Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) President and Chief Executive Officer Paula Kerger cited a children’s TV show Wednesday when questioned about allegations of bias at the taxpayer-funded television network.
PBS, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) would have their federal funding pulled back in a rescissions bill being debated in the Senate. “CNN News Central” co-host Boris Sanchez asked Kerger how she would respond to those who said PBS was “politically biased.” (RELATED: Corporate Media Network Completely Omits Key Detail About ICE Marijuana Farm Raid)
“I don’t think that Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is a biased program. It teaches children basic skills around letters and numbers and when you look at the breadth of programing that we — we are very much committed to serving all of America,” Kerger claimed. “The news programing that we do represents about 10% of our broadcast schedule, and that includes the ‘News Hour,’ of which I’m very proud of, of the excellence of the journalism of that series.”
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A fact sheet released by the White House in May noted that over a six-month period, PBS news reports used the term “far right” 162 times as opposed to only six uses of the term “far left,” according to a study, while another study noted PBS gave the 2024 Republican National Convention 72% negative coverage while the Democratic National Convention that year received 88% positive coverage. In 2020, then-PBS White House reporter Yamiche Alcindor claimed President Donald Trump’s 2020 speech at Mount Rushmore promoted “white resentment” and that former President Theodore Roosevelt “oversaw the desecration of Native land.”
“We’re always interested, obviously, in making sure that we’re serving a multiplicity of viewpoints. You know, Bill Buckley made his home on public broadcasting with a series called ‘Firing Line,’ which continues today with Margaret Hoover,” Kerger claimed. “We are interested in having different perspectives that we bring forward. But when I look at the range of our programing on public broadcasting, I can’t — I can’t make any sense of an argument that we are somehow biased in any way.”
The rescissions package advanced to the Senate floor Tuesday after Vice President J.D. Vance broke a 50-50 tie in the Senate resulting from “no” votes by Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine. Trump urged Republicans to pass the rescissions package in a July 10 post on Truth Social.
“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN & MSDNC put together,” Trump posted, adding that those who voted against would not receive his endorsement.
PBS attached a warning label when airing a June 2023 speech by Trump shortly after he was arraigned on charges surrounding classified materials. The network also boycotted Twitter after the social media site labeled it as “government-funded.”
Alcindor clashed with Trump multiple times during his first term in the White House. In 2021, the outlet aired a program aimed at three-to-eight-year-old children featuring a drag queen called “Lil’ Miss Hot Mess,” and featured a documentary about a child sex change in 2023.
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