Video above: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) speaks during Wednesday’s hearing.
(The Hill) — The heads of the nation’s top public broadcasters faced an intense grilling from lawmakers Wednesday on Capitol Hill over their outlets’ funding and editorial objectivity.
The House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing came as Republicans and allies of President Donald Trump have assailed public media organizations NPR and PBS as too liberal in news coverage, while the broadcast networks have come under heavy scrutiny from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over their journalism and fundraising practices.
NPR, PBS defend their ‘essential’ need during heated DOGE hearing
Here are five takeaways from the hearing.
Republicans lay out allegations of bias
Republicans led by subcommittee Chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) accused NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS President Paula Kerger of presiding over news organizations that are biased against conservatives and out of touch with large swaths of Americans.
“People who listen to NPR are totally misinformed,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said during his questioning. “I have a problem with that, because you get federal funds.”
Comer argued there is less of a place for public radio and TV in the increasingly internet-based media ecosystem, and the federal government should invest its money elsewhere as it looks to cut costs.
“Because of technology today, I don’t think there’s a role for public radio anymore,” he said.
More Americans say NPR, PBS should be federally funded than not: Survey
Greene and her fellow committee members accused the public broadcasters of ignoring issues important to Republican voters in news coverage and catering to “wealthy white liberals.”
On several occasions, GOP members referenced a bombshell essay published by former NPR editor Uri Berliner last year outlining what he described as widespread liberal groupthink inside the outlet.
Berliner was suspended from NPR over the essay and later resigned.
“We’re constantly making sure we are bringing forward a diversity of viewpoints,” Kerger, PBS’s leader for nearly two decades, said at one point during questioning.
But Republicans on the committee seemed largely unmoved.
NPR chief says ‘mistakes’ made in Hunter Biden, COVID coverage
Maher faced intense questioning from Republican members over NPR’s ignoring of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal during the 2020 election, its reporting on the origins of the coronavirus in China, and the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia during his first term.
“You guys were 0-for-3 on three of the biggest stories in the country,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) exclaimed as he admonished the NPR chief.
Maher, the former top executive at Wikipedia who joined NPR in 2024, conceded NPR’s coverage or lack thereof on the laptop story, which Berliner had criticized, was a misstep.
“Our current editorial leadership believe that was a mistake, as do I,” she said.
Yet Maher insisted NPR remains a fair and objective reporting operation and pushed back on Berliner’s characterization of the outlet’s left-leaning bias.
“I’ve never seen any instance of political bias” at NPR, she told Jordan, pushing back on the Republican comments that she fired Berliner over the op-ed. She also called the revelations he published “concerning.”
Dems use Elmo, Big Bird to mock GOP questioning
Democrats largely sought to dismiss allegations of bias by PBS or NPR against conservatives and argued the broadcasters are deserving of federal dollars because they provide a valuable public service, particularly in rural communities.
Many of them used humor to mock GOP lines of attack against Maher and Kerger.
“Is Elmo now or has he ever been a member of the Communist Party?” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) asked while his staff held a picture of the furry “Sesame Street” creature up for the PBS boss. “I mean, he is red.”
“Well, he is a puppet,” Kerger joked back. “But no.”
Garcia later asked if the American government was “silencing pro-cookie voters” with attempts to shut down Cookie Monster, another “Sesame Street” icon.
Democrats also made repeated reference to the controversy stemming from a Signal group chat used by U.S. Cabinet officials to discuss war plans.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) called Wednesday’s hearing “goofy” and blasted Republicans for trying to distract from issues such as the Signal controversy.
“Free speech is not about what y’all want somebody to say,” she said. “And the fact that you want to shut down everybody that is not Fox News is bulls‑‑‑. We need to stop playing, because that’s what y’all are doing in here.”
NPR chief defends posts blasting Trump
Maher’s social media posts before she arrived at NPR criticizing Trump and promoting progressive viewpoints were another major focal point during Wednesday’s hearing.
When pressed by Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) about her comments, Maher said the social media posts, in which she called Trump a “racist” and “deranged,” did not come up when she interviewed to be NPR’s top executive.
“There is strong firewall between me and the newsroom,” Maher insisted, noting her political thinking and personal worldview have changed in recent years.
“I regret those tweets; I would not tweet them again today,” she later said during a subsequent grilling from Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.). “I don’t presume that anyone is a racist.”
Maher on more than one occasion said she “respected” the lawmakers’ concerns and promised NPR is doing more under her watch to “beef up our editorial standards” and “make sure we have more points of view reflected in every story.”
Committee calls for DOGE to dismantle CPB
Throughout the hearing, Republicans made regular reference to the U.S. debt and argued funding public broadcasters is a waste of taxpayer money.
Maher testified NPR took in more than $11 million in federal funding last year, while several GOP members dinged her over a fundraising blast the outlet sent to donors before Wednesday’s hearing.
“We recognize the limited resources of the federal government,” Kerger said as she was being questioned by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), who later asked if Social Security or public broadcasting was more important to senior citizens.
“I don’t think they should get a penny,” Comer exclaimed at the end of his questioning.
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) told the two public media executives that much of the content they broadcast is “garbage” and vowed to “spend as much of” his time making sure they “never get another dollar.”
Greene, the subcommittee’s chair, indicated she plans to recommend to the administration’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) be totally abolished.
“The [CPB] is using taxpayer dollars to actively suppress the truth and produce some of the most ludicrous content,” she said. “Every single day, private businesses operate without government funding. You all can hate us on your own dime.”
