National Public Radio sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday and accused him of trying to violate the organization’s First Amendment right to free speech.
The suit was jointly filed by NPR along with Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio, and KUTE, Inc., an owner of several public radio stations in Colorado and New Mexico. In the suit, the stations allege that Trump’s May 1 order instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to halt its funding of NPR and PBS stations is illegal.
“The Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country,” the suit says.
The suit also said Trump “expressly aims to punish and control Plaintiffs’ news coverage and other speech the Administration deems ‘biased.’”
This is accurate. Trump’s order was titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” and complains that NPR and PBS do not present a “fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” Conservatives have historically made this allegation about news reports that accurately reflect news events and do not toe the right-wing line.
CPB was created by Congress in 1967 as an unbiased entity to distribute public funding to the media, which the organization then disburses to local stations. These stations then purchase programming from NPR and PBS.
The headquarters for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., shown in 2013.
In April, CPB sued Trump after he emailed three of the company’s five directors and claimed that they had been terminated. In a statement, CPB asserted that it is not a government entity and that Trump has no say over the composition of its board.
While NPR’s news content is not without controversy, it and PBS have frequently reported on Trump’s shortcomings, scandals, outbursts, and missteps—the true source of his antagonism with the outlets. The action against public media comes at a time when corporate-owned mainstream media has been bending to Trump’s will.
The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is in the midst of a right-wing editorial pivot. News executives and personnel have exited CBS News as it increasingly seems likely that the network’s parent, Paramount, will settle a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by Trump in exchange for regulatory approval of an upcoming merger. ABC News, owned by Disney, settled a lawsuit filed by Trump rather than stand up for its reporters and anchors.
At the same time, the White House has been studiously raising the profile of overtly MAGA-aligned media at White House events, while turning the taxpayer-owned Voice of America outlet into yet another pro-Republican clearinghouse.
Republicans have attacked public media for decades, lashing out at critical reporting and programming like “Sesame Street,” which has championed diversity and other inclusive ideals. Trump’s attacks on CPB, PBS, and NPR are not occurring in a vacuum—they are part of a wider conservative crusade against independent reporting that informs the public of the truth.
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