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Left’s ‘Big Bird defense’ won’t work this time as Trump axes funds for biased PBS, NPR

4 5
06.05.2025

President Donald Trump has fought plenty of political heavyweights, but now he’s up against a foe far tougher than Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris: Big Bird.

The president is ordering federal agencies and the taxpayer-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop supporting National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.

His May 1 executive order is titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media.”

How biased are NPR and PBS?

They mostly appeal to members of one political party, according to Pew Research: 32% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents surveyed say they regularly get news from NPR, and a similar number — 31% — say the same about PBS.

Only 11% of Republicans and GOP-leaners report they get news from PBS, and the figure for NPR — 9% — is even worse.

Something about NPR is three times more agreeable to Democrats than to Republicans.

Should everyone be taxed to pay for radio and TV programming that caters primarily to Democrats?

Public radio and TV executives hide behind yellow feathers whenever they’re criticized.

“Big Bird Taken Off Death Row,” announced a Washington Post headline in June 1995 when Newt Gingrich, the first Republican speaker of the House of Representatives in 40 years, backed down from attempts to defund........

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