Below is my column in the Hill on the effort to end the federal subsidy for National Public Radio, an effort that was greatly advanced by the testimony of its Chief Executive Officer. After imploding at a House hearing, NPR’s Katherine Maher even lost HBO’s Bill Maher who now supports defunding NPR. The Democrats hope to peal off a couple Republicans like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to continue to fund the outlet. The pitch is to again mouth “assurances” that NPR will adopt more balanced coverage, the same assurance given for over a decade as the liberal bias at the outlet only became more pronounced.
Here is the column:
“This is NPR.”
Unfortunately for National Public Radio, that proved all too true this week. In one of the most cringeworthy appearances in Congress, Katherine Maher imploded in a House hearing on the public funding of the liberal radio outlet.
By the end of her series of contradictions and admissions, Maher had made the definitive case for ending public funding for NPR and state-subsidized media.
Many of us have written for years about the biased reporting at NPR. Not all of this criticism was made out of hostility toward the outlet — many honestly wanted NPR to reverse course and adopt more balanced coverage. That is why, when NPR was searching for a new CEO, I encouraged the board to hire a moderate figure without a history of political advocacy or controversy.
Instead, the board selected Katherine Maher, a former Wikipedia CEO widely criticized for her highly partisan and controversial public statements. She was the personification of advocacy journalism, even declaring that the First Amendment is the “number one challenge” that makes it “tricky” to censor or “modify” content as she would like.
Maher has supported “deplatforming” anyone she deems to be “facsists” and even suggested that she might support “punching Nazis.” She also declared that “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction [in] getting things done.”
As expected, the bias at NPR only got worse. The leadership even changed a longstanding rule barring journalists from joining political protests.
One editor had had enough. Uri Berliner had watched NPR become an echo chamber for the far left with a virtual purging of all conservatives and Republicans from the newsroom. Berliner noted that NPR’s Washington headquarters has 87 registered Democrats among its editors and zero Republicans.
Maher and NPR remained dismissive of such complaints. Maher attacked the award-winning Berliner for causing an “affront to the individual journalists who work incredibly hard.” She called his criticism “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”
Berliner resigned, after noting how Maher’s “divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR” that he had been pointing out.
For years, NPR continued along this path, but then came an election in which Republicans won both houses of Congress and the White House. The bill came due this week. Much of NPR’s time to testify was exhausted with Maher’s struggle to deny or defend her own past comments.
When asked about her past public statements that Trump is a “deranged, racist sociopath,” she said that she would not post such views today. She similarly brushed off her statements that America is “addicted to White supremacy” and her view that the use of the words “boy and girl” constitute “erasing language” for non-binary people.
When asked about her past assertion that the U.S. was founded on “black plunder and white democracy,” Maher said she no longer believed what she had said.
When asked about her support for the book “The Case for Reparations,” Maher denied any memory of ever having read the book. She was then read back her own public statements about how she took a day to read the book in a virtue-signaling post.
She then denied calling for reparations, but was read back her own declaration: “Yes, the North, yes all of us, yes America. Yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day.” She then bizarrely claimed she had not meant giving Black people actual money, or “fiscal reparations.”
When given statistics on the bias in NPR’s hiring and coverage, Maher seemed to shrug as she said she finds such facts “concerning.”
The one moment of clarity came when Maher was asked about NPR’s refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. When first disclosed, with evidence of millions in alleged influence-peddling by the Biden family, NPR’s then-managing editor Terence Samuels made a strident and even mocking statement: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
Now Maher wants Congress to know that “NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner.”
All it took was the threat of a complete cutoff of federal funding.
In the end, NPR’s bias and contempt for the public over the years is well-documented. But this should not be the reason for cutting off such funding. Rather, the cutoff should be based on the principle that democracies do not selectively subsidize media outlets. We have long rejected the model of state media, and it is time we reaffirmed that principle. (I also believe there is ample reason to terminate funding for Voice of America, although that is a different conversation.)
Many defenders of NPR would be apoplectic if the government were to fund such competitors as Fox News. Indeed, Democratic members previously sought to pressure cable carriers to drop Fox, the most popular cable news channel. (For full disclosure, I am a Fox News legal analyst.)
Ironically, Fox News is more diverse than NPR and has more Democratic viewers than CNN or MSNBC.
