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Why Elon Musk's Plan to Defund Public Broadcasting Must Be Stopped
Undermining a publicly funded media system makes perfect sense if clearing a path for graft, corruption, and a lack of accountability is the goal.
Nov 26, 2024
Buried deep in the 10th paragraph of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's Wall Street Journal screed on their new Department of Government Efficiency is a line that should worry anyone who cares about the accountability role media must play to sustain the health of any democracy
“DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended," they write. One of the items in topping their list of targets is the $535-million annual congressional allocation to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that allocates federal funds to public-media outlets across the country
Zeroing out federal funding for public media has long been a dream of Republicans. But it’s one that’s never come true. Past efforts have run up against a noisy public, including people of every political persuasion, that believes federal funding for public media is taxpayer money well spent.
If anything has a popular mandate, it’s the use of federal funds to support public media.
In 2005, I stood in front of the Capitol Building alongside Clifford the Big Red Dog and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton to protest a George W. Bush-era push to strip public broadcasting of nearly half its funding. “What parents and kids get from public TV is an incredible bargain,” then-Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said at the event. “The question is not, ‘Can we afford it?; but rather, ‘Can we afford to lose it?’”
Millions of people wrote and called their members of Congress to defend institutions like NPR and PBS, a mass mobilization that succeeded in saving public broadcasting from the ax.
The high cost of losing public media
Twenty years later, we face similar headwinds. In 2025, Republicans will control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. They will be acting on the false belief that the November election delivered them a mandate to disassemble the federal government and remake it in Donald Trump’s authoritarian image.
But the actual numbers tell a different story. Trump won by a razor-thin margin, securing less than half of the popular vote (a mandate denying 49.9 percent to Kamala Harris’ 48.3 percent). And the Republican majority on the Hill isn’t large enough to dictate such drastic cuts to federal spending; only a fraction of their members would need to defect for Musk and Ramaswamy’s extreme cost-cutting proposals to fail. Having Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene lead the effort in the House is a move that could easily backfire as well.
Undermining a publicly funded media system makes perfect sense if clearing a path for graft, corruption, and a lack of accountability is the goal.
If anything has a popular mandate, it’s the use of federal funds to support public media. According to several polls, Americans routinely rank PBS among the most trusted institutions in the country, and a “most valuable” service taxpayers receive for their money, outranked only by national defense. Moreover, large majorities of the public believe the amount of federal funding that public broadcasting receives is just right, or even too little.
Comparatively, this is true. The United States already has one of the lowest levels of federal funding of public media in the developed world—at approximately $1.50 per capita. That’s nothing next to the United Kingdom, which spends more than $81 per person, or France, which spends more than $75. Head further north and the numbers head north as well: Denmark's per-person spending is more than $93, Finland’s more than $100, and Norway’s more than $110. And it isn’t just a European trend: Japan (+$53/capita) and South Korea (+$14) show their appreciation for publicly funded media at levels that put the U.S. outlay to shame.
It’s about accountability journalism
Trump, Musk, Ramaswamy, and their ilk don’t just want to freeze out Frontline and foreclose on Sesame Street, but to pull the plug on every network, station and program that gets public support—from Gulf States Newsroom to the Mountain West News Bureau, from Pacifica Radio to New Jersey Spotlight News.
And that’s the point. The Trump purge of federal spending is not just about downsizing the government so billionaires like Musk will have no obligation to pay their fair share in taxes. It’s about stripping our democratic system of all accountability mechanisms, including the sorts of journalism that hold our country’s rich and powerful responsible for their misdeeds. (Republicans are also pushing legislation that would empower President Trump’s Treasury Department to falsely label any nonprofit news outlet as a “terrorist supporting organization” and strip it of the tax-exempt status it needs to survive.)
Undermining a publicly funded media system makes perfect sense if clearing a path for graft, corruption, and a lack of accountability is the goal.
The Trump purge of federal spending is not just about downsizing the government so billionaires like Musk will have no obligation to pay their fair share in taxes. It’s about stripping our democratic system of all accountability mechanisms...
A 2021 study co-authored by University of Pennsylvania professor (and Free Press board chair) Victor Pickard finds that more robust funding for public media strengthens a given country’s democracy—with increased public knowledge about civic affairs, more diverse media coverage and lower levels of extremist views.
