Days after National Public Radio (NPR) sued the Trump administration over attempts to cut off its federal funding, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has also filed a lawsuit, claiming that the proposed cuts violate the First Amendment.
Trump signed an executive order earlier this month ordering the government “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS, alleging “bias” in their reporting. Trump has also been looking to rescind federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). “Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage,” the executive order read.
On Tuesday, NPR and its member stations sued the Trump administration over the executive order, with PBS and a Minnesota public television station following Friday with a lawsuit filed at a federal court in Washington, D.C. The lawsuit objected to Trump’s executive order that called PBS “corrosive” as well as “biased and partisan.
“PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,” the lawsuit states. “But regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television, our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”
The lawsuit continued, “The [executive order] makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech. That is blatant viewpoint discrimination and an infringement of PBS and PBS Member Stations’ private editorial discretion.”
PBS said in a statement, “After careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations.”
In response to the PBS lawsuit, a White House spokesperson accused the CPB of “creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime.” “Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement (via NPR). “The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.”
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NPR and PBS receive about $500 million annually through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private, publicly funded nonprofit created by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Trump has been attacking the CPB since taking office, including by trying to fire some of its board members, prompting a lawsuit. The administration has also been looking to cut the CBP’s federal funding. Trump will reportedly formally request Congress in early June to rescind the next two years of CPB funding, or $1.1 billion.
From Rolling Stone US
