[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 61 (Wednesday, April 10, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H2262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1100
                          NPR RADIO IS BIASED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Norman). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, in the D.C. newsroom for National Public 
Radio, which is a central hub for NPR's coverage of political news, it 
just came out that they have amongst their staff 87 registered 
Democrats in editorial positions and zero Republicans--87-0.
  Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak was amazing at 56 games in a row, and 
Pete Rose in the seventies had 44 games in a row--87-0.
  Should it matter what the political makeup of people are in these 
positions? You know, not really, I guess, in any real sense.
  We are not talking reality in Washington, D.C., are we? We are not 
talking about a nonbiased media that covers this place, that covers 
what politicians do and the slant that people are going to hear when 
they are out there in their cars, their homes, or wherever, picking 
this up in the various forms of media.
  What do we know about NPR? It receives funding from the taxpayer and 
tries at the same time to claim to be objective. It receives this 
funding via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the CBP 
receives about $525 million of taxpayer dollars--about 50 percent of 
their funding. The other half comes from corporate donations, the same 
corporations that Democrats love to say evil things about, but 
oftentimes these days are doing bad things. It is pretty hard to figure 
out where they are coming from.
  What we have seen in recent years in reporting is a strong bias 
against Republicans and conservatives coming out of NPR and the 
Corporation for Public Broadcasting when they cover the political front 
here.
  The bias against anything that is not a far-left view is clear. In 
fact, the bias of NPR is so clear that even a left-leaning editor in 
their organization--which is where this came out--is raising the alarm 
about the clear and consistent bias. This person is very concerned 
about it and is now being dismissed.
  NPR has already issued many statements and articles dismissing the 
critique, including this morning, without any admission by NPR or 
acknowledgment of any wrongdoing or bias, and certainly they have no 
intent to reform or even reflect upon what this looks like and sounds 
like.
  Let us remember that NPR embraced the Russiagate conspiracy theory 
without question, and they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story 
without proper scrutiny.

  All these things have been proven otherwise, haven't they?
  They also have NPR actively working to dismiss and attack information 
about the true origins of the COVID-19 virus as well as the early 
treatments that could have probably helped or saved many lives. They 
dismissed ivermectin and other treatments, instead, calling it ``horse 
paste'' when as recently as 2015, it won a Nobel Prize for the amazing 
work that has been done with ivermectin.
  In the last decade, NPR's own audience has shrunk and become more 
intensely leftwing, gradually pushing out conservative listeners with 
nonstop ideological programming, bias in reporting, and injecting far-
left ideas into previously nonpolitical programs.
  So it is not just that quirky little radio station you hear in a 
musty bookstore or at a used record store or something like that. It 
has taken a really hard twist to the left.
  They claim to be neutral in a public platform to consider all things 
and consider all perspectives, but unfortunately, it isn't that way 
anymore.
  They are desperately burning up their own credibility to try and keep 
up with the demands of the far left and its ranks that continue to 
shift farther and farther left.
  That is what this person from their organization came out and said, 
for 25 years they have lost the American people with this shift. It is 
pretty sad.
  So perhaps instead of calling it National Public Radio it should be 
called national progressive radio, the term Democrats on the far left 
use for themselves, although I have never really seen where the word 
``progress'' fits in with some of the programs and ideals coming from 
the so-called progressives.
  NPR being funded by taxpayer dollars is a serious betrayal of the 
public trust. The American taxpayer should no longer be subsidizing 
this propaganda which fails to even pretend to be unbiased anymore and 
is appealing to a smaller and smaller group of people, unfortunately. 
It is too bad because the idealism of it years ago when it was created 
looked a heck of a lot different and was indeed something everybody 
could find enjoyment in.

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