NPR CEO discusses suing Trump administration over order targeting funding

Geoff Bennett:

NPR and three Colorado public radio stations today filed suit against the Trump administration in federal court over the president's executive order targeting NPR, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, also known as CPB.

The order signed earlier this month bars congressionally approved funds from being distributed to the public media organizations. The lawsuit contends the president's order is a violation of the First Amendment.

We should note that PBS has not joined this lawsuit, but in a statement today said: "PBS is considering every option, including taking legal action, to allow our organization to continue to provide essential programming and services to member stations and all Americans."

Katherine Maher is the president and CEO of NPR, and she joins us now.

Thanks for being here.

Katherine Maher, President and CEO, NPR: Thank you for having me.

Geoff Bennett:

So how precisely does President Trump's executive order against NPR and PBS violate the First Amendment? What's the case that you're making against the Trump White House?

Katherine Maher:

Well, it's interesting because the executive order is very specific, in that it accuses NPR and PBS of not airing fair or unbiased news.

And so it is a textbook example of viewpoint discrimination from a First Amendment standpoint. Essentially, by blocking funding to NPR and PBS, it is a form of retaliation against our organizations for airing editorial programming that the president might disagree with.

The safeguards for our editorial independence go very far back. They go back to the Public Broadcasting Act. It was one of Congress' sort of paramount objectives was to ensure that public media was independent from government influence. And so you have the editorial safeguards that should exist for our organizations.

But then you also have the member stations. We have a network of stations across the country. In the case of NPR, that's 246 stations. And the order functionally says that they can't use their funding, federal or private, to be able to acquire programming for NPR, to remain NPR members, which is also a violation of their First Amendment rights for association and for editorial speech.

Geoff Bennett:

This lawsuit, as we mentioned, is filed in conjunction with Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT, which serves Native American communities in the Four Corners region. Why that collective approach?

Katherine Maher:

Well, believe it or not, we didn't set out to get three stations in Colorado. That is sort of a happenstance of the types of stations we were looking for. We wanted an urban station that represented a larger metropolis. We were looking for a station that served a primary rural community, which is where Aspen in the Roaring Fork Valley.

And then the KSUT serves the Four Corners and was originally a tribal station and still retains a significant amount of tribal-based programming. And so I think it really speaks to the diversity of communities that public radio serves across the country.

Geoff Bennett:

PBS not included in this suit. Why not?

Katherine Maher:

Well, this is our suit. This is NPR's suit on behalf of NPR. We have obviously been in close coordination with PBS, and they have expressed not — in the statement you just shared their support for this particular action.

And we know that, when the executive order first came out, they were clear that they also believe that this is unlawful.

Geoff Bennett:

The White House and some Republicans in Congress, as you well know, have accused NPR of promoting a liberal bias.

Beyond that, the former NPR editor Uri Berliner, he accused the network of having what he called a lack of viewpoint diversity. How do you respond to those critiques?

Katherine Maher:

Well, I first of all, respond by saying we're a nonpartisan news organization. We seek to be able to provide a range of different viewpoints in terms of who we bring on air, the stories that we tell. We're buttressed in this effort by the fact that we have 200 local newsrooms across the country.

So a significant portion of the reporting that you hear on NPR is not coming out of D.C. It's coming out of smaller stations in a rural area. It's coming out of the Midwest, the Southwest — you know, the Pacific Northwest — lots of wests in there. Sorry about that.

My view is that that is a mischaracterization of our work. We do not seek to favor any political party at all. We seek to ensure that Americans have a wide range of perspectives available to them.

Geoff Bennett:

There's also this argument that, with the proliferation of news and media outlets these days, there's no real reason, there's no real need for the federal government to be in the business of funding NPR and PBS.

There's so many options out there, even in rural areas that might be less served. How do you respond to that?

Katherine Maher:

Well, it's simply not true.

Twenty percent of Americans today do not have access to a local newspaper or source of news other than public media. There has been a significant contraction in local news across the country. That means that there are people who rely on public media to be able to cover what's going on, not just in their statehouse, but in their municipal area, to be able to understand the changes or needs of their community and have access to information that they might otherwise not have.

I think that's really important, because private media doesn't go into rural communities. Private media doesn't spend the time, the effort and the resources to ensure the broadcast infrastructure reaches across our varied topography in this nation. We fill a gap that other organizations can't or won't, and that is critical to our civic infrastructure.

Geoff Bennett:

If just 1 percent of NPR's budget comes from the federal government through CPB grants, why not offset that funding with other revenue streams, with fund-raising, and say, you know what, we can do it, we will cut our losses?

Katherine Maher:

Of course, public media for a long time has had a public-private partnership. That is true for public television, and it is true for public radio. We take federal dollars very seriously, and we seek to maximize them by raising additional funds from private philanthropies, from individual viewers and listeners. That's tremendously important to that promise that we have.

But it is also the case that, without federal funding, we would not have the universal access that public media affords today. We are free in every household in the nation, or 99.7 percent, which rounds up to 100 percent. That is something that nobody else offers, and we view that as a critical part of a functioning democracy for people to have access to news, information, educational, and cultural programming. That's why.

Geoff Bennett:

So, in your view, there is a public right and a democratic imperative to government-funded journalism and media?

Katherine Maher:

I believe that there is a clear democratic imperative.

We know that when communities lack local media, when they lack access to a broadcaster or an outlet, you see higher rates of polarization, lower rates of civic engagement, lower rates of voter turnout. Where you have local media, there is higher confidence and trust in democratic institutions and less suspicion of one another as citizens.

So, as we talk about the fractures in the nation, part of what allows us to be in conversation with each other is not necessarily national news, but really starting at the basics, the local conversations that matter to our communities, and that's what public media serves and does.

Geoff Bennett:

Katherine Maher, president and CEO of NPR, thanks for being here.

Katherine Maher:

Thank you.