Below is my column in the Hill on the termination of funding for National Public Radio. Now that we have ended government-sponsored media, the question is whether the media will cease acting like a state media. The good news is that the market could force a correction that the media has largely refused to make.
Here is the column:
With the final elimination of public funding for National Public Radio as part of a $9 billion savings package, the era of the American state media will technically come to an end. However, what makes for state media is not state support alone.
So, the state media is dead — long live the state media.
That variation of the traditional mourning cry of the British monarchy will be heard more in whispers than proclamations this week in Washington.
The government subsidy for NPR has long been a subject of controversy. Many opposed NPR for its open bias in reporting news, a record that thrilled the left and outraged many on the right. Just before the final vote, NPR CEO Katherine Maher gave another interview that left many agape. She denied any such bias and asked whether anyone could point to a single story that showed a political or ideological slant.
Ignoring a myriad of such examples, Maher then went from defiant to delusional, insisting that NPR was trying hard to “understand those criticisms.”
It was a bit late for Maher to feign surprise or confusion, particularly as a CEO whose selection to take over the struggling NPR many of us opposed. Her glaring and overt bias did not seem like the antidote to NPR’s shrinking audience and revenue.
In 2024, NPR had a window to actually “understand” the criticism and make adjustments. Instead, it treated the government subsidy as an entitlement, backed by Democratic members in Congress. The board would have done better to select a neutral journalist. Instead, it doubled down, hiring a candidate with a long record of far-left public statements against Republicans, Trump, and others.
This is the same CEO who attacked respected senior editor Uri Berliner when he tried to get NPR to address its bias and restore greater balance on the staff. Berliner noted that NPR’s Washington headquarters has 87 registered Democrats among its editors and zero Republicans.
Maher slammed the award-winning Berliner for his “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.
But I have argued that NPR’s well-established bias and publication of baseless conspiracy theories are not the real reasons for taking away its federal funding. The truth is, NPR represented an embrace of a state media model used in other countries that Americans thoroughly reject.
Maher bizarrely tried to rally support for government funding by insisting that we must “keep the government out” of the media. Congress just did precisely that by clawing back NPR’s funding.
The government has occasionally supported the media, but generally to benefit all media outlets. For example, in 1791, Madison declared that Congress had an obligation to improve the “circulation of newspapers through the entire body of the people” and sponsored the Post Office Act of 1791, giving newspapers reduced postage rates.
Notably, those same Democrats in Congress who decried the reduction of funding for NPR would have revolted over funding for more successful radio outlets, such as Fox Radio. Indeed, some of the same members had previously pushed cable carriers to consider dropping Fox News, the most popular cable news channel.
What Congress did with prior funding of a single preferred media outlet was wrong. Liberals and Democrats fought to protect the funding even though NPR’s shrinking audience is now overwhelmingly white, affluent, and liberal.
However, the end of government subsidies will not necessarily mean the end of an effective state media. As I noted in my book “The Indispensable Right,” we have seen how the media can create the same effect as state media by consent rather than coercion.
For years, media outlets have echoed the same party line, including burying negative stories and repeating debunked stories. Actual readers and listeners abandoned the mainstream media in droves. “Let’s Go Brandon” became a national mantra mocking journalists for their inability even to see and hear if the sights and sounds don’t fit their preconceived narratives.
Just as Maher has expressed utter confusion on how anyone could view NPR as biased, these editors and journalists will cling to the same advocacy journalism, rejecting the principles of objectivity and neutrality.
However, there is still one hope for restoring traditional journalism: the market.
Now that NPR is off the public dole, it will have to compete fairly with other radio outlets for audiences and revenue. It is free to alienate most listeners who have center-right viewpoints, but it will have to sustain itself on a smaller share of the market.
Other outlets are facing the same dire choice. Recently, the Post encouraged writers and editors to leave if they were unwilling to get on board with a new direction at the newspaper.
Previously, Washington Post publisher and CEO Will Lewis had told his writers that the newspaper was experiencing massive losses in readers and revenues because “no one is reading your stuff.” It triggered a revolt on the staff, which would have rather run the paper into insolvency than return to objectivity and neutrality.
The same preference was seen with the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show. What had been David Letterman’s formidable program had become a shrill echo chamber for the far left as Colbert engaged in nightly and mostly unfunny diatribes against Trump and Republicans. As its ratings and revenues fell, Colbert was unmoved. At the same time, Fox’s Greg Gutfeld continued to crush the competition as viewers abandoned CBS and other broadcast networks.
The year’s second-quarter ratings showed Fox News’s “Gutfeld!” drawing an average of three million viewers. Gutfeld’s more conservative takes on news remain unique among these late-night shows.