Moreover, the loss of the quality local journalism and investigative reporting that nonprofit outlets provide has far-reaching societal harms. The Democracy Fund’s Josh Stearns, who’s also a former Free Press staff member, has cataloged the growing body of evidence showing that declines in local news and information lead to drops in civic engagement. “The faltering of newspapers, the consolidation of TV and radio, and the rising power of social media platforms are not just commercial issues driven by the market,” Stearns writes. “They are democratic issues with profound implications for our communities.”
For now, Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy are leveraging a lie about a popular mandate to redefine the “public interest” as anything that Trump wants. Trump’s totalitarian dream will not be possible with a thriving, publicly funded and independent media sector. To save this kind of accountability journalism we need people to make as much noise today as they have in the past, and deliver our own mandate for a public-media system that stands against Trump’s brand of authoritarianism.
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What I Told House Republicans About Their Dangerous Attempt to Defund NPR
We need more—not less—public media.
May 09, 2024
Here we go again. Every couple of years, conservative members of Congress launch highly partisan attempts to root out alleged “bias” at NPR and PBS—which remain incredibly popular and trusted among the American public—and threaten to slash funding that supports local nonprofit radio and TV affiliates nationwide.
This year’s so-called outrage? A contentious and inaccurate critique of NPR published by a disgruntled editor. In it, then-NPR senior editor Uri Berliner claimed that NPR ignores conservative viewpoints and storylines.
GOP members of Congress claim that Berliner’s essay proves that “NPR suffers from intractable bias,” arguing that “it is time Congress investigates how federal dollars are being used at NPR and what reforms may be necessary.”
While I don’t represent NPR, PBS or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I was called to testify on May 8 before a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee to offer my views about public funding for local news and information, a pillar of Free Press’ work over the past 20 years.
In testifying, I hoped to provide a voice for NPR’s tens of millions of weekly listeners, who rely on the service for fact-checked journalism, local viewpoints, and international coverage. But I also hoped to paint a picture of the possibilities of an expanded public-media system, one that receives more robust public funding for the kinds of local news and information that have gone missing in local communities.
Inquiries like the House hearing will likely make NPR leadership more timid, and I imagine that’s the point.
Over the past two decades, I have been both an advocate for and a critic of the public broadcasting system—which I believe can do more to live up to its mandate and mission. This won’t be accomplished by tarnishing the reputation of NPR’s accomplished journalists, tearing down the institution, or starving it of funds.
But inquiries like the House hearing will likely make NPR leadership more timid, and I imagine that’s the point.
Defunding threats don’t just harm NPR executives—they endanger the work of more than 1,000 local radio stations providing essential information to communities large and small.
While I always welcome Congress’s interest in public media, especially given the crisis in local journalism, I’m perplexed that an essay by one disgruntled editor at NPR is cause for a congressional inquiry.
The United States spends a pittance per capita on public media when compared to other healthy democracies.
Berliner’s essay (which was published, confusingly enough, in a Substack publication called “The Free Press”) is riddled with fuzzy math and cherry-picked evidence. For example, he inaccurately describes several stories as going uncovered, when NPR did extensive reporting or publicly interrogated its own editorial decision-making about them.
That said, public media’s purpose should be to tell stories not already told by commercial media and serve audiences not represented elsewhere.
Berliner laments NPR’s increased focus on racial diversity since 2020. If in 2024 you’re still questioning whether systemic racism exists, you should probably spend more time listening to the experiences of your colleagues from different backgrounds.
If Berliner had done so, he would have found many people of color inside and outside of NPR and PBS who consistently and repeatedly criticized public media’s failures to reach and serve new and diverse audiences. Numerous NPR and PBS employees and associates also raised concerns about the workplace environment for people of color at NPR and PBS, editorial decision-making, and budgeting and funding priorities when it comes to media makers from marginalized backgrounds.
Berliner’s supposed bombshell that D.C. residents in NPR’s newsroom are all registered Democrats—in a city where just 5 percent of voters are registered as Republicans—doesn’t withstand scrutiny either. As NPR journalist Steve Inskeep points out, NPR has 662 people in its newsrooms around the world, including far more in D.C. than the 87 Berliner tallied. The numbers don’t add up.
