One really easy way to know that TV journalists are Democrats is how they rush to defense of PBS and NPR and use all the same arguments that Democrats have made in congressional hearings and social media. They willfully ignore the incessant bias of "public" broadcasting and deflect back to kiddie shows like Sesame Street, as if that's anything like comparing Trump to Hitler. On Sunday's Face the Nation, CBS host Margaret Brennan was as soft as a stuffed Muppet with PBS CEO Paula Kerger:
MARGARET BRENNAN: The president tweeted, or socialed, or truthed, "Republicans must defund and totally disassociate themselves from NPR and PBS, the radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country." I have to tell you, I heard monsters and I thought of Cookie Monster.
PAULA KERGER: I did too, actually.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I thought of Sesame Street and I thought of that children's programming.
PAULA KERGER: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That is in many - many ways what people think of when they think of PBS.
CBS’s @margbrennan cues up silly PBS talking point: “The President tweeted or socialed or truthed ‘Republicans must defund and totally disassociate themselves from NPR and PBS. The radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country’ -- I have to tell you, I heard monster and… pic.twitter.com/TXBuWrux9b
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) May 4, 2025
Then came more bias-denying absurdity from NPR CEO Katherine Maher.
BRENNAN: When we went and we read the executive order, the language in there says, "government funding of news media in this environment is outdated and unnecessary, corrosive to the appearance of independence. Amd Americans have the right to expect if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting, that it's fair, accurate, unbiased and non-partisan." How do you respond to the implication that your news coverage is not?
KATHERINE MAHER: ....We have an extraordinary Washington desk. And our people report straight down the line. And I think that not only do they do that, they do so with a mission that very few other broadcast organizations have, which is a requirement to serve the entire public. That is the point of public broadcasting as we bring people together in those conversations. And so, we've had a whole host of conservative voices on air of late. We've been making requests of the Trump administration to have their officials on air. We would like to see more people accept those invitations. It's hard for us to be able to say we can speak for everyone when folks won't join us.
To be blunt, this is false. I haven't noticed "a whole host of conservative voices" on NPR lately. Brennan should have followed up on that, as someone who's prone to pick on J.D. Vance, to "fact check in real time." We'd all volunteer for an NPR interview, especially if it's about the bias on NPR. But they can't handle the truth.
More howlers from NPR chief Katherine Maher. “NPR people report straight down the line” and at NPR “we bring people together,” so any perceived bias is the fault of Trump’s staff: “We’ve been making requests of the Trump administration to have their officials on air. We would… pic.twitter.com/KJRML5oQ4S
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) May 4, 2025
Brennan gets a small bit of credit for repeating a few examples of media bias from the Trump White House links, but they were about avoiding terms like “pro-life” and “biological sex,” and she suggested NPR was right to dislike the word “savages” in the Declaration of Independence. She asked: “So, when you see specific editorial criticisms like that, what do you interpret the intention of this being?”
Earth to CBS: The “intention” is to complain about the injustice of this taxpayer-funded smear machine. Maher went on a bizarre jaunt about how funding NPR equals the First Amendment:
In a forum provided by CBS’s @FacetheNation, NPR CEO Katherine Maher asserted cutting taxpayer funding of NPR and calling out its leftist agenda is “an affront to the first amendment,” and ludicrously she insisted “we have an independent newsroom and we will always have an… pic.twitter.com/ENJPv5o7Ww
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) May 4, 2025
MAHER: Well, I interpret the intention of this being - trying to create a narrative around our editorial independence. And as I said in our--
BRENNAN: To control it and --?
MAHER: To control it. And I think that is an affront to the First Amendment. We have an independent newsroom and we will always have an independent newsroom.
From my perspective, part of the separation that the First Amendment offers to keep government out. In fact, the statute that was written when the Public Broadcasting Act was signed into law was very explicit about interference from any member of the government, whether it is elected officials, whether members of independent agencies, because it is so sacrosanct, that division between the state and independent media.
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 also has language about insuring objectivity and balance in all programming of a controversial nature, but no one at PBS or NPR has ever observed that passage. Liberals equate "independent newsroom" with "thoroughly anti-Republican newsroom," and you can see where Republicans are like "no, that makes you a rabidly partisan newsroom."
Removing the funding does nothing to change the shoddy and partisan journalism that these networks do. It merely stops forcing conservative and Republicans taxpayers to fund it. NPR infamously campaigned against the Hunter Biden laptop as a "diversion," which sounds a lot like there was no division between the White House and "independent media."
Maher was so ridiculous about equating the First Amendment with NPR that even the donors are somehow censored: "This order interferes with the First Amendment rights of our listeners and viewers who have made a choice to contribute. And this is the news that they want to see and hear, or the programming that they are committed to."
We know what the donors want to hear: incessant bias, they want to keep it coming.