In comparison, “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert came in second last quarter with an average 2.42 million viewers, despite being a far more costly program.
As liberals expressed outrage over the cancellation and alleged that CBS’s owner, Paramount, was seeking to garner favor with the Trump Administration, even CNN admitted that the show under Colbert had become “unfortunately unprofitable.”
Colbert’s show was reportedly losing $40 million a year with a bloated staff and declining audience.
Paramount issued a statement insisting that Colbert’s cancelation was “not related in any way to the show’s performance.” Perhaps, but media companies are hardly in the habit of cancelling profitable, high-performing programming.
Ultimately, the market is correcting what the media would not. Roughly half of this country is center-right, and 77 million people voted for Trump. They are turning to social media and new media rather than remain a captive audience to a biased legacy media committed to advocacy journalism.
As media outlets fail, there may also be more pressure on journalism schools to return to core principles rather than crank out social justice warriors no one wants to read or hear from.
In the meantime, Maher and NPR can continue to stay the course and try to make up in pledge drives what they lost in public subsidies. However, the whole thing will now have to pay for itself without passing along costs to the rest of the non-listening country.
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.”
Here is Uri Berliner’s take on it, Happy Independence Day, NPR
“The Senate just voted to cut federal funding for the news organization I worked at for 25 years. It only has itself to blame.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/happy-independence-day-npr
PROSECUTE DEI crimes…which allows absolute MORONS to be protected!
Allow suits when the MEDIA commits FRAUD and LIABLE!
What exactly are DEI crimes?
If stupidity were a crime, you’d be in jail for … forever.
Discrimination is a crime. Just because you’re discriminating against white people doesn’t make it legal. Have you not paid any attention at all to recent Supreme Court decisions?
Damn are you an idiot.
There are two primary commenters here under the “Anonymous” label, you, and the other one you correctly term ‘idiot”. I stopped trying to reason with him her or it a long time go. It’s pointless to try to reason with adolescent minds. The posts are meant to draw ire and responses. It feeds the ego that requires attention. Just like the adolescents.
-Rabble:
Can’t help but feel this is either one person (posting constantly) who thinks they are making a difference in their “war against reason”, a group being paid to do so, or a very biased ChatGPT knockoff being wielded like a bat by an equally, if not more so, biased blue-hair nose-ring Tumblrite.
“There are two primary commenters here under the “Anonymous” label”
There are many more than two regulars posting as “Anonymous”. The number increased significantly when a change was made to the blog software a few months ago that removed the option for some of us to attach an ad hoc username (along with an unpublished email address) to a comment. I believe that a smaller (imo) number of regular posters who do not have a WordPress identity just quit posting out of frustration not long after that change occurred.
I think blatant discrimination is still considered a crime, no?
You need to KILL THE DEEP STATE
by jailing people who have committed 10000’s of crime against America
Russian Hoax
J6 Trap
Protecting Bidens crimes
helping illegals!
Once you jail those 10,000’s…they no longer are sources for the MSM!
Also time to TAKE power away from Wall Street…who has gotten rich BUYING DC!
a 3% tax on the GROSS of all wall street trades(bonds, stocks, etc) or moving money offshore!
Stop the money spinning, start the investing! And STOP rescuing wall street firms…we are on round 10 since 1987
I would love that but I seriously wonder what the prog tools would actually do if there were a round up, trial, and incarceration of all those resisting federal laws about illegals. Would there be mass rioting in the streets, and if so, how would legitimate LEOs and legit government agencies react?
“I would love that but I seriously wonder what the prog tools would actually do if there were a round up, trial, and incarceration of all those resisting federal laws about illegals. Would there be mass rioting in the streets”
Don’t you consider it plausible that the set of activists who are criminally aiding and abetting illegal immigrants to evade capture and deportation, and the set of activists who would be motivated enough to riot in the streets about arrests of the first set, are comprised of very nearly the very same people?
how about we jail and fine the people of the media when they knowingly LIE and commit Conspiracy!
Just because you are media…doesn’t mean you get to commit conspiracy!
Remember when the FBI raided Jamies Okeefe?
Still trying to understand what crime O’Keefe supposedly committed that would justify an FBI raid. I guess they just got too hair-trigger-happy with the raids back during the Autopen Junta. I hope Patel has cashiered those bad actors out the door by now.
You can bet if the dems take both houses. NPR will get it’s funding again, heck even more cash this time.
Really enjoyed this piece by Turley. And I enjoyed the comments. State media. Did it start with the Clintons and the self-annointed “co-president” copying fbi files in the basement of the White House to use against politicians and control their opposition?
It is not just Leftist media that is losing audience – all legacy media is. To survive, NPR will have to sell advertising, and that means they will have to give traffic reports.
