By Jack Birle | Washington Examiner
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday night cutting federal funding for NPR and PBS, decrying both outlets for their allegedly “biased” coverage.
The president’s order calls on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to “cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding” to NPR and PBS. It also notes that the “heads of all agencies shall identify and terminate, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS.”
In his order, Trump said the CPB should “fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage” and that NPR and PBS do not fit that standard.
“The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS. Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens,” the order said.
Trump also said the CPB’s funding of the two outlets is “outdated” because the media landscape is different and more diverse than when the CPB was created in 1967.