WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Matthew Cookson: Congress Must Defund NPR and PBS

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Matthew Cookson, a defense industry professional and Young Voices contributor— argues that taxpayer dollars should not fund partisan journalism that fails its founding mission of neutrality. Cookson writes, "The testimony of PBS and NPR CEOs in front of Congress last week reminded us of the bias deep in both of these organizations. They also exposed a greater problem: Funding for NPR and PBS is unnecessary and unconstitutional."He joins Luke Miller of WRFH to discuss. From 04/18/25.

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Luke Miller, and here with me today is Matthew Cookson, defense industry professional and young voices contributor. He's here today to talk about an article he recently wrote for Real Clear Politics criticizing federal funding of NPR and PBS. Mr. Cookson, thank you for giving us your time. Thanks for having me on. It's a real pleasure. So for our audience, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah, so by day, I work in the defense industry and a supply chain role. basically complaining about things not getting delivered on time. And then by night, I am a Young Voices contributor.

I recently completed a Middle East history and policy fellowship. And yeah, so I publish articles there frequently. So, yeah, that's a little bit about me. That's awesome. So we read your recent article for Real Clear Politics. You pointed out that National Public Radio, or NPR, and the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, both engage in biased journalism.

Tell me a little bit about that bias and why it's a problem. Well, your listeners are probably familiar with liberal bias in the media, and that shouldn't come as a surprise. But the problem here is that NPR and PBS are publicly funded in large part. So they receive tax dollars to provide what should be unbiased content. However, especially in recent years, we've noticed a significant liberal lean in the production from both of these companies, which indicates that these publicly funded broadcasters are not acting in a unbiased fashion in a way that benefits all taxpayers.

And that really opens the door as to whether or not the federal government should be providing funding for public media outlets. So how much funding does the government really give to these public news programs? So as a whole, the U.S. government provides around $500 million a year for public broadcasting, and that is dispersed primarily to NPR and PBS. NPR has tried to defend itself by saying that it is not a federally funded organization, claiming that only 1% of their funding comes from the federal government. However, that isn't true as their own records show that they receive, I believe it's around

$90 million, which is from the federal government, which is about a third of their budget. So it's certainly not trivial the amount of money that they receive. Certainly. And in the past few years, PBS programs seem to have embraced the gender identity movement as well. Like, for example, in 2021, Sesame Street featured a gay couple who appeared to teach kids about Pride Month. PBS also apparently created a movie called Real Boy about the journey of a transgender teen. So my question for you about that is

if the elected government wants to use its dollars to support an ideological cause like that, why shouldn't they be able to? So the reason for that is because most Americans do not support these types of programming. This is supposed to be child-friendly content and what they're doing is using government money to fund a political pet project of half the country that only a small minority of people

would support. And so when you take public money, it's supposed to be something that is beneficial for all Americans, but if it is something that only benefits a handful of people or is supported by a small minority or not serving the interest of the American public, you know, these types of programming on LGBT issues tend to be. supported by only a small number of people. And so the idea that the American public broadly supports this stuff is not true. It's very interesting. Just a reminder to those listening, I'm Luke Miller speaking with Matthew Cookson on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. So in the beginning of your article,

you mentioned the NPR CEO and the PBS CEO testified in front of Congress recently. How did, how did those hearings go? In short, the hearings did not go well. Congress was very upset about the not just the woke content that you mentioned, but the political bias being shown by what are supposed to be neutral outlets. It was particularly egregious at NPR where in the 2020 election, there was that big story about the Hunter Biden laptop that was recovered and contained all sorts of damning information about then candidate Joe Biden, And it was largely dismissed by many in the mainstream media as being Russian disinformation,

