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A federal judge has struck down parts of an executive order seeking to cut public funding for the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio, finding the effort unconstitutional.
“The First Amendment does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this kind,” U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss wrote in an order issued Tuesday.
The executive order, called “Ending Taxpayer Support for Biased Media,” reduced support for public media outlets. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing campaign to leverage federal powers to undermine institutions whose views he disagrees with. Broadcast companies, which have sued the government over these efforts, receive nearly half a billion dollars in congressional funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The court concluded in the ruling that the administration attempted to suppress undesirable news coverage by selecting two speakers based on their rhetoric.
“The First Amendment draws a line that the government may not cross,” wrote Moss, an appointee of Barack Obama. He issued a permanent injunction preventing the government from implementing the directive to stop funding.
In a statement, a PBS spokesperson said the executive order is “discriminatory and retaliatory in an unconstitutional sense, in violation of long-standing First Amendment principles.”
Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, said in a statement that the ruling is “a critical affirmation of the rights of a free and independent press — and a victory for NPR, our network of stations, and tens of millions of listeners nationwide.” She added that “the government cannot use funding as a means to influence or punish journalism, whether as a national news service or a local newsroom,” and that “public media exists to serve the public interest — the interest of Americans — not to serve any political agenda or elected official.”
The impact of eliminating future funding for public media is already being felt. PBS and NPR have scaled back their operations, with some stations laying off staff and cutting some programming.
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