The Media Research Center’s war on public broadcasting continued with yet another “study,” detailed in a July 8 post by Clay Waters whining that one show wasn’t sucking up to President Trump enough:
Washington Week with The Atlantic, public television’s taxpayer-funded weekly political roundtable featuring a rotating stable of journalists, touts itself as “objective.”
But a review of the last three months of Washington Week (April 4, 2025 – June 27, 2025) proved Trump-phobic liberalism still reigns over the public airwaves. While unemployment is falling, inflation is down, illegal border crossings are plummeting under Trump, and the president dealing successfully with Iran’s nuclear threat, little of that positive news penetrated the tax-funded liberal bubble.
[…]Our previous Washington Week study from March 2024 found coverage fixated on the upcoming elections, and also included Trump’s courtroom controversies and leadership strife in the Republican-controlled Congress. Back then, coverage ran 90% negative against the Republican Party and Trump.
This time around, even with supposedly bipartisan foreign policy issues on the table like Iran, the coverage only became more slanted, at 93% negative.
But as is typical for MRC studies, it was rigged to emphasize its preferred narrative:
We tallied all explicitly evaluative comments from Washington Week with The Atlantic panelists (e.g., colorful, mocking, flattering, and ideologically loaded descriptions) regarding Democrats or Republicans. Straightforward descriptions, explanations, and analysis were not included.
That’s right — anything that wasn’t positive or negative was censored, meaning that the study is not an accurate representation of the show’s coverage. And as usual, Waters refused to make the full study public so readers could decide for themselves. He also doesn’t explain why it’s impermissible to criticize Trump and Republicans.
Alex Christy spent a July 9 post whining about PBS as well:
PBS is not only lamenting that its federal funding could be cut; it is also now lamenting that Planned Parenthood’s funding has been eliminated. On Tuesday’s Amanpour and Company,guest host Bianna Golodryga and New York Times reporter Caroline Kitchener lamented not only the GOP’s Planned Parenthood decision but also the three-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade’s demise.
[…]Planned Parenthood claims to love choice, so it now has a choice: it can do cancer screenings, or it can do abortions[.]
Christy didn’t mention that federal money to Planned Parenthood does not pay for abortions.
Tim Graham spent his July 9 podcast ranting about public broadcasting purportedly not being balanced:
Brian Stelter’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter for CNN carried the headline “Countdown for NPR & PBS.” The Senate must vote by next Friday to rescind $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or that funding remains. Stelter reported PBS even put an advertisement for itself during its July 4 special, A Capital Fourth. We couldn’t find it “during” the show.
But one of the most maddening things about PBS and NPR is that they refuse to accept any form of negative messaging about them on their own networks. When the funding topic comes up, it’s all advertising. The conservative case about defunding and relentless bias is not allowed.
So there’s no doubt that the word “public” in their name is a fraud. When Americans aren’t allowed to criticize their supposedly “public” networks, when their viewpoints are offhandedly labeled misinformation, they cease to be networks that represent all the public. They then represent only a fraction of the public, that fraction being the pompous liberal elite who want to tell the public what to think while invalidating any and all disagreement. This is the exact opposite of what America has always represented.
Graham, meanwhile, has never complained about the rampant right-wing bias on Fox News, which means his whining about PBS “bias” is utterly hypocritical. And he refuses to accept any criticism about the work of him and his employer, as demonstrated by the fact that he and his co-workers have systematically blocked or muted ConWebWatch.
A July 11 post by Gabriela Pariseau featured her boss pushing approved right-wing talking points, undert the screaming headline “DEFUND NPR & PBS”:
NPR and PBS are scrambling to keep their funding, and MRC’s VP for External Affairs Dan Schneider has been myth-busting through their best arguments.
Scheider told WMAL host Larry O’Connor on his show Friday that NPR and PBS have hired lawyers and lobbyists who are “going around saying if Republicans cut this funding, that there’s going to be blood on their hands.”
He explained that the leftist outlets are working to sway senators who will soon vote on the funding. Their argument: if the taxpayer funding is cut, “Americans all over the country are going to lose emergency alerts and access to local news. None of this is true. These are all lies,” said Schneider.
[…]The MRC External Affairs VP went on to note, “There is hardly any local news on NPR. It’s all this national and international propaganda,” pointing specifically to the BBC, headquartered in London, England.
As if Schneider is not spouting propaganda.