Republicans grill PBS, NPR chiefs as Democrats mock proceedings

At the start of Wednesday’s congressional hearing on the funding of public media, a large photo of drag queen Lil Miss Hot Mess appearing on a PBS kids show was displayed behind committee chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)

That image set the tone for the hearing in Washington in which Greene and other Republican House members hammered PBS Chief Executive Paula Kerger and NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher over their programming and perceived liberal bias.

The two public media entities have become frequent targets in the GOP’s efforts to reduce government spending. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which directs federal funds to public media, currently receives $500 million a year in government money, a minuscule portion of the federal budget.

Lil Miss Hot Mess performed on “Let’s Learn,” produced by New York public station WNET, in 2021, in what Republicans call an example of a left-wing political agenda.

“If I had walked into one of my children’s bedrooms and seeing this child predator and this monster targeting my children, I would become unglued,” Greene said. “This is not the only example of (PBS) sexualizing and grooming children.”

Kerger said the segment was posted on the PBS website and never aired nationally on TV. It was removed from the site after one month.

The Republicans chastised the media executives over their lack of coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 presidential campaign and reports that the COVID-19 virus could have originated in a Chinese lab.

“NPR and PBS can hate us on their own dime,” Greene said. “It’s time for the American taxpayer to stop footing the bill.”

She described the two services as “left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly white urban liberals and progressives who generally look down on and judge rural America.”

Both Kerger and Maher emphasized the ability of PBS and NPR to provide programming in rural areas that don’t have access to broadband internet services.

They also noted that most of the federal dollars for public media go to local outlets directly serving their communities. Loss of those funds would mean that some PBS and NPR stations in smaller markets would cease to operate.

“In rural areas, PBS stations are the only outlet providing coverage of local events — for example, high school sports, local history, culture, candidates debates at every level of the election ballot and specialized agricultural news,” Kerger said. The outlets also deliver public safety information and emergency alerts, she added.

Kerger noted that PBS education shows are highly valued in communities where preschool programs are not available. She recounted how during a recent trip to visit a Nebraska station, she heard from residents who said their young children learned how to read by watching PBS shows.

Democrats were mocking in their remarks at the hearing. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), asked Kerger in jest if “Sesame Street’s” Elmo is a communist. “Because he’s obviously red,” Garcia noted.

Several members said Republican lawmakers’ time would be better spent focusing on how journalist Jeffrey Goldberg was able to get on a text chain with military and intelligence officials as they planned an attack on the Houthis.

“The Republicans have actually organized this goofy hearing to try to convince the American people that PBS and NPR are ‘domestic threats,’ not the incompetent, unqualified secretary of Defense who’s texting war plans to journalists,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).

The Republicans’ other argument against taxpayer funding of PBS and NPR is that their role as an alternative nonprofit provider of news and programming is antiquated in an age where consumers have a myriad of information choices through the internet.

Hollywood Inc.

The Conversation: PBS President Paula Kerger on replacing Charlie Rose, keeping Ken Burns and streaming

Paula Kerger has visited 49 states since she took over as president and chief executive of PBS in 2006.

Jan. 25, 2019

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was formed in 1967, when the country had three networks and a handful of TV stations in each market.

The GOP attacks were harsher on NPR and its leader Maher than they were on PBS.

Legislators zeroed in on Maher’s statements before she became head of NPR, in which she called Trump “a deranged racist sociopath” and described the terms “boy” and “girl” as “erasing language for nonbinary people.”

Maher said she regretted the comment on Trump, which she made while she was still head of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The attacks on NPR were fortified by a 2024 article by former longtime editor Uri Berliner, who wrote in the Free Press that the service was seeing a decline in listeners because it had “lost America’s trust.”

Berliner said NPR overplayed the investigation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in the 2016 presidential election. He also said the news operation turned a blind eye to the story of the laptop abandoned by President Biden’s son Hunter in October 2020, out of concern that coverage of the matter would help reelect Trump.

Maher pointed out she was not at NPR but agreed that the laptop story deserved coverage. She said the service has since launched an initiative to improve its editorial processes “to make sure all pieces are fair and comprehensive.”