Berliner revealed that according to NPR’s demographic research, only 6 percent of its audience is Black and only 7 percent Hispanic. According to Berliner, only 11 percent of NPR listeners describe themselves as very or somewhat conservative. He further stated that NPR’s audience is mostly liberal white Democrats in coastal cities and college towns.
NPR’s audience declined from 60 million weekly listeners in 2020 to just 42 million in 2024 — a drop of nearly 33 percent. This means Democrats are fighting to force taxpayers to support a biased left-wing news outlet with a declining audience of mainly affluent white liberal listeners.
Compounding this issue is the fact that this country is now $36.22 trillion in debt, and core federal programs are now being cut back. To ask citizens (including the half of voters who just voted for Trump) to continue to subsidize one liberal news outlet is embarrassing. It is time for NPR to compete equally in the media market without the help of federal subsidies.
If there was any doubt about that conclusion, it was surely dispatched by Maher’s appearance. After years of objections over its biases, the NPR board hired a CEO notorious for her activism and far-left viewpoints. Now, Maher is the face of NPR as it tries to convince the public that it can be trusted to reform itself. Her denials and deflections convinced no one. Indeed, Maher may have been the worst possible figure to offer such assurances.
That is the price of hubris and “this is NPR.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
I listened to our local NPR station out of the Adirondaks all through the 90’s and ever so slowly I noticed subtle changes in content and ideology. When they fired Juan Williams it was plain to see what was happening and I stopped listening. I’m certain this happened to many who had not bought in to the progressive push to label conservatives a sort of sub-human troglodyte and elevate progressives into a snobby, sparky, know-it-all superior class of being.
Why we still fund such an entity at this time is because of inertia on our part, and finally someone has stood up and pointed out this misuse of public funds.
It was glorious to watch Ms. Maher squirm as, again, we saw the shameful exposure of the obfuscation and attempted manipulation of those from NPR/PBS to try and continue to con us.
We need to sharpen our senses to the many grifts as we expose more and more the rot at our government’s core.
It also seems ironic that my husband ans I are currently re-visiting that old BBC production of I Claudius as it parallels so much of what is happening now the slight resemblance of Ms. Maher to Livia who ALWAYS knew what was best for Rome.
I, Claudius still is the best television ever made. Brava!
OMG YES! Agree about “I, Claudius”. I own the complete DVD set. Time to enjoy it again.
A favorite line in the series comes from Livia: “Don’t touch the figs.”
Kudos to Robert Graves!
Indeed, Catherine. Only a classical scholar could write a historical novel of that caliber. One of Graves’ sources was the actual memoir of Claudius; it was written primarily in Latin.
I, Claudius is considered one of the best novels of the 20th century 🙂
I. Claudius was one of the best shows ever produced and it sadly shows what PBS could be. But alas, those days are so far gone as to be totally unrecoverable today.
Juan Williams was trashed by PBS due to some fake outrage over worrying about Muslims on his plane back right after 2001 and yet today he sits pinch faced on Fox, the network that saved him, as if he is sitting at a Klan meeting. He is useless.
As for Livia, she is a giant of history, one of the greatest and most influential figures, especially women, of the ancient world. Augustus was only half the team.
Hullbobby-Livia was indomitable. And it was said that women had no real role in ROME? What a joke. Women always have a role and usually far greater than their official one. And my wife approved this message.
As we were watching I Claudius last evening (it was the one with Livia’s death scene) my husband remarked that perhaps hillary had used Livia as a mentor/guide into the world of politics (that plus the Saul Alinksy handbook) must have made her into what she is today.
Hullbobby, you might be right. Poor Livia. Many Romans treaty history as a propaganda by scholarly means. Striking but sad similarity to scholarship today. The difference is that the Romans told much more interesting lies.
I have to agree, the subtlety of Livia in her various machinations puts pelosi to shame (although I still have my doubts about Scalia’s death by pillow). Human nature is the same no matter the time frame. Our only hope is to cling to the constitution and the original ethos of our founding fathers. Otherwise we will follow the fate of all great nations that sway from their original values and freedoms.
Maybe we could (tongue in cheek) compare Barbara Bush to Livia since Livia was wife of an emperor and mother of another.
You do realize that I, Claudius was a BBC production don’t you ???
The BBC is entirely funded by the British government through television licensing fees.
If you own a television in Britain then you must pay an annual licensing fee of $220 per television receiver.
That is $220 per television, not per household.
For 2 televisions you pay $440.
