Trump Goes After PBS And NPR

 

In his latest illegal action-by-executive-order, the Malignant Fascist is trying to end federal funding for the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio:

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end federal funding for America’s two biggest public broadcasters, which have faced a series of attacks from the White House and Republican lawmakers accusing them of biased reporting.

The order instructs the CPB’s board to terminate direct funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service to the “maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.” It also orders the board to take steps to “minimize or eliminate” indirect funding to NPR and PBS.

The executive order also directs Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate NPR and PBS for possible employment discrimination, and it instructs the heads of all other federal agencies to “identify and terminate” any direct or indirect funding of the media organizations, as allowed by the law.

The order follows previous attacks on the public broadcasters by the Trump administration and prominent Republicans.

Each year, the CPB disperses $535 million in taxpayer funds to public radio and TV stations nationwide, stations provide free and universal access to educational shows, emergency alerts and a wide array of news and cultural content.

This includes stations with PBS and NPR, as well as some lesser-known public media outlets. The White House has said it will soon ask Congress to claw back the money already allocated for CPB over the next two years.

Without the federal funding, some local stations could be forced off the air, especially in rural areas that are Republican strongholds. In many cases “these are the last locally owned broadcasters in these communities,” Ed Ulman, the CEO of Alaska Public Media, told CNN last month.

Earlier this week, the CPB filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after three of its five board members were terminated by email. The three board members who received the emails — Laura G. Ross, Thomas E. Rothman and Diane Kaplan — were appointed by then-President Joe Biden in 2022 (Ross was originally appointed by Trump in 2018 and then reappointed by Biden).

Congress specifically set up the corporation as a private entity “to afford maximum protection from extraneous interference and control,” according to a law passed in 1967. The legislation expressly forbids the government from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting.” (our emphasis)

Crushing independent public media fits nicely into the MF regime's autocratic playbook, along with ignoring court orders and the rule of law, empowering a fascist paramilitary ICE to arbitrarily deport and deprive people of due process, intimidating and threatening any company or institution that stands up to the fascism, attacking the main funding source for your political opposition, and much more --  the obvious end purpose being to make the convicted felon Malignant Fascist into the American Dictator.  

If the sane, patriotic community isn't fighting back every day with all we have, we're going to lose our country to the bastards.

BONUS:  CPB fights back --

 

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting weighs in on President Trump's EO: "CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority."

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— Ben Mullin (@benmullin.bsky.social) May 2, 2025 at 8:49 AM

(Photo illustration:  Getty Images)

 

Media Framing Of The Insurrection Hearings

 

Press Watch's invaluable Dan Froomkin on what he expects from the corporate media's coverage of the January 6 insurrection hearings ...

They have failed miserably to communicate what’s at stake in the midterm elections, and how the choice voters face in November is not simply between two parties, or a referendum on President Biden, or the economy, but is about either succumbing to or resisting a slide into autocracy and patriarchal theocracy.

And now, with the January 6 select congressional committee embarking on an effort to do job the media so miserably failed to do, I fear that our top  newsroom leaders and political reporters will respond defensively and contemptuously, using partisan framing, both-sidesism, bad sports analogies, and theater-criticism analysis to marginalize and mock a sincere and desperately needed exercise in truth-telling.

I fear that the arbiters of our elite, corporate media will embrace Republican talking points about the committee’s motives and conduct. I fear they will engage in so-whatism about new revelations, casting them as old news that changes nothing. I fear they will downplay this, the single most important American story in decades, and the biggest political crime in the country’s history, in favor of other ongoing crises that, while hugely significant, in the greater scheme of things matter so much less. I fear they will get distracted by bad-faith actors flooding the zone with disinformation and diversions.

... and what they should be doing:

What journalists should do is embrace and amplify the committee’s attempt at truth-telling, contextualize them, and help make sure members of the public understand what happened and what they need to do about it.

Republicans have tried to turn Jan. 6 into a political issue – and, of course, the debate is undeniably along partisan lines. But the goal here — the goal journalists should share — is not partisan: It’s the truth.

To support Froomkin's thesis, here's how the eunuchs at PBS -- PBS, for shit's sake -- are framing the hearings as a truth- relative, he-said/ she-said set of dueling soundbites in a promo:

 

Must be scrupulously fair to the fascists!

If this is how "the arbiters of our elite corporate media" are going to frame the most significant, and ongoing assault on our nation, well then democracy has already died in darkness.

