For decades, we have been asking why our tax dollars must be used to fund PBS and NPR when these outlets continue to flout the law and their policies that require journalistic balance.
MRC has documented public broadcasting's leftward drift and failure to meet its standards for fair coverage and viewpoint diversity for years. In recent months, our studies have shown that PBS NewsHour has four leftist guests for every conservative, that 90% of its coverage of transgender issues is pro-left, and that 85% of its coverage toward the GOP is negative.
Despite years of MRC documenting such bias, Congress has not felt the pressure to act to rein in this blatant lawbreaking.
But that is about to change. Recent events have put this issue in the spotlight, and MRC is poised to finally get Congress to acknowledge the problem and act on it. A member of Congress has proposed legislation to address the chronic bias problems, and it is time to raise awareness.
It started recently when Uri Berliner, a 25-year veteran of NPR, wrote an essay saying the outlet was losing influence and audience because it had “lost viewpoint diversity” and was “telling readers how to think.” NPR suspended him, then he resigned a few days later rather than be “disparaged by a new CEO whose views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my [essay].”
He’s right about the new CEO, Katherine Maher. She has said, “Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done.” She has said she wants to stamp out “bad information” and replace it with “good information” – leftist narratives – then coerce the public to “sit within that good information” to help the “collective.”
She supports BLM and rioting and reparations “Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day,” she said – and she says America is “addicted to white supremacy.”
She calls the First Amendment “the No.1 challenge” in her fight against “disinformation” because it’s “a little tricky” to censor “bad information” and the “influence peddlers” who spread it.
She uses words such as “folx” for “folks” and “ravages of late-stage capitalism” for America’s sclerotic economy. She believes the “planet is literally burning.” She once tweeted: “Always trust structural privilege to show itself.”
MRC already is dedicated to covering the bias in public broadcasting outlets. Now is the time to strengthen that operation, to expand our delivery avenues, to publicize our research, and do more to get our clear evidence of bias into the hands of the American people and their representatives in Congress. It’s time for the public to get involved. It’s time for hearings. It’s time for action.
If you agree enough is enough, please support our efforts and donate today.