the previous year.
The agreement provides Sesame Workshop a reported $30 to $35 million a year, allowing it to double the number of Sesame Street episodes. It also means that new episodes are exclusive to HBO for the first nine months. After that, they are available for free on PBS. The partnership came to an end in December 2024.
March 16, 2017
President Donald Trump’s budget proposal would eliminate all funding for the CPB. During an appearance on Morning Joe, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney argues that it’s unfair to require working-class taxpayers to fund the organization.
When you start looking at the places that will reduce spending, one of the questions we asked was, ‘Can we really continue to ask a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs?’ And the answer was no. We can ask them to pay for defense, and we will, but we can’t ask them to continue to pay for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
PBS CEO Paula Kerger notes the proposal comes in a year that marks “the 50th anniversary of the Public Broadcasting Act, what I think has been the most successful public-private partnership – how ironic it would be if we were defunded this year.”
April 9, 2024
Berliner’s essay is published in The Free Press under the headline, “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.” He wrote that after Trump was elected in 2016, reporting “veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.”
He also notes a “burgeoning” number of identity-based affinity groups at NPR.
They included MGIPOC (Marginalized Genders and Intersex People of Color mentorship program); Mi Gente (Latinx employees at NPR); NPR Noir (black employees at NPR); Southwest Asians and North Africans at NPR; Ummah (for Muslim-identifying employees); Women, Gender-Expansive, and Transgender People in Technology Throughout Public Media; Khevre (Jewish heritage and culture at NPR); and NPR Pride (LGBTQIA employees at NPR).
All this reflected a broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic of birth.
The essay prompted renewed calls to defund NPR.
The following day, Elon Musk tweets, “A thorough house-cleaning is needed at NPR.” On Truth Social, Trump posts:
In the aftermath, NPR becomes the subject of more controversy and ridicule as many past tweets of new CEO Maher resurface, like this one:
There was also a video in which she speaks of the First Amendment being the “number one challenge” when it comes to governmental regulation.
March 26, 2025
The title of Wednesday’s Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee meeting was “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable.” A big part of that effort by public broadcasting critics was mentioning or reading portions of Berliner’s 2024 essay throughout the hearing.
Committee Chair Marjorie Taylor Greene delivered a litany of criticisms and accusations in her opening remarks.
NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical left wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy white urban liberals and progressives who generally look down on and judge rural America.
Greene also read a show description of a 2015 Frontline documentary, Growing Up Trans, that refers to it as “an intimate and eye-opening journey inside the struggles and choices facing transgender kids and their families.”
Greene’s conclusion:
This means that PBS is one of the founders of the trans child abuse industry, all while taking taxpayer money…
In making the case for NPR’s value, Maher said in her opening statement that “we are the only non-paywalled news outlet with a dedicated reporter covering veterans’ issues.”
Kerger, the PBS CEO, told the committee that “stations are focused on the needs and interests of the viewers they serve. Especially in rural areas, PBS stations are the only outlets providing coverage for local events, for example, high school sports, local history and culture content, candidate debates at every level of the election ballot, and specialized agricultural news.”
Later in the day, Trump made clear he has no interest in coming to the rescue of NPR and PBS:
And then, at 1:31 a.m. Thursday, he posted this message on Truth Social:
“started to change at NPR after Trump was elected in 2016.”? Are you fucking kidding me? People’s Public radio has always been a left-wing echo chamber.
Great timeline. It also shows that for 50 years there have been some politicians who wanted to cut public funding and it never happened. I hope it happens now. If publicly funded journalism was a right-wing echo-chamber, I would feel the same way.