The Media's Drift In Trump's Direction - PBS Edition

Watching "librul" PBS' "Washington Week in Review" last night, we were struck by the whole atmosphere of the show - five "insider" journalists summarizing the events of the past week ... without giving any sign that things are not normal. In fact, as you can read for yourself, there was a largely anodyne, horserace approach to the circus that's in town.

Here are just a few excerpts from the transcript (our emphasis throughout):

Nancy Cordes (CBS News) on the wealthfare tax bill:

... the fact that they said they would get it done on Friday and they did is actually a big sign of how unified this party is.  And it’s the culmination of a decades-long dream.  So it seems like, you know, the party’s really hanging together now, and looking to avoid any last-minute derailment.

Yes, super unified!  Just ask Steve "Loose Cannon" Bannon! They're only unified long enough to screw America and future generations. MAGA!

Shawna Thomas (VICE News) on the rush to pass the wealthfare bill:

... Everyone has been saying we have to pass this bill by the end of the year.  We have to pass this bill by the end of the year.  They didn’t really have to pass this bill by the end of the year.  (Laughter.)

Harhar! And, no, it wasn't because of Doug Jones' victory -- they targeted passage before Christmas long before the Alabama election -- it was because the bill is a reeking pile of regressive social and economic engineering that they don't want people to understand (too late!).

Kristen Welker (NBC News) on the involvement of nitwit know-nothing Donald "Rump" Trump:

... [H]e was really serving as an energizing force, I think, as opposed to sort of derailing the negotiations.  Today we had a chance to ask him some questions early in the morning, and I asked him if he would support increasing the child tax credit.  He indicated the answer to that was yes.  [Ed. See how piddling a deal this was below.] So it was very clear, as the day was progressing, that this was moving in a good direction for this president.  I don’t think you can overstate it.  President Trump needs a victory after the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare.  He hasn’t had a major legislative victory.  And so this was a full-court press for this president, the vice president, and his entire top staff.

Stand up and cheer for Big Boy Donnie! F*ck you average Americans who'll be losing health insurance! It's the horserace and the appearance of competence that matter most!

Cordes on the bill's repeal of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate:

Republicans don’t want to talk about it because they’d love to be able to slide that through.  There’s another big GOP priority in this bill they don’t talk a lot about either, and that is opening up part of the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling... 

Hmmm. Republicans don't want to talk about it, and neither does Nancy Cordes!

Cordes again on the child tax credit:

 ... I will say that there are some changes in this final version that may help to win people over, at least in the short term.  The fact that that child tax credit is refundable up to $1,400.  That’s a pretty big chunk of change. 

No, no it's not you simpleton.  Again, as Andy Slavitt points out, it amounts to $25 a month for a family with two kids (whose daycare costs would average $2,000 a month). Do your f*cking homework!

We could go on (that's just from the first few minutes of the program), but the point is, these "elite" media types are very content to go along with the talking points Republicans have tossed over the transom, while ignoring the yuuuuge elephant in the room:  that we have an abnormal "president" and a party that is increasing its culpability in the rotting out of American values and social fabric. Isn't that newsworthy? (Rhetorical question.)

It's always helpful to keep in mind Masha Gessen's warning to all of us:

The national press is likely to be among the first institutional victims of Trumpism. There is no law that requires the presidential administration to hold daily briefings, none that guarantees media access to the White House. Many journalists may soon face a dilemma long familiar to those of us who have worked under autocracies: fall in line or forfeit access. There is no good solution (even if there is a right answer), for journalism is difficult and sometimes impossible without access to information. 

The power of the investigative press—whose adherence to fact has already been severely challenged by the conspiracy-minded, lie-spinning Trump campaign—will grow weaker. The world will grow murkier. Even in the unlikely event that some mainstream media outlets decide to declare themselves in opposition to the current government, or even simply to report its abuses and failings, the president will get to frame many issues. Coverage, and thinking, will drift in a Trumpian direction, just as it did during the campaign—when, for example, the candidates argued, in essence, whether Muslim Americans bear collective responsibility for acts of terrorism or can redeem themselves by becoming the “eyes and ears” of law enforcement. Thus was xenophobia further normalized, paving the way for Trump to make good on his promises to track American Muslims and ban Muslims from entering the United States.

These people need to be held to account for their lazy complicity in normalizing this monster, his legion of thugs and their efforts to destroy the good that America stood for just a short 13 months ago.