Representative Kat Cammack (R-FL) has introduced legislation to defund National Public Radio (NPR), saying, "Federal funds shouldn't be available to NPR."
Specifically, Rep. Cammack's bill prohibits NPR from receiving federal funds directly or indirectly, including programming purchases or dues.
AllSides has noted that NPR leans left, particularly in opinionated coverage. However, Rep. Cammack pointed to instances where NPR operated beyond simple bias in its coverage.
For instance, in 2019, Senator Jim Banks (R-IN), who is introducing the Senate companion bill, commented on the Russian collusion investigation during his term as a member of the House of Representatives. NPR claimed that then-Rep. Banks gave false statements, which they were forced to retract after he wrote a letter proving his statements were correct.
More recently, former NPR journalist Uri Berliner, a 25-year veteran of the news outlet, wrote an essay criticizing the leftwing shift at NPR beginning in 2015 and only worsened from there, refusing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, dismissing the COVID-19 lab leak theory, and pushing narratives of systemic racism in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020.
Last April, NPR CEO Katherine Maher called the First Amendment the "number one challenge" in battling " misinformation" and further said, "Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that's getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done."
As a result, the Florida Congresswoman said in her press release, "Last Congress, the Energy & Commerce Committee held a hearing about the status of NPR and how federal funds are often used for left-wing activism under the journalism moniker."
Additionally, Cammack referenced the loss of conservative and moderate audiences and selective coverage, "For too long, NPR cherry-picked its coverage in favor of its majority Democrat listeners—87 percent according to a Pew Research Survey—from failing to cover an assassination attempt on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 to ignoring former President Joe Biden's business dealings with his son Hunter in 2020. Federal funds shouldn't be available to NPR."
Similarly, Sen. Banks said, "Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to fund NPR's liberal propaganda. If NPR can't stay afloat without government funding, that tells you all you need to know about the quality of their news."
