Should NPR, PBS get government funding?

Wednesday’s DOGE subcommittee hearing included the CEOs of NPR and PBS, Katherine Maher and Paula Kerger. We discuss the issue of federal funding from multiple angles.

Air Date: March 27, 2025 12:00 pm

Katherine Maher of NPR, at left, and Paula Kerger of PBS are scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill about the federal funding their organizations receive. (StephenVoss/NPR and Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

Republican leaders in Congress are pushing to cut federal funding for NPR and PBS by eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

During a DOGE subcommittee hearing Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), led interrogations of NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger.

Republicans questioned why media outlets they perceive as biased against conservative worldviews should receive federal funding in an era when smartphones give widespread access to a multitude of other news and information services.

Democrats on the subcommittee defended the need for public media as a way to serve people in rural news deserts, and to offer a public good as a long-term investment in the value of non-paywalled local news gathering, educational programming, and quality offerings for children.

NPR’s Maher also addressed tweets she made before becoming CEO last year, including one calling President Trump a “deranged racist sociopath,” saying she regretted the decision. She also agreed with Republican questioners that criticized NPR’s lack of coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, both of which also occurred before she became CEO. She also outlined ways that NPR has bolstered its editorial standards.

On this episode of Studio 2, we look at the question of government funding for public media and step back to look at the larger context of the Trump Administration’s attacks on news media. Those have included labelling the press the “enemy of the people,” calling CNN and MSNBC “Illegal” and “corrupt,” slashing government-employed journalists at Voice of America, and barring the Associated Press from accessing the Oval Office and Air Force One.

Our guests include Uri Berliner, a longtime NPR editor whose 2024 critique of what he saw as NPR’s leftist leanings was cited many times by Republicans at Wednesday’s panel.

Guests:

Brian Stelter, CNN chief media analyst
Uri Berliner, contributing editor of The Free Press
Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Institute

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