Trump signs executive order to cut funding for public broadcasters

Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking to cut public funding for the news outlets NPR and PBS, accusing them of being biased.

NPR and PBS are only partly funded by the US taxpayer and rely heavily on private donations.

The US president has long had an antagonistic relationship with most mainstream news media, previously describing them as the “enemy of the people”.

A notable exception is the powerful conservative broadcaster Fox News, some of whose hosts have taken on leading roles in his administration.

“National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) receive taxpayer funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB),” Trump said in his executive order. “I therefore instruct the CPB board of directors and all executive departments and agencies to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.”

He added that “neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens”.

The CPB budget has already been approved by Congress through 2027, which raises questions about the scope of Trump’s order.

More than 40 million Americans listen to NPR public radio each week, and 36 million watch a local television station from the PBS network each month, according to their estimates.

The NPR director, Katherine Maher, estimated in March that the radio station would receive about $120m (£102m) from the CPB in 2025, “less than 5% of its budget”.

The media rights group RSF warned on Friday about “an alarming deterioration in press freedom” in the US under Trump and “unprecedented” difficulties for independent journalists around the world.