A long-simmering effort to defund National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service is heating up on Capitol Hill just as the Federal Communications Commission and Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency are looking into how tax dollars are spent at the left-leaning media outlets.
The Media Research Center, a conservative news watchdog, today launched a PR effort to draw attention to the “anti-American and anti-conservative programming” on the outlets.
The campaign features a digital mobile billboard driven on roads around the Capitol and House and Senate office buildings calling for defunding. The van will be on the roads through Thursday.
MRC told Secrets, “Republicans have control of Congress and the White House, and Trump’s DOGE are looking at slashing funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that funds PBS and NPR’s hours and hours of anti-American and anti-conservative programming for a dwindling audience of wealthy liberal elites. Republicans and religious Americans are routinely attacked by PBS and NPR and American taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for it.”
The organization, which Secrets teams with to highlight the Liberal Media Scream of the week, has led the effort to strip taxpayer funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS, and NPR for years.
Tim Graham, the executive editor of MRC’s NewsBuster news service, has headed that effort with revealing stories and congressional testimony detailing the liberal bent of those new services.
A recent column from Graham was headlined, “NPR Is National Public Relations for the War on Trump.” In it, he quoted leftist hosts and guests blasting Trump.
Over half a billion American taxpayer dollars are wasted on PBS and NPR.
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) February 5, 2025
MRC NewsBusters' @TimJGraham explains the top 5 reasons these propaganda outlets need to be defunded ASAP.
Read more here: https://t.co/eyZLTSrrv4 pic.twitter.com/S8w11eXL3E
“For decades, conservatives have been forced to send our tax dollars to Washington so that PBS and NPR can smear us as horrible bigots and racists who want to starve children,” he told Secrets today. “Now is the time for Republicans to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end this abuse. Let George Soros and Rob Reiner and the like fund PBS and NPR,” he added.
Liberals have forever embraced NPR and PBS. Last week, singer Sheryl Crow, angered with President Donald Trump and Musk, sold her Musk-made Tesla and promised to donate the money to NPR.
While the public media outlets fund a small proportion of their budgets with tax dollars, conservatives said it isn’t fair that their tax dollars be used to belittle their beliefs.
Said Graham, “If the government were shoveling money to Fox News, you know the left would say it was unfair to them. But for them, it’s never unfair to take government money to push their talking points.”
After Trump took office, new FCC chief Brendan Carr said he would look into PBS and NPR spending. Musk, meanwhile, is looking at all government spending and NPR has put a target on its back with multiple negative stories about his efforts.
SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS
Also, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who chairs the House DOGE subcommittee, is planning a hearing that is likely to lead to a GOP bill to defund the outlets.
The MRC effort could get a boost now that its founder, L. Brent Bozell III, has been nominated to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of the Voice of America and other federally owned international broadcasters.