\n<\/p>\n
\n\tRepublicans voted on Thursday night to clawback $1.1 billion in congressional funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps finance National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The vote marks the latest chapter in President Donald Trump\u2019s attacks against media companies and publications who aren\u2019t covering his presidency to his liking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tNPR and PBS receive the majority of their funding not from Congress, but from public fundraising. Rural stations, which are more dependent on direct funding from lawmakers in Washington, are expected to suffer the most from the cuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSupporters of defunding are fixated on NPR and PBS, but in reality the cuts will be felt where these services are needed most. Stations in places like West Virginia, and those serving tribal nations, receive more than 50% of their budget from federal funding,\u201d NPR wrote in a statement responding to the vote. \u201cPublic radio provides local programming that would otherwise be unavailable \u2014 coverage of town councils, statehouse affairs, local elections, and local music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cPublic radio is also a lifeline, connecting rural communities to the rest of the nation, and providing life-saving emergency broadcasting and weather alerts. Nearly 3-in-4 Americans say they rely on their public radio stations for alerts and news for their public safety,\u201d the broadcaster added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tTrump has pushed to cut funding for NPR and PBS, including through an executive order in May. \u201cNeither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens,\u201d the order reads. \u201cThe CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe CBP responded by noting that it is not a \u201cfederal executive agency subject to the President\u2019s authority,\u201d and that it is funded by Congress. <\/p>\n
\n\tThe Republican-approved blow to public broadcasting came the same night news broke that CBS News is canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/em>. The decision came shortly after Colbert publicly criticized a decision by Paramount \u2014 CBS\u2019 parent company \u2014 to settle a lawsuit brought against them by Trump for $16 million. At the same time, Paramount is trying to merger with Skydance Media, which has been held up by Federal Communications Commission approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tParamount is not the only major media company who has settled frivolous Trump lawsuits in order to avoid a drawn out court battle that \u2014 even though their chances are prevailing are favorable \u2014 could create additional acrimony with the administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn December, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to Trump\u2019s future presidential library in order to settle a defamation lawsuit leveled against ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos. Last month, the same network suspended and then fired anchor Terry Moran after he called White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller a \u201cworld-class hater\u201d in a social media post.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTrump is still pursuing litigation against the Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register <\/em>over a 2024 poll that incorrectly predicted that Trump\u2019s then opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, would win the state by a landslide. The president claimed the poll was \u201cbrazen election interference,\u201d in his initial lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cTrump, like all authoritarians, doesn\u2019t like criticism or objective reporting. He just wants to be flattered. That\u2019s why he wants to defund NPR and PBS,\u201d Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on X earlier this week.\u00a0 \u201cIf democracy is to survive we need a strong, independent media.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tIn an interview with CNN, veteran NPR Morning Edition <\/em>host Steve Inskeep said that \u201cNPR is heard by tens of millions of people. Some 43 million people consume us on some platform or another \u2026 A lot of Republicans are on there,\u00a0 a lot of Democrats are on there too.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere are people on there who maybe, if you conservative, you don\u2019t agree with,\u201d he added. \u201cYou\u2019re going to hear a trans person on the radio, or someone that perhaps you don\u2019t agree with. But our idea is to hear people in their own words, to get their stories across, and that means that whatever my personal view might be is a little bit less important, because you\u2019re getting to people\u2019s actual stories.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tInskeep insisted that the cuts will not deter him, and the thousands of other NPR hosts broadcasting from around the country and the world, from continuing with their work.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI got up at three o\u2019clock this morning to do the news. I will get up at three o\u2019clock tomorrow morning to continue doing the news,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m doing that with thousands of people at NPR stations \u2014 local stations in communities across the country \u2014 run by those communities across the country. Who are covering their communities even now, while they are the subject of the news, they\u2019re covering the news and trying to cover it straight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Republicans voted on Thursday night to clawback $1.1 billion in congressional funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps finance National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The vote marks the latest chapter in President Donald Trump\u2019s attacks against media companies and publications who aren\u2019t covering his presidency to his liking.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4628,304,116,4581,4582,4627,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-11306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-command","9":"tag-cut","10":"tag-funding","11":"tag-npr","12":"tag-pbs","13":"tag-republicans","14":"tag-trumps"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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