President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to cut federal funding for NPR and PBS, claiming the public broadcasters’ reporting is ideologically biased.
"Neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens," the order signed Thursday states.
Specifically, Trump has directed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s (CPB) board to stop funneling tax dollars to the broadcasters. CPB is a private nonprofit founded by Congress in 1967 to provide non-commercial radio, television and emergency alert services to communities across the U.S.
Today, CPB supports more than 1,500 local public media stations, including KPCW, which has provided news, music and original programming in the Wasatch Back for more than 40 years.
Federal funding for public media has historically received bipartisan support in Congress, which appropriates and allocates CPB funding two years in advance to protect it from political influence.
Overall, funding to public media accounts for “less than 0.0001% of the federal budget,” NPR’s President and CEO Katherine Maher said Friday.
That’s about $1.60 a year per taxpayer.
An NPR affiliate, KPCW annually receives about 14% of its funding from CPB.
In a statement Friday, CPB said the White House does not have authority over its funding.
It’s not yet clear what the impact of Trump’s order may have on KPCW and other media organizations that receive community services grants from CPB. It’s also unclear how the order aligns with the president’s expected plan to ask Congress to rescind any funding already earmarked for public media in the current federal budget.
However, while the order targets NPR and PBS, it appears to leave room for continued funding for community radio and television. One unknown is whether the order could restrict collaboration between local stations and NPR or PBS, which provide access to national and international news.
Juliana Allely, KPCW’s president and general manager, on Friday expressed concern about how this will affect public media.
“Independent journalism continues to be threatened. By restricting how funds can be used, it undermines the basic principle of free press and how we serve our local communities,” Allely said. “We carry NPR headlines at the top of the hour to bring the world and nation to the Wasatch Back. Those national headlines, coupled with our hyper-local news reported throughout the day, are an important part of what makes KPCW the community asset it is.”
NPR’s Maher called Trump’s order “an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR” and locally owned and operated public media that produce content that reflects the needs of their communities.
“It is also an affront to the First Amendment rights of station listeners and donors who support independent news and information,” Maher said.
To learn more about how federal funding for public media works and how elimination of CPB funding would impact KPCW, click here.