The Katherine Maher show has been cancelled, the modern day taming of the shrew.
Great column. You are correct in your assessment of Katherine Maher, bit it falls a bit short. Like the leftist elites that view themselves are more intelligent than anyone to the right or even moderates, she views herself comprehensively as more brilliant than anyone and everyone. Maher could have done the usual, to promise introspection and revitalization, and then ignore it. But not double-down Kate. Personally, I’ve never seen anyone in public life more arrogant than Ms Maher. This includes Barack Obama, who’s right up there in the ego-centric world of the left along with Pelosi, Colbert, and Kimmel. Thankfully, Maher has been cancelled.
With waning numbers of listeners and viewers, I suspect it will prove increasingly difficult to accrue donations from NPR listeners and PBS viewers to make up for the loss of federal funding. Balancing the books will require reducing expenses (by cutting superfluous and overpaid staff), increasing income (by selling advertising, a difficult prospect as numbers of listeners and viewers fall), and begging/groveling listeners and viewers for more money. Success will require a drastic change in the culture at NPR/PBS, something certainly not guaranteed. The Board could start this process by unceremoniously firing Katherine Maher, the current face of the NPR fiasco. I get the sense however that NPR/PBS has begun to circle the drain.
I’m not optimistic that NPR or PBS will change their views or their spots. ABC, CBS, NBC news are private entities as well as MSNBC and CNN and they were and are as biased as NPR and PBS. I would take a wait and see attitude. CBS may be willing to turn the corner to the Center and maybe that will happen with the Washington Post but I have no evidence yet to show it. Losing $ 40 million dollars a year is painful to any private entity whether it be right or left of center. CBS could remain left of center and biased but simply does not lose as much money as they’re reportedly losing.
Walt Disney is private but they turned their ship towards cinema and streaming that fails to connect with their customers and is very left wing and “woke” and continue to do it even as their stock falls and blockbuster cinema features disappear from their portfolio.
Progressive and Left Wing bias in the news followed by left wing bias and virtue signaling in the cinema becomes boring and mind numbing. It almost makes you regret your investment in electronics.
When the public turn to YouTube for history and how to do it , Reels in Facebook, and you start to think of a high school play as an exciting nite out (and you have no kids in school anymore) then the News and Entertainment industry needs to take stock.
There are great stories, books and literature out there just waiting to be filmed.
No one cares what you think. George II.
You see to care. But then again, you’re an idiot, so maybe that doesn’t count.
GEB,
I used to listen to NPR from first thing in the morning till dinner time. Even had a few driveway moments. Then 2016 happened, they lost their minds and went all in on advocacy journalism. It was so over the top, it was nauseating. Matt Taibbi wrote a great article about how now the only thing NPR focuses on is gender, race and how bad America is.
Now that they have been cut off from taxpayer entitlements, they are facing a real reckoning. Get back to real journalism or double down on the go woke, go broke.
Upstate, I like you tuned away from NPR. I remember the Free to Choose series. NPR has certainly changed.
They lost me when they canned Juan Williams.
Ending the federal funding for NPR is just the first step in getting government out of media. The specialty schools like law schools, business schools, medical schools, journalism schools, etc., have been attracting and turning out counter-culturalists for years, so we should not be surprised by this when they try to take over. But I think we’re about to end their heyday and defunding NPR is just the first shot across the bow.
The left’s biggest coup attempt was after the 2016 election when crooked politicians, crooked journalists, and crooked lawyers joined with crooked reporters to try to undo the election of DJT. They and their government allies conspired to make DJT look like a pawn of the Russians. They acted in concert to deprive him of his civil rights and, in turn, the American people of their constitutional right to elect and have a POTUS unencumbered by purposely false accusations of espionage intended to delegitimize him. I expect to see a special grand jury convened in Florida or Virginia shortly to begin looking into this.
It will not be pretty. Discovery will likely reveal emails and text messages showing the complicity and culpability of top reporters on air and behind the scenes who conspired with Clinton, Obama, Brennan, Clapper, Rice, Biden, Comey, and others of that era who have yet to face Justice for their evil deeds. Already, the “little people,” the clerks, aides, and secretaries who worked for or with these people are lining and lawyering up to seek whistleblower protection a la cable news pundit John Dean of the Watergate era. Speaking of which, as one major rightwing pundit said recently, this case will make Watergate look like a walk in the park.
I’m creating a basic curriculum for junior high school/middle schools —– in capitalism and the stock market. Most people don’t know the New York Stock Exchange began in May of 1792, when George Washington was our president. And the London Stock Exchange has been around a lot longer than that.
Public schools teach kids about other things and most kids don’t pay attention. But if it’s about how to make money or get money, legally, they WILL pay attention!
