In February, Elon Musk and his Division of Authorities Effectivity put the nation’s public radio community on discover. “Defund NPR,” he wrote on X. “It ought to survive by itself.” Musk’s tweet was the most recent indication that the Trump administration intends to change the way in which the broadcaster operates. In January, Federal Communications Fee Chairman Brendan Carr introduced an investigation into the legality of underwriting — the general public media equal of promoting. In the meantime, the Division of Protection ordered NPR and different information organizations to surrender their workplaces on the Pentagon. Breitbart Information will occupy NPR’s area.
Throughout its 55-year historical past, NPR’s funding scares have come virtually on schedule, heralded by the arrival of a brand new Republican administration (Ronald Reagan, 1981), a rightward shift within the Congress (Newt Gingrich, 1995) or a call by community executives that angers conservatives (the firing of commentator Juan Williams, 2010).
The earlier threats have been severe, however none as severe as what’s unfolding now.
The community is susceptible. In 2024, former NPR enterprise editor Uri Berliner posted an essay on the Free Press substack web site accusing the group of adopting a left-wing stance during which “race and id” have been “paramount.” NPR pushed again, however the “bias” allegations obtained in depth protection. Concurrently, the community has been shedding its viewers. It began throughout the pandemic, as commuters who had tuned into “Morning Version” and “All Issues Thought of” deserted drive-time for radio-free walks down the corridor to residence workplaces. Listenership dropped — from an estimated 60 million in 2020 to 42 million in 2024.
In mounting its protection, NPR ought to look again at its earlier wins and losses.
By far the worst incident sprang from the advice of a Reagan-appointed panel to cancel the whole price range of the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, the company that oversees each NPR and PBS. Though David Stockman, Reagan’s price range czar, finally opted for a much less drastic 25% reduce, Frank Mankiewicz, then president of NPR, considered even the decrease quantity as probably ruinous.
In 1982, Mankiewicz tried to free NPR from authorities funding altogether by monetizing a lot of embryonic on-line supply techniques that may beam inventory reviews, sports activities scores and information headlines to handheld gadgets whereas transmitting NPR reveals to residence computer systems and stock and pricing info to enterprise clients. The expertise, nevertheless, had but to be totally developed. Inside a yr, Mankiewicz was gone and NPR was $9.1 million in debt.
The CPB bailed out NPR, however not earlier than extracting concessions. Because the community’s founding in 1970, it had obtained grants from the company to pay for programming. Now, the grants would go to NPR stations, enabling them both to proceed shopping for “Morning Version” and “All Issues Thought of” from the community or reveals reminiscent of “Market” from unbiased suppliers.
NPR executives bemoaned the change however the benefit of giving federal cash to the stations turned obvious in 1995 after Gingrich, the newly elected speaker of the Home, announced plans to “zero out” the CPB. The place up to now this proposal would have been seen as a menace to NPR and PBS, it was as an alternative seen as endangering beloved native stations. “For those who have been attacking NPR,” a community government later stated, “you have been attacking your personal neighborhood.” When an modification to remove CPB funding got here up within the Home, it misplaced by a two-to-one margin.
By 2010, when NPR dismissed Williams, the media world was starting to fracture in ways in which anticipated the present surroundings, and the firing of a conservative commentator turned a litmus check. NPR’s rationale for letting Williams go, which was that he’d made what it thought of Islamophobic remarks whereas showing on Fox Information, fell flat. Fox lambasted NPR and handed Williams a $2-million contract. NPR investigated the chief who fired Williams and she resigned. Jon Stewart mocked the network on “The Every day Present” with a reference to a gentler public radio commentator: “NPR, you simply introduced a tote bag filled with David Sedaris books to a knife battle.”
In 2011, the Republican-controlled Home — responding to the firing of Williams and to a later controversy involving a right-wing video sting that captured an NPR government seemingly agreeing to publicize shariah regulation — voted 228 to 192 to defund the community. The Democratic-controlled Senate, nevertheless, didn’t go alongside. President Obama, who signed the invoice that saved the funding alive, nonetheless aimed a barb at NPR throughout that yr’s White Home Correspondents Dinner: “I used to be trying ahead to new programming like ‘No Issues Thought of.’ ”
The defunding effort shaping up in 2025 guarantees risks tougher to joke about. Throughout his first time period, Trump acknowledged that the CPB ought to be defunded. In his second time period, he’s unleashing an assault on the very thought of public companies.
NPR’s protection will doubtless be that because it now will get simply 1% of its price range from the federal government, it presents no menace to the nationwide purse. However it’s not that easy. In accordance with its personal reporting on “All Issues Thought of,” whereas the stations certainly get extra authorities cash than does NPR itself, they find yourself spending a whole lot of it for NPR applications. With a president who brazenly despises the mainstream media, and with all branches of presidency in Republican management, the CPB is not going to be coming to the rescue.
But there are causes to hope that NPR will survive. First, no matter Berliner’s critique, NPR has at all times been a supply of ground-breaking journalistic practices and excellent reporting. It has established a strong foothold in American tradition.
In 1972, NPR named Susan Stamberg host of “All Issues Thought of,” making her the primary lady to entrance a nationwide information present. In 1973, NPR assigned reporter Josh Darsa to the Russell Senate Workplace Constructing to cowl the Watergate hearings. No different broadcaster had a reporter within the room every day. In 2003, NPR was the one American broadcast community to maintain a correspondent (Anne Garrels) in Baghdad throughout the aerial assault that launched the Iraq Struggle. NPR’s present efforts are equally robust, whether or not they be dispatches by Jerusalem reporter Daniel Estrin in regards to the battle in Gaza or these by Berlin reporter Rob Schmitz about threats to NATO. Ari Shapiro, now the cohost of “All Issues Thought of,” just lately contributed a thorough piece from Panama about response to Trump’s acknowledged hopes to reclaim management of the Panama Canal.
One more reason for hope is that versus 1995 — and even to 2011 — the American media panorama is in such poor form that NPR is extra mandatory than ever. Throughout the nation, print journalism has imploded. Business TV and radio information operations are additionally in decline. Particularly in purple states, NPR is typically the one supply of native information. True, folks all over the place now get info from cable channels, random web sites or social media, however many nonetheless need what NPR presents.
As Invoice Siemering, the creator of “All Issues Thought of,” put it within the group’s 1970 mission assertion:
“In its journalistic mode, Nationwide Public Radio will actively discover, examine, and interpret problems with nationwide and worldwide import. The applications will allow the person to higher perceive himself, his authorities, his establishments, and his pure and social surroundings.”
That is pretty much as good an thought now because it was greater than half a century in the past. As we speak’s political local weather, nevertheless, is even harsher than that in Richard Nixon’s embattled presidency. Within the coming battle, NPR is not going to solely want greater than a tote bag of David Sedaris books. It might want to rally assist on the nationwide and native degree. It might want to carry a knife.
Steve Oney is a Los Angeles-based journalist and the creator of “On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR,” revealed this week.
