On Wednesday morning, the House Subcommittee on Government Efficiency conducted a hearing regarding the continued funding of public broadcasting. Chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hearing's purpose was to speak directly with the leadership of the two primary outlets of public broadcasters. Primary witnesses were the President and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Paula Kerger, as well as National Public Radio CEO Katherine Maher.

The hearing was a clearly divided affair, with Republicans taking the adversarial position, and Democrats resorting to base defense of the two outlets, and lodging accusations at their GOP rivals. Rote partisan politics aside, this was not a banner day for the federally-funded entities.

First, the absurdities.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) posited that Republicans were concerned Elmo was part of the Communist party, and that Ernie and Bert were pushing a homosexual agenda. It was a pure indication that there were no substantive arguments to be made on behalf of the outlets. Less audacious but equally off base was Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), who opened the hearing with a factually stunted speech.

The House Republican leadership would rather post up against @BigBird than investigate the catastrophic national security breach involving Defense Secretary Hegseth and the disclosure of classified information on a group chat about imminent U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. This massive… pic.twitter.com/7cKeoS3e2F

— Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (@RepStephenLynch) March 26, 2025

He condemned the House for spending time on this issue instead of the desperate Signal messaging controversy, implying this hearing was staged as a distraction. He knew full well the hearing was scheduled back in February, well before this week's scandal de la semaine. He also intimated this was an attack on Big Bird and the show “Arthur.” This is willful ignorance, given “Sesame Street” has been owned by a corporation for a decade now, and shows new episodes on Discovery-Warners streaming service. “Arthur,” meanwhile, ended back in 2022.

But it served as a fitting opener, as inaccurate arguments became the common traits of this hearing. NPR CEO Katherine Maher was especially ill-equipped, it appeared. She at one point alluded to NPR receiving a scant amount of its annual budget from federal funds, but then declared that pulling that sum will have a crippling influence on her network. This is a bit of a shell game argument, as the actual sum is closer to 33 percent. Rep. Jim Jordan got Maher to admit to this, as she had to confirm that federal monies given to affiliate stations ends up with NPR in the form of licensing payments. 

But the most contentious questions came in the form of challenging the bias seen from the outlets. Frequently throughout the hearing, Maher deflected from responsibility for NPR's slanted content as many examples predated her brief, one-year tenure. However in defending her outlet, she stated they have worked to get stories on the Hunter Biden laptop and COVID virus origins correct - two stories that also predated her arrival.

In one revealing exchange, Maher was exposed. Rep. Brandon Gill (R-NM) was challenging her with a list of questionable reports from her network, and one example showed her “not on my watch” deflection failing. Gill noted defenses made for the BLM riots, bringing up a time NPR promoted the book “In Defense Of Looting.” Maher said she was not familiar with the book, and that the review on-air predated her. Gill then noted a social media post, where Maher had touted reading that very book.

Masterclass by Congressman @realBrandonGill against NPR CEO Katherine Maher citing a few examples of the radical extremism being aired and published by NPR....

Gill: Do you believe that looting is morally wrong?

Maher: I believe that looting is illegal, and I refer to it as… pic.twitter.com/PyaJdrR62N

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 26, 2025

NPR’s media guru David Folkenflik (their slightly more tamed version of Brian Stelter) brought up the infamous stance his outlet took in avoiding the Hunter Biden laptop story, trying to defend their position over time. He needs to elide they chose to duck the story when it was known the FBI possessed the computer, and chose to lean on the fraudulent letter from 51 intelligence officials; once they came around to admitting the legitimacy, it had been buried as an editor’s note at the end of a previously published book review.

Uri Beriner - the former editor who came forward with bold admissions of the outlet’s bias - wrote a column timed for this hearing, declaring NPR should want to divest from government funding and just forge ahead with its partisan agenda. This stands to reason, given that roughly two-thirds of the NPR audience counts itself as liberal, with barely 15 percent attesting to being conservative.

It is time for the networks to do something they have long struggled with: They need to face facts. The partisan operations are now in a position where they can no longer deny this is the case. Given they cannot adequately defend why they should remain publicly funded only adds to this reality.