May 03rd, 2025

WANT TO STOP TRUMP?
DEFEND NPR AND PBS:
DONATE, LOBBY & LISTEN

ON HIS 101st DAY IN OFFICE, Donald Trump handed an easy answer to the question millions of Americans have been asking since he won the 2024 election: “What can I do to stop Donald Trump?”
     It’s simple: Defend NPR and PBS.
     Trump on May 1 moved to destroy the country’s two public broadcasters, National Public Radio and the TV equivalent, the Public Broadcasting Service.
     Which gives ordinary citizens the opportunity they’ve been craving: to really do something that will count, perhaps the most important action they can take to counter Trump’s hideous second term.
     Two reasons.

•  1: NPR and PBS are absolutely state-of-the-art news and information sources. When it comes to journalism, they are as good as it gets. They are available – for free – in every  corner of the United States. It’s like having the New York Times delivered to any doorstep, whether you live in a big city, or a rural village. The only difference is that when NPR and PBS are really cooking, they can be better than the world’s greatestnewspaper
•  2: The rescue of NPR and PBS is something that every one of us can absolutely do, regardless of our income, location, physical condition and available time. And here’s the best part, what we do will really matter

       Here's our triple play of options. And we don’t have to do all three, even doing just one will be a big deal:
     * Send money.
     * Call, write and lobby ( preferably in person) Senators and Representatives in Congress
     * Tune in – perhaps the most crucial step of all.
    
 HEAR ME OUT, because I know that many  of us have been feeling, if not helpless, not as effective as we’d like with the available tactics to counter the sacrilege  of Trump’s second presidency.
     Yes, millions have turned out for massive street demonstrations, putting our bodies and souls on the line for big, noisy turnouts. Big crowds have overwhelmed Congressional town halls. People have constructed clever signs; braved the cold; rung cowbells and waved flags. All of which has been inspiring and necessary and must continue..
     People have sent money to support progressive Democratic candidates in special elections, and they’ve won.
     We’ve been on the phone to our members of Congress and sent letters and emails. We’ve told pollsters that we consider Trump a disgrace.
      And it’s all vital if we are to weather  the next horrible  weeks and months until the November, 2026 midterm elections,  our next chance to turn the House of Representatives Democratic and thus put the brakes on the Trump madness.
     But in the meantime, nothing that we can do as ordinary individuals will have the enormous effect in preserving democracy than to keeping NPR and PBS as the nation’s robust truth-tellers.

