(Dan Schneider) – It is not every day Washington gets the chance to kill two bloated dinosaurs with one stone, but this week the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a bill to slash $1.1 billion in funding for PBS and NPR, two taxpayer-funded relics that have spent decades undermining American values while pretending to be “neutral.”
PBS and NPR are serial lawbreakers. They have ignored the Public Broadcasting Act’s requirement that they ensure “strict adherence to objectivity and balance.”
What taxpayers have gotten instead is a steady stream of progressive puff pieces, anti-conservative hit jobs, and taxpayer-funded tantrums dressed up as reporting.
The obstacle now is a handful of Republican holdouts, including Rep. Mark Amodei (NV-02). These lawmakers still buy the tired myths peddled by PBS and NPR defenders that have been repeatedly debunked.
For example, Amodei may believe his local NPR affiliates are doing essential “local” reporting. They aren’t. They’re rebroadcasting Beltway elitism on a different frequency.
In reality, 23 of 24 hours of programming on these stations is taken up by national news originating in NYC, Boston, and D.C.
“They help underserved communities.”
Please. Starlink can deliver news to rural America faster and cheaper than NPR can.
Defenders of NPR claim farmers need it for weather reports. Wrong.
As many of Rep. Amodei’s constituents know, our nation’s growers and ranchers have cell phones, computers and weather apps. Farmers also listen to talk radio, not NPR!
Alarmists also say people will die if Congress defunds NPR/PBS because they operate the “Integrated Public Alert & Warning System.”
Wrong. HR 4 does NOT touch that alert system. It is funded by a discretionary grant from the FEMA.
In addition, every broadcaster in America (radio and TV) is required by the Federal Communications Commission to provide the same emergency alert and every cell phone in America can receive this alert.
More Americans own cell phones (98%) than can even receive the NPR signal (95%). In many ways, technology has rendered public broadcasters obsolete.
America’s Public Television Stations honored Rep. Amodei in 2023 with their “Champion of Public Broadcasting Award” for his “bipartisan support of public broadcasting.”
Given that he also serves as co-chair of the House Public Broadcasting Caucus, his constituents might wonder which side of this fight he is on.
PBS and NPR serve the ruling class, the cultural elites, and the progressive machine, likely not the hard-working families of Rep. Amodei’s mostly rural Nevada district.
NPR’s own numbers tell the story: as of 2023, 67% of their audience identifies as liberal. That imbalance doesn’t happen by accident.
It happens when every interview, guest and story is curated to fit a single worldview, all while hiding behind the word “balanced.”
PBS was the first national outlet to push the false narrative that Elon Musk made a Nazi salute. Musk’s gesture received 16 minutes and 17 seconds of coverage across left-leaning broadcast networks.
But when Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, made a similar gesture? Silence. No special reports. No outrage. No breathless headlines.
And it gets worse.
A post-election poll found that 17% of President Joe Biden’s voters would have changed their vote had they known about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. NPR refused covered it, claiming it was a “mere distraction.”
That’s election interference, subsidized by taxpayers, including hardworking Nevadans.
This is the best shot we’ve ever had at defunding the left’s most well-funded megaphone. A regular bill would be dead on arrival in the Senate.
This rescissions package bypasses that mess: no committees, no filibusters – just a straight shot, if Republicans hold the line.
This is about more than budget cuts. It’s about ending decades of fraud, waste and abuse.
Trump’s rescissions package is a test for the GOP, for Congress and for the future of American media. Do we keep subsidizing elitist propaganda, or do we stand up for taxpayers and pull the plug?
The time for excuses is over. Rep. Amodei, we call on you to defund NPR. Defund PBS. And finally, defund the fraud.
Dan Schneider is Vice President of the Media Research Center, Free Speech America and External Affairs. The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views.
