NPR's Federal Funding in House Commerce GOP Crosshairs Ahead of Bias Hearing

NPR confirmed Monday night that embattled CEO Katherine Maher won't appear during the Wednesday hearing despite an invitation from House Commerce Republicans. “NPR has a previously scheduled and public posted all-day meeting of its Board of Directors” Wednesday, which “will be Maher’s first opportunity to review and consult with the Board … including a strategy to lead NPR forward.” The network “has offered to testify on a date in the near future that works for the Committee and Maher,” who “will provide written testimony in her absence.”

House Commerce members are "going to see where the hearing takes us" on proposals to defund NPR, Chair Cathy Morris Rodgers, R-Wash., told us Tuesday.

House Commerce Republicans’ memo noted NPR’s funding primarily comes “from member stations” and other nonfederal sources, but money for its “17 international reporting bureaus” and content distribution infrastructure “comes from CPB.” During 2023, NPR “received approximately $7 million from the federal government and contracts with CPB,” House Commerce said. Congress allocated CPB $535 million in advance funding for FY 2026 as part of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package President Joe Biden signed in March (see 2403210067). House Appropriations Committee Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to end CPB's advance funding as part of FY24 spending legislation (see 2307140069).

Digital Liberty Executive Director James Erwin's written testimony argues in favor of Congress discontinuing NPR’s federal funding. Media Research Center NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham and American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Howard Husock urge other changes. Past attempts at halting NPR's portion of CPB federal funding have failed, including a bid during the FY 2024 cycle by Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas (see 2311030069).

“State-funded media in general has no place in a free society,” Erwin says. Even “if we assume that NPR is perfectly free from undue influence, how do you suppose they would cover an elected official who advocates cutting their funding because he does not see government radio as the proper role of government, or simply can’t find the money in this year’s budget?” Federal funding “also gives NPR [an] unfair advantage over its competitors,” he says: “NPR should sustain itself on corporate sponsorships, licensing fees, and private donations like its competitors.”

“NPR clearly doesn’t fear congressional oversight of its aggressive biases, on air and online,” Graham says. “The only thing that seems to concentrate the attention of public broadcasters on this subject is the threat of defunding. Even then, it might cause a ‘course correction’ for a few weeks or months, before” it returns to coverage biased “against Republicans. I would suggest NPR should have to come to Congress and defend its content choices at least once a year.”

“Modest changes” to the Public Broadcasting Act “can foster change,” but “we have to let public radio stations across the country keep more of their taxpayer dollars for their own newsgathering rather than having to send them to NPR in Washington,” Husock says. NPR “receives little in direct federal funding but” indirectly relies on it “for 31 percent of its revenue on fees paid by local stations. In other words, the funds which local stations receive from” CPB “through their community service grants are sent back to Washington as NPR fees.” A more “decentralized NPR” in which “local stations will provide not the fees but the news itself … will build a new and more successful business model that serves what it’s meant to serve: a truly national audience,” he says.

Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron urges lawmakers against striking NPR’s federal funding. Congress “should not defund this essential service,” his testimony says. Instead, Congress should increase "funds for public media" and move "them to local communities,” he says. NPR critics are using claims of pro-Democratic bias at the network in a bid to “defang or destroy public media. This, unfortunately, is not a new occurrence, just the latest chapter in a long history of partisan actors attacking NPR personnel on Trumped-up charges of bias.”

Lawmakers “should be worried about the negative impact of such partisan stunts on the more than a thousand local radio stations that rely on federal support to serve the essential needs of their local communities,” Aaron says. “Partisan bias is not a major problem at NPR. If anything, the network is too timid, too cautious, too worried about offending corporate underwriters and government overseers. And the point of these spurious attacks is to make those at the network even more fearful: to work the refs, to box in NPR, and to make journalists and managers think twice about challenging the status quo.”