U.S. House Republicans put the top executives of NPR and PBS on the hot seat at a committee hearing Wednesday while Democrats used the event to spotlight Alaska as an example of the value of public broadcasting.
The hearing was one of the first of the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency. The chair of the so-called DOGE panel, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., accused the public broadcasting networks of political bias.
“We will be calling for the complete and total defund and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” she said.
CPB receives more than $500 million a year from the federal government, most of which goes to local stations. The stations produce local news and programs and pay NPR and PBS to air national content.
Alaska Public Media President Ed Ulman testified, at the invitation of Democrats on the panel. He said that in many parts of Alaska and the country, public media is the only local outlet for broadcast news and provides critical warnings and alerts during emergencies.
Ulman also pointed out that Alaska public media stations produce audio and video stories about Alaskans that air nationally, because of their affiliation with the national networks.
“Without PBS, without NPR, you wouldn't hear stories — news stories, public affairs stories, community stories from Alaska. You wouldn't see them on the PBS NewsHour. This is vital. It's vital for Alaskans to know that they're connected to their nation, and that what we do in Alaska matters to our nation, he said.
The hearing was mostly focused on Republican complaints about the national networks. NPR President Katherine Maher acknowledged the network was wrong to initially dismiss the importance of certain news stories, such as what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the theory that the Covid pandemic began with a leak from a Chinese virology lab.