While Congress has a role in overseeing the operations and financial management of NPR, threats to defund it based on a perceived failure to cover certain topics or hire certain people strike at the heart of journalistic freedom.
Yet these rickety claims have sent a GOP-controlled House subcommittee down a precarious path. I’m deeply concerned about the request the House majority sent in a letter to NPR CEO Katherine Maher, asking her to track and report to Congress on the political affiliations of NPR’s newsroom employees.
This dangerous overreach, which came at the urging of House Speaker Mike Johnson, raises serious First Amendment concerns and smacks of a political loyalty test. While Congress has a role in overseeing the operations and financial management of NPR, threats to defund it based on a perceived failure to cover certain topics or hire certain people strike at the heart of journalistic freedom.
Yes, there also must be a firewall between NPR executives and the newsroom. NPR’s new CEO may have once volunteered for a Biden campaign. The head of the CPB used to co-chair the RNC. Neither is, nor should be, involved in editorial decisions.
Berliner insists he doesn’t want NPR defunded, but his complaints have been seized upon by those who seek to defang or destroy public media. This is just the latest chapter in a long history of attacking NPR personnel on trumped-up charges of bias.
There is another path. Instead, Congress should take this moment of crisis in local journalism as an opportunity to talk about how to rebuild and expand the public-media system to meet the real needs of local communities.
Congress should take this moment of crisis in local journalism as an opportunity to talk about how to rebuild and expand the public-media system to meet the real needs of local communities.
There’s much common ground to explore on this topic. At the hearing, I found myself in agreement with Howard Husock of the American Enterprise Institute, who also argued that more public-media resources should be devoted to local journalism to replant news deserts.
With changes to the law, this could go beyond broadcasting to support emerging nonprofit news outlets that are providing in-depth and (as of this week) Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage. Right now, the United States spends a pittance per capita on public media when compared to other healthy democracies. That’s just $3.16 per capita a year in public funding compared to $75–$100 per capita or more annually in countries like England, France, Germany and Norway. That’s literally pocket change.
Instead of cutting back even further, Congress should increase funding for public media and ensure that locally engaged outlets—and those reaching the diverse audiences NPR hasn’t—can receive more support. This should not be a partisan debate about right versus left, but rather one about returning the public airwaves to local hands, lifting up diverse local viewpoints, amplifying community affairs and playing local music over the airwaves.
I imagine many members of Congress remember a time when there were multiple local outlets covering their campaigns and accomplishments—actually telling people back home what they do in Washington.
A renewed and vibrant public media system focused on local voices is possible. But it requires a different approach, one that builds on public media’s founding purpose, quoting President Lyndon Johnson, to use the public airwaves, “which belong to all the people … for the enlightenment of all the people.”
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Newton Minow, Ex-FCC Chair Who Said TV a 'Vast Wasteland' Dead at 97
"After all, the airways belong to the people."
May 06, 2023
Newton N. Minow, who as Federal Communications Commission chair in the early 1960s famously proclaimed that network television was a “vast wasteland,” died at home in Chicago Saturday. He was 97.
Minow was appointed as FCC chair by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
Minow received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
In his first public address as FCC chairman, on May 9, 1961, at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Washington he said:
“When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better,” he said. “But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. ... I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland."
“You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom.”
Minow called for “a wider range of choices, more diversity, more alternatives” and said, “There is nothing permanent or sacred about a broadcast license”
“My faith is in the belief that this country needs and can support many voices of television — and that the more voices we hear, the better, the richer, the freer we shall be. After all, the airways belong to the people.”
“In 1961, I worried that my children would not benefit much from television. But in 1991 I worry that my grandchildren will actually be harmed by it,” he said in a 1991 Associated Press interview.
Television is one of our century’s most important advances “and yet, as a nation, we pay no attention to it,” Minow said.
\u201cNewton Minow, who as President John F. Kennedy\u2019s new FCC chairman in 1961 sent shock waves through the country by calling American television \u201ca vast wasteland,\u201d died on Saturday. He was 97. https://t.co/cVFLWue78N\u201d— The New York Times (@The New York Times) 1683404105
Open Mind: Vast Common GoodPBS and FCC Chairman Emeritus Newton Minow recounts the history of public television's origins and charts our path from a ...
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