TRUMP THE AUTHORITARIAN, Trump the psychopath, and Trump the bully is at war with the truth.
     Trump doesn’t want us to know what’s going on, and what he’s up to.
     That’s what’s behind his attack on the universities. It’s not that they are too liberal, too woke, too anti Semitic. It ‘s that the professors, the students, the researchers know too much about what’s going on.
     It’s what is behind his drive to hollow out of federal government: getting rid legions of smarty-pants bureaucrats who know if the air will make you sick, whether the weather is killing us and if tariffs make sense.
     It's why he doesn't like the Weather Bureau, the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Institutes of Health.
      But nothing scares Trump more than the champions of the First Amendment -- the press, the media, the newspapers, the broadcasters, the news services -- whose business is the truth.
     So for Trump, nothing is more important than curbing NPR and PBS.
     PBS connects with 354 TV stations; NPR interacts with 1,024 local stations, with a weekly audience of nearly 30 million people.
     As a lifelong liar, Trump cannot abide these kinds of information systems. As a dictator in the making, nothing is more perilous for him than such an enormous, accessible and credible combined source of trustworthy  information.
     So,  Trump issued his gazillionth executive order, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” in which he ordered the independent Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funneling a half-billion in federal dollars a year to NPR and PBS.
     Trump, whom I’m betting  has never spent a day without telling a lie, told a bunch in the executive order, including the proposition that in the Internet era, federally supported broadcasters are an anachronism.
      It’s not true that there are many alternatives to trustworthy media. Most newspapers have failed because of changed financial and cultural underpinnings, leaving the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal as the only credible major survivors. Much of the remaining media is one-sided, like Fox News and MSNBC.
     But his main point is that public broadcasters, even if they aren't needed, are biased. The executive order states:
     "At the very least, 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.  No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.  The CPB’s governing statute reflects principles of impartiality:  the CPB may not “contribute to or otherwise support any political party.”  47 U.S.C. 396(f)(3); see also id. 396(e)(2).
     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."
     Trump is absolutely wrong about bias at NPR and PBS. Their reports are exemplary for their professionalism and efforts at fairness - sometimes infuriatingly so.
     An example, the PBS News Hour, the network’s flagship TV news program, began its broadcast Friday evening with the latest economic news, when, in fact, Trump’s attack on PBS and NPR was the bigger story, at least in my  opinion. But you could see the editors struggling to figure what most impacted its audience, and maybe the national jobs report, rather than the attack on their own survival, came first.
     NPR, in its website story about Trump’s attack on the public broadcasters - headlined  "Trump says he's ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. They say he can't" -  appended this endnote to explain that the news judgements were left to the journalists, not the corporate bosses:
     "Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp, Managing Editor Gerry Holmes and Managing Editor Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly."
    Indeed, I suggest you read the story – at this link – as an example of the fairness and depth which underlies NPR’s journalism, day in and day out.
      Which brings me to Trump’s main charge – long a Republican talking point – that NPR and PBS have a liberal orientation.
     It’s true. Just like the Times is a “liberal” newspaper, and the Wall Street Journal is a "conservative" rag, NPR and PBS are more blue than red.
     That does not mean that the remaining big newspapers or the public broadcasters slant their news stories, or focus on only reports that reinforce the political and cultural viewpoints of their staffs. Indeed, as I said, both bend over backwards, too much so to my liking, to achieve fairness and balance.

 WHICH BRINGS ME BACK to the triple threat of actions every one of us can  take to defend public broadcasting.

SEND MONEY. If every individual or family that listens to and watches NPR or PBS sends even a small amount to their local stations, that can quickly replace the relatively modest  subsidy Trump wants to confiscate.
     Both NPR and PBS already rely on public and other non-government giving for most of their funding. Indeed, there is nothing more tedious than the periodic fundraisers that they air for contributions. But as obnoxious as their fundraising is, it also provides an easy mechanism to weather the Trump attack.
      So hold your nose, cover your ears and eyes and give what you can to the local stations.
     (Regular or “sustainer” amounts are preferred, and giving through bank accounts rather than credit cards is considered a cost-effective payment  mechanism).
     Don’t wait to be asked.

LOBBY CONGRESS.  Republicans have long complained about NPR and PBS. But in the past, defunding threats have been thwarted because many Senators and House members realize outlets in their states are popular.
     Things likely are different this time. Republicans are in charge of both congressional chambers, and so far the party is totally under Trump's control and are not inclined to stand up to him on any issue.
     Still, with the House within reach of a Democratic takeover next  year, enough Red State members may still be listening to their constituents, especially because the money at risk is relatively small.

TUNE IN. As I said, perhaps the most important step that anyone can take is to watch and listen.  
     If you are not, as I am, addicted to NPR, try it out the next time you’re in in your car, or at your computer, or have a radio handy at home.
     If you watch network news on TV, give the PBS News Hour a try. You’ll be amazed at the depth and the scope of the 50 minutes of reporting, minus the horrible drug ads clogging the end of the skimpy newscasts of the commercial networks.
     The more you listen and watch, the more appreciation you'll have for what the public broadcasters do.
     The bigger their audiences, the more likely that the public networks will survive.
     
FINALLY,  DON'T EXPECT PERFECTION. PBS and NPR in the Age of AI are still  operated by people, not saints. They can be as obnoxious, off-the-wall and fallible as the rest of us. So cut them some slack.
     Nothing any of us will do in the next year and a half will be as important to the survival of the country as we know it as our support for NPR and PBS.
     Donate.
     Call.
     Listen & watch.
     Save democracy.