NPR and a group of stations have launched a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump, and NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher has explained her reasoning.
An executive order signed by Trump instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end funding for NPR and PBS. That order was challenged by NPR, and later by PBS in a fight to preserve the federal money allocated to those organizations by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s podcast The Journal, Maher said that the executive order signed by the President amounts to “a matter of viewpoint discrimination.”
“The action of withdrawing federal funding is retaliatory, and so this is a First Amendment issue,” she shared.
She continued by defending the organization from charges of a political bias that has been a constant criticism of detractors.
“As we look at the data of our audience, we see that it roughly matches the spread across the nation in terms of political belief,” said Maher. “And so our audience is roughly a third self-identified as conservative, a third self-identified as independent or centrist, and a third self-identified as liberal or left, which is more or less the American demographic in terms of political belief.”
Katherine Maher added that the network serves many rural communities and is — in some locales — the only source for local news and journalism.
The executive order signed by Trump gives the Corporation for Public Broadcasting until June 30th to comply with the order, and also demands that federal agencies find and end any taxpayer dollars being sent to either NPR and PBS. A fact sheet provided by the White House asserts that reporting by the public broadcasters amounts to in-kind contributions to the Democratic Party.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives $535 million in federal funding each year. NPR stations receive roughly 10% of that figure, while NPR maintains it only receives 1% of its funding from the corporation.
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