but was later confirmed to be 100% authentic. And where NPR comes into this scenario is they took part in the media cover-up to dismiss this story and gave very little, if any, coverage to this story. And an issue that after the election was revealed that many Americans polled, I think, around 18, 20% of them said, had they known about this story, it would have caused them to reconsider their vote. And, you know, in such a close and contentious election like 2020 was, that makes all the difference in victory and defeat if 18% of the people supporting one candidate would have reconsidered had they known information that was covered up by journalistic

outlets like NPR. And, you know, as I mentioned, they're supposed to be unbiased. They're not supposed to cover up or stifle or discredit stories based on a candidate that they prefer. Absolutely. And you also mentioned the discrepancy between registered Democrats and registered Republicans in the NPR newsroom? That's absolutely right. You know, public outlets and the media more broadly tried to claim themselves to be unbiased reporters of the news. And, you know, it's borderline impossible for any human being to be completely unbiased in their analysis of a situation, but especially in the media where former NPR executive Irry Boer Liner revealed in a op-ed that in the NPR newsroom, which is supposed to be the least biased area of the news company,

you know, just reporting the news, he revealed that in their newsroom they have 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans. That should be, that should concern Americans because if you're going to a news outlet to hear just the news, you can't expect to receive unbiased coverage if there is not a single registered member of the other party. And all 87 members are of one party. It seems as though fewer and fewer news sources are even claiming to be unbiased anymore. And many Americans really see that as a problem.

And a lot of Americans also see public radio or public news as a solution. Why do you think that it's not a solution to unbiased news? Well, you know, call me cynical, but I find it hard to believe that any news outlet really is capable of being unbiased. I think every person has their own biases, whether it's from, you know, their ideology or philosophy or worldview that color our outlook on any given. in situation. So I don't think it is really possible to have unbiased news and to get to the core of your question about is public media the solution? You know, I think absolutely not. I think

when you look at public funded media in other countries, you know, an extreme example would be places like China or Russia where the government controls media and funds the media, but even in a more democratic country like the UK where the BBC is publicly. funded. These organizations often have extreme biases of their own. And, you know, I don't think putting, just because you attach public money to something that that automatically going to fix things, when we look at places like NPR and PBS, they receive public money and have for decades. And yet they have extreme biases of their own. Just another reminder to those listening. I'm Luke Miller speaking with Matthew Cookson on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

So Mr. Cuxin, you've pointed out this issue of bias in public newsrooms. In the past, some major outlets have tried to combat bias by holding a standard that their journalists couldn't register to a political party. Do you think that would work for NPR and PBS, or do you think that it needs to go further than that? I like the intent of what that policy is trying to accomplish. However, I'm cynical as to how great of an effect that will have. I think that many people who are politically active, you know, you don't necessarily have to be a registered member of a party to be an ideologue or very committed member of that side of the aisle.

I don't think that forbidding publicly funded journalists from being registered members of a political party will necessarily clear them of any political biases they may have. And also, I think you might get into Dicey territory by forbidding at that point what would be publicly funded employees from participating in the political process by being registered members of party. So I think from those two standpoints, it doesn't really go far enough. I am pessimistic about getting any sort of balance into NPR. I think it's a much better solution for the federal government to cut itself off from this issue completely. I think back when NPR and PBS first formed back in the 1960s and 1970s, there were much fewer options.

I'm sure our parents can all tell us stories about back in the day when you had on TV, there were only two or three channels. And so back in those days, you know, the options were very limited. but, you know, in today's modern era, we have nothing but choices. And so from the standpoint of what creating NPR and PBS was trying to accomplish, providing with people with choice, that is no longer required from a public dollar standpoint. Do you think it's more important that people be able to access unbiased news coverage, or do you think it's more important that people understand the bias of the sources that they're going to? Well, I think you're asking a critical question because I think one of the big problems is that most people aren't aware of the bias of places like PBS and NPR.

