DOGE Subcommittee to Probe NPR and PBS For Speech

From Subcommittee Chair Marjorie Taylor Greene:

February 3, 2025

Ms. Katherine Maher
Chief Executive Officer and President
National Public Radio
1111 North Capitol Street NE
Washington, D.C. 20002

Dear Ms. Maher:

The Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (Subcommittee) is planning a hearing on federally funded radio and television, including its systemically biased content. The Subcommittee is concerned by National Public Radio’s (NPR) blatantly ideological and partisan coverage and looks forward to your participation in our upcoming hearing. The Subcommittee seeks to better understand NPR’s position on providing Americans with accurate information. Please provide the Subcommittee with your availability to testify at a hearing during the week of Monday, March 3rd or the week of Monday, March 24th.

In October 2020, NPR declined to report on the Hunter Biden laptop story, saying, “[w]e don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.” When you were the CEO of Wikipedia in 2022, you said during a TED Talk that “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground.” Further, in April 2024, you seemed to dismiss criticism calling for NPR to make its reporting fairer and more balanced.

Your statement came after long-time NPR senior business editor Mr. Uri Berliner criticized its reporting, saying:

There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. It’s frictionless—one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.

As an organization that receives federal funds, both directly and indirectly through its member stations, NPR’s reporting should serve the entire public, not just a narrow slice of likeminded individuals and ideological interest groups. This hearing is an opportunity for you to explain to Congress and the American people why federal funds should be used for public radio—particularly the sort of content produced by NPR.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X.

Thank you for your consideration of this important issue. 

Here is a similar letter sent to PBS for reporting that Elon gave a Nazi salute. We all know he did it because that's what's in his heart.  And also to get a rise out of us.  He's not so socially awkward as to accidentally Heil Hitler.   

Is it just me, or would this be too easy if it were a high school civics test? 

darryll k. jones