The case for government-run media comes from a center-right think tank?
Why NPR, CPB, and PBS should be defunded once and for all
For as long as there’s been government-run radio and television, there’s been at least some effort, even if unsuccessful, to try and end it. Things seemed to be headed in a different direction for 2025, yet leave it to the folks on the Right to try to find ways to keep the status quo in the face of an apparent public mandate to cut government spending.
The latest example comes from American Enterprise Institute (AEI) senior fellow Howard Husock, who argues in the Wall Street Journal that government broadcasting should be spared the budget axe.
Disappointingly, Husock presents myriad reasons budget hawks should save government-run National Public Radio (NPR), Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Husock writes, “I yield to no one in my anger at the liberal bias of NPR and PBS. As a member of the CPB board, 2013-17, I was ostracized by my colleagues for publishing an, op-ed arguing for ideological diversity. They stripped me of my committee assignments and accused me of violating my fiduciary duties.”
He admits, “There may be no more justifiable target for the budget cutters of the second Trump administration than the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. After all, what rationale is there in the age of ubiquitous streaming and podcasts for government to support television and radio via legislation virtually unchanged since 1967?”
Yet from here, he mounts a sizable defense:
First, Husock contends if government were to zero out the $535 million a year spent on government broadcasting, nothing would improve:
Liberal financial backers will swoop in with support, allowing them to continue to spread progressive propaganda masquerading as news. What will change is that they’ll do it without accountability to Congress.
If liberal financial backers want NPR, PBS, and CPB to continue, they should be free to put their money into those operations. If we truly value the idea of free speech, and I do, a privately funded platform that is wildly right or left of center does no violence to me by its mere existence. I can choose to consume its content or not. We should celebrate the existence of privately-funded ideologically diverse platforms, not try to wish them away or pound them into the sand with congressional oversight.
Furthermore, is Congress really holding anyone accountable now? Husock notes in his commentary that congressional hearings on NPR’s ideological bias were held in May. Did anything change? Was anyone — anyone at all — fired over the obvious taxpayer-funded media bias designed to support the election or defeat of certain candidates? Did programming change? Did NPR become more centrist or more fair? Of course not.
Second, Husock then laments that:
Even without direct federal support, NPR would exist as an independent, federally chartered nonprofit organization, to which contributions would be tax deductible. So would donations to the more than 350 public television stations and more than 1,000 public radio stations.
None of this means the country must acquiesce to the public broadcasting status quo. Republicans in Congress can update the Public Broadcasting Act in ways that would improve journalism. The key is to allow individual stations that hold public media licenses to keep the federal funds they currently receive. Most of these stations are now forced to return the money to Washington to buy programs like “All Things Considered” and to pay steep NPR membership dues. The superannuated aspects of public broadcasting legislation include the requirement that 75% of funds go to TV. This makes no sense in 2024. The distinctions among print, audio and visual media are dissolving.
I won’t argue that the Public Broadcasting Act makes sense. But what makes less sense is the idea that somehow Congress can update the Public Broadcasting Act but it is unable to update the federal tax code so that donations to public television and radio stations are not tax deductible. Both require passage through the House and Senate and the president’s signature. Why is one more plausible than the other? The tax code can’t be rewritten but other laws can?
And who believes that lawmakers have the ability to magically “improve journalism” through an act of Congress? Whenever someone argues that a piece of legislation is going to “improve” something, pretend to be astonished when things actually get worse. Because that’s generally how that goes.
In any case, the federal government shouldn’t concern itself with trying to make journalism better. Rather, one should wonder how the government has any influence or control of journalism — a free press — and end it entirely without delay.
Third, Husock writes:
Change is also needed at the CPB board, which is required by law to reserve seats for representatives of public television and radio stations. This is a recipe for protecting the status quo. The board’s current budgeting process is intolerably opaque. Grants for major new programming initiatives are made without member votes. During my tenure on the board, we voted up or down only on the overall budget. Taxpayers expect debate and accountability about sizable federal grants.
This is a hard “no” for me. Rather than settling for mere debate and pretend accountability over federal grants, taxpayers also expect that their money is being used for legitimate and absolute constitutionally-authorized necessities. Recall that the nation is $36 trillion in debt. We are either being taxed to death of having our savings deflated to nothing through currency printing.
When the government taxes people, or prints money to fund programs and projects, it is saying to folks “we need your money more than you.” To this, a taxpayer can respond, “I need to heat my house this winter” or “I need to feed and clothe my kids” or “I have to make my car/mortgage/student loan payment.” It’s tough to imagine that people generally consider taxation and monetary debasement a priority so that “PBS News Hour” or NPR’s “All Things Considered” can live on.
It should go without saying, especially for groups on the Right and their policy analysts, that government shouldn’t be in the news business. It shouldn’t be in the television or radio programming business. There’s no constitutional or philosophical basis that makes this make sense.
But here we are, on the eve of the Trump administration, through the newly-minted Department of Government Efficiency, with probably the best chance ever to end government-run media. In the scope of the federal budget, it’s fairly inconsequential, and it’s obviously a not-necessary government program. And yet it’s folks on the Right who are making the case to save it. Yikes.