The end of an agency

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) officially voted itself out of existence this month, disproving Ronald Reagan’s witticism that the closest thing to eternal life on earth is a government bureaucracy. The CPB existed for decades as the pass-through financing entity between the Congress and National Public Radio (NPR) and the televised Public Broadcasting System (PBS). The CPB couldn’t actually do much to influence the federal funds it was charged with granting to public broadcasters—its statutes neutered it from playing much of a role, and when the CPB board chairman asserted a modicum of management under President George W. Bush, the pushback was swift and strong.

Now CPB has met the same fate in store for other bottom-feeders in the federal alphabet soup—total and permanent defunding. Congress, at the prompting of President Trump and with the steady hand of budget director Russ Vought, voted to end the federal taxpayers’ subsidy for CPB. Its federal funds—and thus its purpose—having dissipated, CPB’s board voted to close up shop.

This is, of course, a massive win for conservatives. NPR and PBS have been two of the worst offenders for media bias. Anyone who has read NPR CEO Katherine Maher’s tweets has been righteously outraged that the head of a major national news network could pretend at objectivity while propagating such blatant bias. She’s famous for tweeting about “structural privilege,” “transit justice,” “non-binary people,” “cis white mobility privilege,” and “toxic masculinity.” That kind of liberal bias is almost inevitable when NPR staffs its newsroom with 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, ​which is clear ​evidence of the NPR deep state that longtime NPR editor Uri Berliner revealed in a tell-all essay. Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for National Pravda Radio.

That’s true not only of federal taxpayers, but state taxpayers as well. Numerous states, including many red states, pour millions of dollars into their state’s NPR and PBS affiliates: Alabama sends over $10 million per year to public television. Georgia grants $13 million to public broadcasting, while Iowa gives $8 million. These red states should follow the lead of Congress and their sister states like Alaska, Indiana, and Vermont, which zeroed state funding in recent years. And if they come under attack for that move, those states should just point out that deep blue states such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Washington provide zero state funds to their local stations as well.

Next, red state government-sponsored PBS and NPR affiliates should drop their national network affiliations. Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Arkansas Public Television, WEIU in Illinois, and WSRE in Florida have all decided in recent months to drop out of PBS and/or NPR to focus their remaining resources on programming specific to their communities. Good for them. Public colleges and universities and state agencies in red states with responsibility for public broadcasting stations should follow the same path and end their payments to the national networks in favor of locally focused news and educational programs.

Finally, there is still a role for the federal government when it comes to PBS and NPR. These affiliate stations all hold licenses from the Federal Communications Commission. NPR’s CEO is out on the fundraising circle rattling her cup for replacement funds from liberal billionaires and left-wing foundations to sustain NPR’s current programming. Rather than taking the hint from Congress to stop the bias, she is doubling down on pleasing her current left-leaning audience. The FCC needs to be vigilant to guard against pay-to-play programming. And stations owe the FCC financial transparency to make clear how they plan to cope with the end of their federal subsidies.

PBS made a big deal about its relaunch after Congress cut its funding—it used the Ken Burns’ America 250 documentary to start its rebrand. It wasn’t good—citizens willing to give PBS a second shot were upset and disappointed by a six-part, twelve-hour documentary that “makes a woke mockery of America’s founding,” in the words of columnist Rich Lowry. That PBS chose to go ahead with a “childish canard” and “fairy tale” version of the nation’s birth rather than a patriotic presentation in advance of America’s 250th birthday is a clear sign that the public broadcaster hasn’t taken the hint from congressional defunding.

Conservatives have more work to do to ensure that “public” broadcasting actually respects the entire American public, not just elite liberals.