-Rabble:
Gradjimatated from public schools in 2013. Don’t I know it [your last 2 sentences]. Kids keep complaining every year they graduate that they don’t know how to do taxes, balance budgets, clean, do math, know that communism is evil, etc. Funny thing is, all those classes did happen, you just didn’t care enough to pay any damn attention!
“. . . support for government funding by insisting that we must ‘keep the government out’ . . .”
NPR, Harvard (et al.) to the public:
We’re so independent that we’re dependent on public funding.
They’re like a spoiled teen stomping a foot at his parents: “You can’t tell me what to do!” As he maxes out his parents’ credit cards.
The irrationality of those quoted statements alone warrants cancellation of government funding.
As SHE maxes out her parents’ credit card. FIFY.
“there is still one hope for restoring traditional journalism: the market”
That is so, but it is a hope less likely to come to fruition in a vacuum. It is time for all of us to consider what political points of view we may be subsidizing (which amounts to second-hand advocacy) when we buy products from vendors who sponsor programs and media outlets that advocate for specific political policies or entities. Even though I have a strong tendency not to be a “joiner”, it may be time for a nationwide, organized, campaign to boycott some of those vendors on that basis.
I’ve long believed market oriented media shifted away from “traditional journalism” because they were chasing the same market segment: the over educated, affluent, credential class in the family formation stage of life.
They build their content to appeal to that segment because that’s who the advertisers want to reach most. They are the ones with above average levels of disposable income. There’s no financial incentive to create content that appeals to poor people struggling to get by who have little or no disposable income.
“There’s no financial incentive to create content that appeals to poor people struggling to get by who have little or no disposable income.”
I never had the impression that A-B was positioning Bud Light to attract the “over educated, affluent, credential class in the family formation stage of life” market, and, in fact, that wasn’t who deserted A-B over the Dylan Mulvaney ads. That doesn’t support your argument very well.
Interesting. So you believe Budweiser made a strategic marketing decision to seek out a flamboyant transsexual to be the face of the Bud Lite brand in order to connect with poor people with little disposable income – rather than an effort to re-position the brand with the upscale college educated credential class who are, in fact, the demographic segment in society that is trying to force the culture to accept transsexualism as “normal”.
Yes, professor. Let us see if NPR can actually make it on it’s own, without their entitlements, in the open market.
Their pledge drives were bad enough before. They are going to be insufferable now.
Maher declaring NPR is not biased is pretty funny.
Anyone who donates money to NPR or even any local station is a damn idiot. The fundraising appeals are self serving, manipulative blather pumped out by entitled elites disguised as “journalists.”
Damn idiot? No they are not, they are believers in an vapid ideology. Just like you.
NPR/PBS lost there way many years ago. Actually, I use to like some of their informative programs but turned them off when they became full throated Left Wing Woke Liberal DEMS. Now Maher is crying, well over paid, begging for $$$. Perhaps Gates, Hollywood Crowd, NY & North East Rich Liberals will fund them? as they do the anti Trump demonstrations.
One particular obnoxious liar at NPR WGBH Boston is a wackjob named Jim Broude (a failed lawyer, had’nt had a case in over 20 years yet claimed nonstop he was one), along with a nutty female, who both attached Trump’s 1st term. After a few months of obvious BS I left, never to listen to WGBH again. Found Russ Limbaugh.
What struck me a hypocritical is that he made over 500k a year while the female, Marjory, was paid a third. I checked out the WGBH / NPR 1099 and saw that they had over 10 VPs getting $250K a year, although the station only had 40 employees and volunteers. Last year they fired a bunch of emps – lack of donations was their excuse. So, lets hope for more firings at WGBH. They earned it.
“the question is whether the media will cease acting like a [deep] state media.”
Cutting funding to NPR won’t fix media/state manipulation of the public.
Market forces won’t fix media/state manipulation of the public.
People didn’t see the propaganda campaign to overthrow Arbenz in Guatamala in the 1940s, so I doubt enough people will see the propaganda campaigns afoot now. 🙁
What would Jefferson say now?
In an NGO can’t survive without government funding, then it’s not an NGO.
Correct, it’s just plain old “government” at that point. Another of the many scams run by the left.
😁 Good point.
No NGO should receive government funding. The government should only contract with the private sector for specific goods or services. If the rest were all cut out, how much would be saved?
“No NGO should receive government funding”
Exactly
Hopefully the NPR loving liberals will step up and fill the budget deficit. I doubt it.
Send them this link: https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/23779454
Tell them to put their money where their mouths are. We know they won’t do squat.
It is stunning how long it took to claw back this funding, but good things come to those who wait?! I continue to think this bias will never change and actions like these give me hope.