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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to end taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS.
The White House announced the order’s signing just weeks after Congress met with media outlet leaders to discuss their biased coverage.
“National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) receive taxpayer funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options. Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence,” the order read.
“At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage,” it continued.
The order instructs “the CPB Board of Directors (CPB Board) and all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.”
A White House fact sheet documented some of the concerns the Trump administration found in its research of the two public broadcasting outlets.
“NPR ran a Valentine’s Day feature around ‘queer animals,’ in which it suggested the make-believe clownfish in ‘Finding Nemo’ would’ve been better off as a female, that ‘banana slugs are hermaphrodites,’ and that ‘some deer are nonbinary,’” the fact sheet stated.
“Research shows that ‘congressional Republicans faced 85% negative coverage, compared to 54% positive coverage of congressional Democrats,’ on PBS’s flagship news program,” it also noted.
In March, Trump said he “would love to” see federal funding for the two news outlets end.
“I think it’s very unfair,” Trump added. “It’s been very biased. The whole group, I mean, a whole group of them. And frankly, there’s plenty of — look at all the media you have right now. There’s plenty of coverage.”
Fox News reported that PBS receives 16 percent of its funding from the government. NPR gets less than one percent of its funding directly from the federal government, though other funding is received through grants to local member stations.