National Public Radio is suing the Trump administration for cutting off its federal funds, which, according to NPR’s complaint, is a “blatant,” “textbook” First Amendment violation.
But NPR seems to have forgotten some free speech basics. As the District of Columbia District Court—the court where NPR filed suit on Tuesday—stated just a few weeks ago, “the government does not abridge the right to free speech by choosing not to subsidize it.”
On May 1 of this year, Trump issued another of his innumerable executive orders, this one telling the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—the vehicle through which the government disburses about $500 million annually to public radio and television—to stop giving any more federal money to NPR and PBS. The executive order said funding would be withheld because “neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
NPR denies it’s biased. But in these pages a year ago, a then–NPR senior editor, Uri Berliner, begged to differ.