By comparison NPR receives only 1% of its funding from the federal government.
Only one per cent? Then surely it can do just fine without that government funding.
“By comparison NPR receives only 1% of its funding from the federal government.”
The Left still trying to sell that accounting shell game — aka: Lie.
I Claudius was done in the late 70’s when the woke insane hadn’t quite overwhelmed what had been an old and staid culture. I wouldn’t be willing to watch anything made by then lately – too much effort to block out all the woke propaganda inserted within the production.
I used to be a big fan of NPR. For many years, it was the main station I listened to in the car. Thankfully I no longer have a long commute because much of what is on there is no longer worth my time. They still do good work, just what they work on is not worth working on.
Maher’s testimony was a lesson in how to fail. There was so much “I no longer believe that” that it was funny. She’s evolved from her prior views — just not believable.
Katherine Mahar is another casualty of 2020 insanity. The left/media were so intent on destroying Trump that they used the George Floyd murder to incite the far left, moderate left and even many old fashioned Democrats into taking actions that were so outside the mainstream and our own history as to be ruinous to Trump, yes, but also to the country and now we see to many of themselves as well.
It ended for me when after being lectured to by the medical professionals to stay home to protect their lives, which honestly seemed valid at the time, March, April and May 2020, and then seeing these same medical “professionals” not only okaying mass protests by the left, but even stating that racism was such a threat that stopping it is more vital than preventing Covid’s spread. I saw docs and nurses cheering on crowds of thousands as they told us not to go visit Mom and Dad. That was 2020 in a nutshell.
There are many people that rue the day that they tweeted radical garbage in 2020-2021, and now they have to deal with the fallout. Katherine Mahar is just the latest poster-goon for that malady.
Malady Maher
For all of their alleged intellectual superiority, you would have thought that they would have erased all those tweets; but I will assume that their hubris in believing that they are totally correct implied that those old tweets were just badges representing their proper alignment with the new world order or other such garbage.
HullB:
You said, “then seeing these same medical “professionals” not only okaying mass protests by the left, but even stating that racism was such a threat that stopping it is more vital than preventing Covid’s spread.”
OK, that was NOT a medical decision, that was a PRACTICAL decision. What would have happened if they had told the blacks, “No mass protests! No looting!”?
They would have been ignored, and the protests/looting fests would have gone on anyway. Because the blacks who would have been out there do not give a damn about the law. There would have been violence, and more dead and injured people.
But FRAGILE WHITE LIBERALS can not handle the truth. Therefore, you get the big cover-up lie, and the resulting cognitive dissonance. The Left can hardly come out and say, “Our voter base of blacks are a violent bunch who do not give a hoot about the Law!” So instead, you get, “Racism is so important an issue, that mass protests are OK.”
Floyd, if the medical professionals hadn’t supported huge mass protests at the height of Covid they may not have lost any respect for their authority, but they did. The zeitgeist of 2020 had medical pros saying stay home unless it is to burn down your own city, had white idiots shining the shoes of black people as some sort of atonement and had Pelosi et al trying to kneel with clownish so-called African scarfs around their necks.
2020 was a very harmful year, maybe the worst since 1968, another year in which the left helped ruin the country.
The medical pro’s who were saying protests were ok were in the big Liberal Progressive cities. Out in the real world the message was entirely different. Besides out here in the real world we don’t usually riot and burn down cities unless it’s about something really important like a football game or NCAA basketball .
A retired medical professional.
GEB, with all due respect, and I am not just saying that old standby salutation, the medical profession got swept up in the 2020 racial hysteria, climate hysteria and anti-Trump hysteria and they really hurt the profession. Of course this isn’t fair to all of the medical people that hated what the inner city leftists were doing.
No doubt, taxpayer funding for PBS (which takes the lion’s share of the fed’s $500 million subsidy) and NPR should end. They have outlived their need and are now just another format But the same is true of $900+ million that goes to the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, Asia and much more. The Cold War is over.
DEFUND NPR and other Gov’t sponsored/financed Media. Maher is a Left Wing Elite SNOOB. Her responses and attitude and seemed to forget what she posted on line says it all. Yes, Defund NPR. I use to enjoy NPR when driving long distances but stopped listening to it several years ago due to their Liberal Left Wing Biased.
How Dare Trump Defund the Propaganda Machine?
