WASHINGTON — Public broadcasting stations are finding themselves at the center of a partisan debate about whether the federal government should provide taxpayer dollars to stations that Republicans argue amplify misinformation about conservatives.
The House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) held its first hearing examining NPR and PBS and whether the nonprofit stations have devolved into “leftist media outlets” that target the Republican Party. Conservatives have long vowed to crack down on the public broadcasting stations as GOP lawmakers have sought to defund them for decades.
“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,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who serves as chairwoman of the subcommittee, said in her opening remarks. “The ‘news’ that these entities produce is either resented — or, increasingly, tuned out — by most of the hard-working Americans who are forced to pay for it. They no longer view NPR and PBS as trusted news sources.”
Both PBS and NPR are partially funded through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was authorized by Congress in 1967. Every year, Congress appropriates funds to the CPB which are then distributed to more than 1,500 public media stations through community service grants.
Less than 1% of NPR’s total funding comes from the federal government, but local stations that receive those grants pay fees to NPR.
NPR had $11.2 million in operating revenue provided by the CPB in 2024, according to CEO Katherine Maher, who said the funds ensured news and information was provided to all local public radio stations.
“This is a critical investment that allows us to maintain the national Public Radio Satellite System infrastructure, enabling public radio and emergency alerting to reach every corner of America,” Maher said.
Republicans accuse NPR and PBS of promoting propaganda
Throughout the hearing, a common theme cropped up among Republicans’ line of questioning: Have the broadcasting stations devolved into “radical, left-wing echo chambers” that only promote one point of view?
Republicans on the committee pressed Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger on the matter, citing instances over the last five years in which GOP lawmakers believe the stations deliberately chose not to report on issues such as the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 election or the origin theories of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our current editorial leadership thinks that was a mistake, as do I,” Maher said in response to a question from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on why NPR deemed the Biden story a “distraction.”
“Yeah, the whole country knows that was a mistake,” Jordan shot back.
Republicans also dug into personal comments Maher has made expressing her own political views, including social media posts in 2020 when she described President Donald Trump as a “racist” and a “sociopath.” At the time, Maher did not work at NPR but was the CEO and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.
However, Maher told lawmakers she regretted those tweets and maintained she has no editorial control over NPR’s coverage.
Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., ripped into the broadcasting stations, accusing the two of no longer reporting news but rather spreading “propaganda.”
“I don’t even recognize the station anymore. It’s not news,” Comer said. “I feel like it’s propaganda. I feel like there’s disinformation every time I listen to NPR and, you know, a media entity like MSNBC or Huffington Post that, in my opinion, consistently spews disinformation. They can do that, that they’re a private company, but NPR gets federal funds.”
Democrats defend services, accuse GOP of ‘distracting’ from Trump administration blunders
Democrats pushed back against Republicans’ characterizations, accusing their GOP counterparts of targeting nonpartisan organizations to distract from the Trump administration and its controversial policies.
“The idea that you want to shut down everybody that is not Fox News is (expletive),” Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said. “We need to stop playing.”
Instead, many Democrats used their opening remarks to focus on recent news reports that a journalist was inadvertently included in a group chat detailing airstrike planes on Yemen, excerpts of which were published by The Atlantic on Wednesday morning.
The White House has maintained no classified information or war plans were shared in the thread despite screenshots published by The Atlantic showing officials listing time stamps and specific types of U.S. military aircraft used in the attack.
“Meanwhile, the Trump administration has engaged in an actual disinformation campaign to minimize the catastrophic national security breach that was revealed earlier this week,” Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., said in his opening remarks.
Some Democrats focused their arguments on alternative services NPR and PBS provide, such as children’s educational programming, weather alerts, and disaster alerts.
Reps. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., and Greg Casar, D-Texas, poked fun at their Republican colleagues, accusing them of wanting to censor beloved “Sesame Street” characters over concerns of “woke indoctrination.”
“Is Elmo now, or has he ever been, a member of the Communist Party? Are we silencing pro-cookie voters?” Garcia asked. “Are Bert and Ernie part of an extreme homosexual agenda?”
The CEOs of NPR and PBS pointed to what they see as crucial services provided by their broadcasting stations, arguing they are the only non-paywalled outlets to provide such services to some rural areas.
“In places that serve more rural, distributed, or lower income communities, that dollar goes even further — public radio is very often the only news service in places where market economics does not support the expense of local news,” Maher said.