After much political haggling in D.C., many promises of calamity in the press, years of melodramatic lobbying, and numerous narrative shifts from the networks themselves, Congress recently passed the rescission package that strips away federal funding for public broadcasting. Generations of proposed cuts to this media largesse have always led to no action, but finally we found the nerve to go forward with this alleviation of taxpayer responsibility. The sorrow has been on display for days now.

What has been a telling component in this long fight is the changes in the arguments made on behalf of keeping this gravy flowing to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The longstanding dismissive claim was that this money was a pittance -- “only” $1.1 billion was split between the two outlets, consisting of allegedly only 2 percent or so of their operating budgets. This narrative demanded examination; if this was indeed a meager component, then their wailing over the federal removal of backing funds made no sense.

The reality is that percentage was the direct payout to these networks, but there is far more involved. Both PBS and NPR draw in far more money from the licensing of their programming to the local networks. So while federal funds are distributed through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to all of the affiliate stations, they in turn pay fees for the rights to the various shows to the national outlets. As a result, their actual budgets consist of a third of federal money from these indirect payments; hence, the wailing.

As this argument fell away, there were others attempted. The standby has always been, “They want to kill off Big Bird!” but this agitprop also ran into challenges. The Sesame Workshop has been under the ownership of Warner Bros. Studios for years, and at the conclusion of that contract it was then picked up by Netflix. Despite this reality, many in the press still push this false story. So, they have moved in recent months to a last-ditch effort to develop sympathy - rural areas rely on public stations for emergency weather alerts. This was shown to be harshly false, when local affiliates failed to deliver timely warnings during the flash floods in Texas.

After failing with these arguments, the networks now find their path forward is one in which new revenue streams are needed. But the press and Democrats are playing a funeral dirge for NPR and PBS. So in honor of the wake they are throwing, let’s look over the type of content we are allegedly losing due to the rescission funding cuts.

We can breeze past the big-ticket items; we already are familiar with the radio network perpetuating over recent years. It joined in on the Russian collusion mob, and was pro-vaccine to a bothersome fault (Look! 700 sheep and goats formed a COVID syringe!). They pushed the masking, claimed the virus came from raccoon dogs in the Wuhan wet market and not the viral lab in town. And, of course, there was the always infamous way the network disavowed the reality of the Hunter Biden laptop. Then all of the preconceived notions about NPR were proven, when an editor with a quarter of a century at the network admitted to the leftist bias in-house. 

The past months have brought laughable claims that they report things straight down the middle. This is the same outlet that, as Kamala Harris was pushing “Joy” as the centerpiece of her presidential bid, announced that it was forming a new position – NPR would have a “Joy Czar.” The radio shows have been decidedly pro-trans, going so far as to claim that trans athletes possess no athletic advantage over females. Then there was the vital exploration of how the LGBTπ community was battling to retain dinosaur emojis as their own.

Racial issues are a favorite at NPR, where this gets worked into just about any topic they can dredge up. Bird names are insensitive to POC (people of color). Highways are racist. Craft brewing is exclusionary. One columnist said you were required to have a proper social media avatar that reflects your skin tone. It was possible to be racist for using the wrong colored hand gesture emoji. And basically any posting that wrongly portrayed POC would lead to the accusation of engaging in “digital blackface.” When it was discovered Donald Trump was earning growing support from POC voters, the network chalked this defiance to their own narratives as "multi-racial whiteness."

Their reliance on race grievance was so bad, they managed to inadvertently impugn themselves. Want some real comedy? The network proclaimed that it was a racist conservative conspiracy to suggest that anyone was promoting a diet of insects to save the planet. The problem? The years that NPR spent at the vanguard of moving people onto a diet of eating bugs. 

There were other gems to be enjoyed. During the BLM protest/riots, the network gushed over the author of the book “In Defense Of Looting.” We were told that people who put their newborns on a sleep schedule were perpetuating capitalism mandates. Then they decided it was a wise idea to publish a deep-dive feature on one "Dad" who was giving birth; this idiocy was heightened by the fact they ran this feature to commemorate Father’s Day. 

Now, much like how comedy is dependent on the individual, saying one item is the most representative of NPR’s slanted view of things is purely subjective. For myself, I will offer up this gem. Each year on the 4th of July, the network performs a reading of the document announcing our break with the British Crown. All well and good. This is a sound tradition that instills honor and pride in the country's formation.

However, for reasons that reflect both the audience fragility and the slavish nature of the network to those sensitivities, it was decided years back that the network needed to caution their listeners to some of the content. That is correct : NPR places a trigger warning – on the Declaration of Independence.

Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie.

Help us continue exposing their grift by reading news you can trust. Join RedState’s VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.