I think I saw a Pew Research poll conducted recently, found that in the 20% range of Americans thought that NPR and PBS should be completely defunded and 42% said they should not. you know, of course, in all these polls, you can always count on a sizable portion of people being unsure about the question. And, you know, I think that speaks to the lack of education the American public broadly has about this issue. I think most Americans, you know, think about PBS and think of growing up on Arthur, Mr. Rogers, or in my case, Liberty's Kids, where you have these very fond memories of growing up on the content of these. outlets and thinking that, oh, PBS and NPR, that's Arthur. That's, you know, Main Street America. That's what I grew up on. And so they have trouble either accepting or even knowing that these outlets are not what they once were in terms of being unbiased and trying to reach all Americans. And so I think that's the first step is alerting Americans to the extent of this problem,

because I think it'll be difficult to convince Congress to intervene in this area by removing public funding from NPR and PBS, while a plurality of Americans still hold strong feelings of support for these outlets. For the people who enjoy the programming of NPR and PBS, would pulling government funding from these programs put them out of business? Well, it is a significant source of funding, as I've, mentioned in the article, public funding for NPR is their second largest source of funding. However, over the past 30 to 40 years since the Reagan administration, both of these outlets have tried to

reduce their reliance on public funding through corporate sponsorships and the like. However, you know, I think that based on what we know in terms of bias, these outlets do need to on their own two feet. And I think that if the public supports these things as much as they say they do, NPR and PBS should be forced to rely on the market as all their media outlets do by providing content that the American public wants to see. And should they commit sufficiently to that goal, I think they will be successful. But I don't think it is incumbent on the government to prop up winners and losers of any organization or aspect of the economy. So you pointed out that the taxpayer funding has kind of been diluted as a percentage of all

of NPR and PBS's funding. Recently, do you think that that's part of the problem maybe that as corporate interests have gotten into this public news source, do you think that that could be part of the problem as to why these sources are becoming more and more biased? I think part of the problem broadly in the media is that the incentive systems reward members of either the media and the political class to seek out the extremes of their political side rather than trying to reach a consensus. So I think that a lot of maybe more liberal listeners or viewers go to places. like NPR seeking a more liberal point of view. And I think for that same reason that conservative listeners have drifted away and it as sort of a way to appeal to their listeners, this isn't just a

problem for public outlets, but private ones as well as this reputation starts to develop that, oh, NPR or CNN or the Washington Post is a more liberal outlet that drives away. non-liberal-minded people from listening and encourages more progressive types of listening. And so I think places like NPR are trying to cater to their primary listener. Just one more reminder to those listening. I'm Luke Miller speaking with Matthew Cookson on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. So in your article, you point out this issue of bias as being an issue in the public newsrooms. But that's not the only thing that you argued.

you also noted that there is a constitutional reason to defund NPR and PBS. Tell me about that. Yeah, so I'm a very literal person, and I view the Constitution in this way that we shouldn't try to use tortured logic or be abstract in our reasoning of what the Constitution says. I think we need to take it at its face value and have an originalist. interpretation of what the Constitution says. Now, I can't find anywhere in the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to fund media of any type. So I think, and looking at the 10th Amendment, which defines that anything that is not explicitly given to the federal government is reserved to the people or the states. And so because funding media is not defined in the Constitution as a federal power for that reason it is unconstitutional for the federal government to be funding media outlets

do you think it creates a propagandistic kind of conflict of interest for government to be determining what's in a certain level of media yeah i think that's absolutely right i think that if you have the government funding any media outlet you know i think that infringes on one of our core rights of a free press. You know, the press is supposed to be free from any government interference or government restrictions on its rights. And when you have government money flowing to particular outlets, it does, whether intentional or not, prop up winners and losers and give more of government approval to one particular side. And that's something that our consultation was not designed for it's meant to protect the rights of all viewpoints and not

give preference to one side or another. Very interesting. And for those listening, you can go read Cookson's article at realclear politics.com. But that's all the time that we have for today. Mr. Cookson, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. Our guest has been Matthew Cookson, Defense, Industry Professional and Young Voices Contributors. and I'm Luke Miller here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.