Republicans in Congress Are Going After a Free and Independent Media

Last Tuesday morning, a Congressional oversight committee held a hearing ominously titled “Anti-American Airwaves,” a spectacle that should concern every American, no matter their political beliefs. Having mustered the courage to watch it, (livestreaming on PBS, actually) I saw Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG in the parlance of our times) take center stage, using the hearing as a platform to attack what she perceives as liberal bias, using PBS and NPR and their lead executives, as her main focal point.

While what is truly in issue here in one of the tenets of democracy, as The New York Times pointed out, the vehicle that gets us there is money—and a lot of it:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the government-supported organization that has backed public radio and television since its creation in 1967, received $535 million from the government for this year. While the financial support that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gives to NPR and PBS is relatively small—about 1 percent of NPR’s budget and 15 percent of PBS’s—it provides a larger proportion of funding for some of their smaller stations.

After some pretty tame opening statements, MTG used her first five minutes of questions to grill Katherine Maher, the chief executive of NPR, over her organization’s editorial choices, questioning whether NPR serves all Americans or merely caters to a left-leaning audience. Predictably, she also reiterated her support for defunding both institutions, further positioning herself as a leader in a broader movement among Trump-aligned conservatives who have long sought to dismantle public broadcasting.

To say that the hearing was a circus would be charitable to circuses.

If this deeply partisan hearing proved anything, it’s that the effort to defund PBS and NPR is not really about addressing bias or promoting fairness in journalism. It is about power—about exerting control over which voices are amplified and which are silenced. Greene and her allies framed their argument as a fight against government-funded “propaganda,” but the underlying message was clear: media that does not toe the ideological line of certain politicians should be punished. And today, that punishment took the form of a congressional inquisition.

Kerger and Maher defended their organizations with as much poise as humanly/humanely possible in this situation, emphasizing the integrity of their journalism and the vital role public broadcasting plays in American society. They outlined how PBS and NPR provide critical reporting that serves communities often ignored by for-profit media, from investigative journalism to local news coverage in rural areas. They also pointed out that public broadcasting remains one of the most trusted news sources in the country—a rarity in an era of declining trust in the media. But no amount of rational defense was going to change the minds of those who came into the hearing with a predetermined agenda.

The broader implications of this hearing are alarming. While it is absolutely fair game to scrutinize any media outlet’s work, a government-led attack on public broadcasting threatens press freedom itself. This is not just about PBS and NPR. It is about the message it sends to all journalists: if the government disapproves of your reporting, you might (or probably will) find yourself dragged into a hostile hearing, facing political threats to your funding and legitimacy. The First Amendment exists to prevent exactly this kind of government interference in the press. And yet, here we are, watching elected officials attempt to use their power to intimidate journalists and media executives.

Even if you never watch PBS or listen to NPR, you should be deeply concerned about where this road leads. The government should not have the power to dictate which news outlets get to exist. Today, it was PBS and NPR in the hot seat. Tomorrow, it could be any media organization that dares to challenge those in power, regardless of their political leanings. If we’re going after what is perceived as the far-left of mainstream journalism today, should we be counting the business days until the larger mainstream networks are in the political crosshairs? The precedent being set is a dangerous one: that politicians can use hearings and funding threats to shape the media landscape to their advantage.

Beyond the attack on press freedom, the push to defund public broadcasting would have real consequences for communities across the country, something that isn’t lost on politicians from “a depressed rural corner of Georgia,” like MTG. Local public radio stations, which rely on federal funding, would struggle to survive. Many of these stations provide the only in-depth local news coverage available in rural and underserved areas.

Public television, which offers high-quality educational programming for children, would face significant cutbacks. These are not partisan services; they are public goods that exist precisely because the free market does not always provide them. Gutting them would not lead to a more balanced media landscape—it would lead to less journalism, less education, and less access to reliable information.

Today’s hearing was not just another round in the ongoing political battle over media bias. It was a direct attack not just on independent journalism but independence itself. This was yet another partisan attempt to reshape the media environment to benefit those in power.

We simply can’t afford to be passive in the face of such efforts. A democracy thrives when its media landscape is diverse and independent, not when it is policed by politicians seeking to settle ideological scores. By the time we realize what we’ve given up, it may be too late to get it back.