Voters by a wide margin are seeking action against National Public Radio (NPR) after a whistleblower came forward last month and accused the news coverage station of liberal bias, a poll shows.
Some 44 percent of respondents to a DailyMail.com/TIPP survey said the broadcaster should lose taxpayer cash flows because of its political leanings.
Another 26 percent of more than 1,400 American adults said they should keep government support; and 31 percent said they were not sure.
NPR was rocked last month when one of its senior editors, Uri Berliner, accused his employer of covering news that was too woke, with a fixation on stories about race and identity.
Respondents, by a wide margin, no longer want to foot the bill for NPR’s “biased” coverage.
Berliner argued in his article that NPR has “lost America’s trust” because it was staffed almost entirely by Democrats.
In an open essay for The Free Press, the 25-year NPR veteran criticized it for being heavily dominated by Democrats, marginalizing conservative voices and for having “lost America’s trust.”
NPR devoted extensive coverage to claims that then-President Donald Trump was a Russian asset, but refrained from publishing stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Covid lab leak theory, Berliner said.
Meanwhile, historic tweets from new NPR CEO Katherine Maher resurfaced in which she embraced liberal causes, praised leading Democratic Black Lives Matter protesters and called Trump a “racist.”
Berliner later resigned, saying he had faced criticism from Maher.
Republicans reacted angrily to the revelations, saying they confirmed long-held fears about NPR.
Trump on social media called the station a “LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE.”
‘NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM!’ she posted.
NPR receives 1 percent of its budget directly from taxpayers, but receives much more indirectly through its local member stations, says the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank.
Whistleblowing NPR editor Uri Berliner (pictured) exposed the network’s liberal bias and officially resigned after being suspended by the outlet’s “divisive” new CEO.
Former tweets from NPR CEO Katherine Maher included a veiled take on Trump, calling him a “deranged racist sociopath” and sharing her support for President Biden.
New York Republican lawmaker Claudia Tenney summarized these concerns in a bill, the Defund NPR Act of 2024, which says no taxpayer money can be sent “directly or indirectly” to the radio network.
The network had become a “partisan propaganda machine,” Tenney said.
There are few signs that the bill could become law.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight and Investigations subcommittee held a hearing on May 8 into alleged bias in the public broadcaster’s coverage.
Our survey of 1,435 adults reveals widespread support for defunding NPR.
Men, people 65 and older, and adults under 25 are especially interested in cutting federal cash flows to the broadcaster.
Perhaps understandably, there is a strong partisan tilt: More than half of Republican voters want to cut funding for NPR, compared to just a third of Democrats.
The national survey has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percent. It was carried out earlier this month by TIPP, which has been noted for the accuracy of its surveys.
