No More Free Rides for Leftism: Biased 'Public Broadcasting' Meets Its Reckoning

American Thinker ^ | August 5, 2025 | Joseph Ford Cotto

[E. Pluribus Unum]

For more than half a century, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) claimed to be a guardian of public trust, a neutral steward of the people’s airwaves.

Established by Congress in 1967 with a clear mandate to stay nonpolitical and not support any political party, it was supposed to serve as an impartial vehicle for news and educational programming.

But that ideal — while noble — died long ago.

The CPB’s failure to uphold its mission has been obvious for decades.

By the 1990s, it was already clear to many on the right that something had gone awry.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Republicans criticized CPB-funded outlets like National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for adopting a liberal bias. Programming tilted unmistakably toward progressive narratives, often casting conservative positions in a negative light. Non-lefties sensed they weren’t the public being broadcast to.

That growing sense of betrayal turned to alarm in 2005, when Kenneth Tomlinson, then chairman of the CPB and a Bush appointee, openly accused PBS of ideological bias. He pointed to specific programming decisions as evidence that public broadcasting had become a left-leaning mouthpiece. Conservatives renewed their calls for reform, but little changed.

The 2010s brought a new wave of frustration. NPR’s reporting on immigration, policing, and gender issues regularly framed right-leaning viewpoints as backward or even dangerous. Its refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story, dismissing this as a distraction, and its coverage defending progressive causes like DEI intensified conservative accusations of bias.

AllSides, a media watchdog that tracks partisan bias, has more than once categorized what NPR runs online as “left-leaning.”

By the 2020s, one couldn’t ignore that public media was no longer “public” in any meaningful sense. It had become the communications arm...

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TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: pbs; wellbye

[1Old Pro]

Let Soros fund it.

[paulcissa]

Good riddance. Everything the left touches turns to poo.

[House Atreides]

But… but… but.. they NEED OTHER-PEOPLE’S-MONEY. They NEED it.

[vpintheak]

Here in Alaska, there’s like 6 PBS channels. Pretty much all of them are leftist propaganda.

[bert]

CPB has already closed it’s doors and is not accepting money on behalf of it’s state suscribers.

The states are now scrambling to keep existing members and, I believe, failing.

[bigbob]

Libs can put their money where their mouthpiece is.

[T.B. Yoits]

[NorthMountain]

But that ideal — while noble — died long ago.

That ideal, of dubious nobility, was a fraud from the start.

[Labyrinthos]

The federal government has no business funding public broacasying whether liberal, conservative, or neutral.

[Vaduz]

Yeah their new call sign CCCP.

[bleach]

This is going to be interesting. As I understand it, the CPB handles all the licensing for music with ASCAP,BMI and the others. Also satellite fees for the BBC and national programming. Indiviual stations will need to foot the bill for these and many other services.

[1Old Pro]

This is going to be interesting.

Well, they have time to figure it out. I hope it's an uphill battle.

[KC_Conspirator]

Leeches, parasites.

[dfwgator]

Yeah their new call sign CCCP.

Will they show "Vremya"?

[Vaduz]

Good one a keeper

[Mark was here]

All NPR stations say they get very little funding directly from the Federal government and depend upon local funding.
They don’t say how much they get indirectly.
I used to get a kick out of NPR because it was a hoot to come across so many conservatives posting on their web forums. NPR did not like hosting a conservative point of view, and their response was to silence free speech on their public forums and delete all discussion forums. I never tuned in again.

[GOPJ]

So called ‘public transportation’ is the same.

It’s become ‘reduced rate ‘kinda’ accessible transportation for the people of the democrat base’. The best of public transportation was created many decades ago and built for ‘all citizens’...

[ModelBreaker]

“...the CPB handles all the licensing for music with ASCAP,BMI and the others. “

I didn’t know that. That means CPB going away will be an ongoing problem for stations that is bigger than just the grants they get.

[Retain Mike]

I have never seen any difference for decades.

Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

On 25 March 1933 Goebbels explained the future function of the Ministry of Propaganda to broadcasting company directors:

"The Ministry has the task of carrying out an intellectual mobilization in Germany. In the field of the spirit it is thus the same as the Ministry of Defense in the field of security. Spiritual mobilization is just as necessary, perhaps even more necessary, than making the people materially able to defend themselves."