The New York Times Defends Their PR Partners at NPR and PBS

Tim Graham on Mar 28, 2025

Down in the basement of the Capitol on March 26, I witnessed in person an episode of government accountability that upset liberal journalists. That's because it was conservatives holding leftist "public" media networks accountable.

The House DOGE subcommittee questioned PBS CEO Paula Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher about their daily deluge of leftist bias. Here's how the New York Times article on the hearing was summarized online: "Dark pronouncements by Republicans about a 'communist agenda' espoused by public media were intercut with lighter references to 'Sesame Street' and 'Curious George.'"

Reporters Benjamin Mullin and Michael Grynbaum began: "Congressional Republicans laced into PBS and NPR on Wednesday, accusing the country's biggest public media networks of institutional bias in a fiery hearing that represented the latest salvo against the American press by close allies of the Trump administration."

The media reporters lamented Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) calling the "public" radio and TV outlets "radical left-wing echo chambers," like it was a crazy allegation. "The leaders of both PBS and NPR testified that those claims were untrue, arguing that their stations served as a crucial source of accurate information and educational programming for millions of Americans." Kerger and Maher insisting to Republicans their networks are unbiased and nonpartisan? That's crazy.

Liberals described this hearing as "anti-press." Attack them as biased, and you're attacking "freedom of the press."

But turn it around: When the Times writes articles attacking Fox News, is that "anti-press"? The Times thinks they're "democracy," while Fox seeks to "end" democracy. They have the audacity to accuse Fox of being part of a "Praetorian Guard of Friendly Media" for Donald Trump, like their paper didn't paper over all of Joe Biden's flaws and scandals.

In 2023, NPR's talk show "Fresh Air" devoted an hour to Times reporter Jeremy Peters attacking Fox News and promoting a book titled "Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted." So far in 2025, the "Fresh Air" bureaucrats have promoted Times writers six times. There's nobody from Fox or the New York Post or any conservative news site. Only leftists need apply.

On the day before the DOGE hearing, "Fresh Air" plugged Times reporters Luke Broadwater and Annie Karni and their new book "Mad House: How Donald Trump, MAGA Mean Girls, A Former Used Car Salesman, A Florida Nepo Baby, And A Man With Rats In His Walls Broke Congress."

You might get the impression NPR really hates Republicans, just like the Times does.

PBS and NPR both promoted New York Times editor David Enrich's new Trump-attacking book "Murder the Truth." Times columnist David Brooks is a regular Friday night Trump-lashing pundit on the "PBS News Hour." Those people claim Brooks is a "conservative," which is also crazy.

The Mullin-Grynbaum story was relentless advocacy for their P.R. partners. They included absolutely none of the Republican questions loaded with examples of taxpayer-subsidized propaganda, and they never mentioned conservative witness Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation. This left the impression that the Republican "dark pronouncements" had no basis in fact. Who needs to confront evidence?

Other than Greene, the only Republican words quoted came from Rep. James Comer of Kentucky: "I don't even recognize NPR anymore." They noted Greene brought up NPR's fervent dismissal of Hunter Biden's laptop and let Maher say, "Our current editorial leadership thinks that was a mistake, as do I."

That was breaking news. More than four years after their "pure distraction" tantrum, with the Bidens finally out of office, NPR conceded one mistake. When it mattered in 2020, they were a reliable partisan source. With our money.

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Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.