Last week, in response to cuts in government funding, the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB announced that it would eventually shut down. The CPB was launched during the Johnson administration in 1967 as a nonprofit dedicated to supporting public media. While this included more well-known outlets like NPR and PBS, it also included many local TV and radio stations.
Although public media always had a leftist political slant, it became especially flagrant in the wake of Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election. CPB and its affiliates liked to pretend they were objective and independent, but they effectively became propaganda outlets for Democrats and the woke movement in recent years, inciting calls from conservatives for its defunding.
Unfortunately, the wokerati will continue operating as they look for ways to cut their budgets. However, it’s fair to say that they will be reduced to a mere shell of what they were.
Thus, it is only fitting to deliver a eulogy for the CPB. To paraphrase Mark Antony, I come to bury public media, not to praise it.
In the Beginning…
But unlike Antony, I actually mean it. As a white conservative Christian, there is little love lost for NPR and PBS, which couldn’t help but to virtue signal and exclusively cater to their progressive audiences. In the end, whatever redeeming qualities they had in the past were easily overcome by their ever more rabid leftism that has made them equally unwatchable and unlistenable in the past decade.
Nevertheless, this isn’t something that brings me much joy. Like any other Millennial child growing up before the days of Youtube and podcasts, I watched my fair share of PBS. Not only did I enjoy after-school shows like Wishbone, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, and Bill Nye the Science Guy, I also watched British comedies, Ken Burns’s documentaries, and even Charlie Rose’s interviews. My parents enjoyed the shows on Mystery! and Masterpiece Theatre.
When I became public schoolteacher in 2007, it was only natural that I tuned into NPR. At the time, I especially enjoyed Marketplace with Kye Risdal along with All Things Considered and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. These were the heady days of the second George W. Bush administration and the first term of Barack Obama. Most of the big debates involved the War on Terror, the Great Recession, socialized healthcare, and whether Obama was really the messiah or just the best human being ever to have lived. Of course, all the NPR hosts with their dulcet, sensible tones leaned heavily left, but they would periodically invite the token conservative (usually some squishy neocon like David Frum) to give the impression of balance.
From OK to Outrageous
Although they loathed NPR, my parents would always listen to the classical radio station in the Dallas metroplex that was funded by CPB. They especially liked to turn on From the Top for me and my brothers, since it featured young, well-mannered music prodigies defying the laws of nature by flawlessly performing impossibly difficult pieces. On the way to and from school, I listened to the day’s Road Rage Remedy, beginning my lifelong affinity for classical music.
It’s important to note that at the time (the ’80s, ’90s, and most of the ’00s), PBS and NPR were really the only mainstream platforms to host this type of programming. True, the big three non-cable networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) had a few informational shows, but these mainly centered on the news of the day; there was little about culture, nature, science, or foreign affairs. And the only openly conservative media to speak of were talk shows on AM radio.
The moment that PBS and NPR went off the rails and became insufferable was when newer online media came to the fore. It’s difficult to determine whether they veered leftward because streaming platforms and podcasts were gradually fulfilling the same role, or their unapologetic leftism accelerated the rise of alternative media. It was probably some mix of the two.
In any case, I remember well when NPR became unlistenable. Sometime during Obama’s second term, I found myself in the car without anything to listen to, so I decided to see what was new on NPR. To my disgust, they were giving a fawning interview to the late Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood at that time. Listening to the interview, one would think there was nothing at all controversial about a demoness bragging that the organization she led murders nearly a million unborn babies every year.
The Last Straw
Not learning my lesson, several months after that, I gave NPR another chance. At first, I was hopeful because I heard Kye Risdal’s voice, but he quickly segued to a story about a woman trying to become a man who was thriving at her job because her hormone therapy was causing her voice to drop and making her more assertive. It’s one thing to learn about this phenomenon in the abstract, but it’s another to hear the unnatural tenor voice of a delusional woman taking testosterone. That was the last time I bothered with NPR.
I have less harsh feelings about PBS, though I’m aware that it took a similar leftward woke turn even with their children’s programming. Like most people, I’ll watch my favorite shows (often ones that started on PBS) on various streaming platforms these days. Contrary to the popular refrain that such shows have to be publicly subsidized to exist, many of them continue to be produced for a profit.
As such, both NPR and PBS have little reason to continue today. Politics aside, they serve no legitimate purpose. Even if I were the most committed tree-hugging, bleeding-heart leftist with no internet connection and a weakness for smug liberal Boomers expressing their subdued outrage at Trump, there still wouldn’t be enough for me to continue supporting them. They are obsolete and increasingly ridiculous in 2025.
Perhaps political partiality may have sped up this inevitable demise, but let’s not kid ourselves: these stations are primarily dying of natural causes. They had a good run and left a few fond memories. Now we should let them depart from this world with their dignity intact. Rest in peace, CPB.
Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher and freelance writer in the Dallas area. He is the founding editor of The Everyman, a senior contributor to The Federalist, and has written for essays for The Stream, The Blaze, Chronicles, and elsewhere. He is also the host of The Everyman Commentary Podcast. Follow him on X.
