In a House DOGE subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Republicans pressed the bosses of PBS and NPR on the blatant leftist bias of their news shows, and both leaders claimed these networks are unbiased and nonpartisan. No one believes this.
PBS leader Paula Kerger and NPR leader Katherine Maher were supposedly preparing for this, reported The New York Times: "Ms. Kerger said she was preparing for the hearing by reviewing her testimony with legal counsel. Ms. Maher told staff members last month that she was preparing with so-called murder boards, rigorous question-and-answer sessions that aim to expose potential weaknesses."
These ladies were terrible about specifics. They offered no evidence that they were acquainted with any of the examples of bias they were given by the Republicans. Maher told Rep. Jim Jordan: "I have never seen any political bias."
When Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) cited our NewsBusters study finding PBS used "far right" or its variants 162 times to just six for "far left" terms, Kerger replied, "I don't know the study that you're referring to, and I'd love — I'd be very interested in seeing it and understanding how they came up with those numbers.” Should we believe she never reads studies by conservative critics of her network? It's possible, since they demonstrate they don't really think liberal bias is a problem. (It's more of a privilege.) Or that could be the answer the lawyers told her to use.
The Democrats were ridiculous. Many of them just made effusive remarks about the children's programming on PBS, or joked about how the conservatives are suspicious of the pinkish tilt of the puppets.
Rep. Greg Casar inaccurately placed Miss Piggy on Sesame Street. Rep. Ro Khanna pestered witness Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation about how well he knew the show Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and gushed over how it evolved out of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. No Republicans are opposed to the kiddie shows, they're opposed to the aggressively biased "news" shows and documentaries.
There was Jasmine Crockett, who had her hair over half of her face bizarrely suggesting that conservatives want to end all opposition media: "the idea that you wanna shut down everybody that is not Fox News is [BS]!" Defunding PBS and NPR isn't shutting them down. It's just a spending cut that leftists will probably rush to fill.
Gonzalez of Heritage summarized the game: “What we have today is a circular, undemocratic relationship. Democrats unanimously vote for more and more money for public media. In exchange, public media heavily tips the scale in their favor. It is a nice arrangement for them, but it must end."
Sign the petition to help us defund another MSNBC in PBS and NPR at defundpbsnpr.org.
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