PBS filed a federal lawsuit Friday asking a court to block the May 1 executive order by the Trump White House to cut off funding to public media, calling the move a violation of the 1st Amendment.
The suit from the service that airs “Sesame Street,” Ken Burns documentaries and the “PBS NewsHour” for free to millions of American homes, said that Congress has repeatedly protected PBS from political interference by filtering its funds through the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which is not a federal agency.
“The [executive order] makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech.”
NPR, which also receives CPB funding, filed a suit on similar grounds on Tuesday.
The White House alleges that PBS has “zero tolerance for non-leftist viewpoints.” Trump’s order called for an end to government dollars for CPB, the taxpayer-backed entity that has provided funding to NPR and PBS for decades through Congress.
Trump called the public media outlets “left wing propaganda.” The White House press release announcing the order — titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” — contained 19 bullet points citing news coverage and other content by NPR and PBS that prompted the action.
The PBS suit says the data the White House cited to support that view are inaccurate and misrepresent the balanced range of viewpoints presented on PBS programs.
The White House has also asserted that government funding of broadcast media is no longer necessary in an era when consumers have a vast array of platforms for information and entertainment. PBS was founded when most of the country only had access to the three commercial broadcast networks and a handful of other TV stations.
PBS’ suit also says that, regardless of any policy disagreements the administration may have over the role of public television, “our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”