I have been an opponent of any Taxpayer funding to NGO’s and MSM or propaganda division outlets for the Government. This is overdue and frankly should have been against the Law. When Congress has the ability to make Laws that bind itself from spending our money on their addictions!!!!!
As a slinger of pure distraction yourself, here and at fox, I’m sure NPR’s dedication to defending against purely distractive and empty rhetoric such as what you spew is infuriating to you, Turls.
But sometimes we just have to turn that frown upside down and stop being such a piss boy, right?
Party on!!
Always miss the point? Never heard of principles? How Left of you!
But Moron, taxpayers don’t fund Fox do they? That is the point, but you can’t see it.
Oh, they see it, but their simpleton tools, like this particular anonymous 7:55, aren’t even aware of their use as foils against truth.
Aww hullslobby, someday there will be pills invented that will enable you to stop moaning at the cretin circle jerk and stop having to wear head protection at all times in order to protect against the inevitable.
Anonymous 7:55 AM-Too bad you never met Livia in person. You might never have been whole again.
You also spout drivel on a regular basis.
You are the poster child for the total indoctrination of a limited intelligence person who is viewed as a tool by the progressive machine. I do hope you wear your badge of obedience everyday to show your loyalty to those who have poisoned your mind. Your kind will NEVER convince the truly free mind that you have anything of worth to offer so I will just suppose that your cult membership in the prog/slog to utopia compels you to look this insipid and controlled – good luck with that.
Actually you, like all the other magats blowing their cookies over what I said, completely miss the point. Not surprising. This particular Turley push piece is yet another example of his wildly partisan and hypocritical treatment of the issue of free speech. He utterly misses the fact this is about the right’s attempt to censor through budgetary smash and grab. Not that you’d ever be able to realize it. Enjoy the fever dream…, the internal visuals must be awesome.
Also see:
Did NPR, PBS write their own obituaries before Congress? Some lawmakers think yes
https://justthenews.com/government/npr-pbs-write-their-own-obituary-congress
K. Maher’s self-documenting lies exemplify the left woke clowns that lead today’s Liberals and Democrats. Those labels are now unsalvageable, if any reasonable folks still hunker under either of those clouds, they need to come out, redefine themselves, and adopt a new identity.
A penny for your thoughts, twenty bucks to make it so.
Defund them already. Pass a law halting any disbursement as of signing and remove them from all future budgets. Show me. Do it.
Or write a proverbial “strongly worded letter”
Which do you think our feckless, so-called representatives will choose?
Perhaps a DEI system, demanding equal time for ideologies of a conservative nature and at least 50% of staffing be conservative as a mandate for continued funding. What a hoot that would prove to be; can’t you see the discomfort of all those snarky elitist progs needing to share office space with others who consider them nothing but indoctrinated bots for the left.
There would be no general consensus around the water cooler that they were, of course, perfectly right and superior in their views and, also, someone might put up a MAGA poster – OMG.
NPR has drifted so far left since Obama 2 that it can’t see the shores of common sense. No wonder they hired Maher and don’t understand why open-minded folk want to see the umbilical cord cut (not that it would changed the minds of those who’ve swallowed the woke agenda).
A cessation of funding will become “an attack on Democracy” and a tragedy of horrific consequences. The screams of outrage from the Left will go on for years to. Watch who votes against stopping taxpayer funding. It will be telling.
And don’t forget an ‘existential threat’ too.
They have talked about it for years—the time is now.
Pulling the plug on public funding is part of the media rebirth currently sweeping America. People will have to pay for quality news and conversation, because good journalists aren’t going to do it for free.
“…because good journalists aren’t going to do it for free”
Does that imply that you believe that the horrible “journalists” are/were lying without remuneration?
I wonder how the Dems are going to feel about Bills WH visit?
well said Professor. It’s bout time that the government took the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which includes PBS and NPR, off the payroll. Let them sink or swim in the marketplace. I might miss Masterpiece Mystery, but someone might pick up the better stories
Three cheers! Please include the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the group of Just Outright Propaganda outfits living off of public money.
Don’t forget how the Leftards in government have also been indirectly funding legacy media too! And if and when HHS Secretary RFK, eliminates Big Pharma ads from being run on those networks, the “bloodbath” will be spectacular!
The only way this liberal insanity ends is by self immolation. Thankfully they’re fueling their own demise.
Anonymous 6:15 AM- The immolation should be spectacular. You will probably be able to see the light all the way to Manassas or maybe even Fredericksburg.