How would cuts from the The Trump administration effect Vermont Public and their coverage?
By Paul Bean
The Trump administration has signaled that they are looking into potential cuts of funding for National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Station.
VDC is looking into how this might effect Vermont Public here in our home state if cuts are made to NPR/PBS.
“The NPR, PBS Grift Has Ripped Us Off for Too Long,” said a press release from the Trump administration this morning including a list of news stories as examples of ‘extremely bad reporting’ by public resources.
The following is a few examples of NPR/PBS ‘news’ mentioned in President Trump’s press release:
- In 2024, NPR ran a Valentine’s Day feature around “queer animals,” in which it suggested the make-believe clownfish in Finding Nemo would’ve been better off as a female, that “banana slugs are hermaphrodites,” and that “some deer are nonbinary.””
- In 2022, NPR educated the nation on the “whole community of genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts” and “trans-ceratops.”
- In 2021, a PBS station aired a “children’s program” that featured a drag queen named “Lil’ Miss Hot Mess.”
- In 2021, NPR reported on the “cousin of diet culture” known as “healthism, which is the idea that we have to be healthy” — as if that was a bad thing.
- In 2021, NPR suggested doorway sizes are based on “latent fatphobia.”
- In 2021, NPR lamented that “animals deserve pronouns, too.”
- In 2022, NPR ran a feature titled “What ‘Queer Ducks’ can teach teenagers about sexuality in the animal kingdom.”
- In 2020, NPR explored “the racial origins of fat phobia.”
- In 2017, NPR ran a story titled “Cannibalism: It’s ‘Perfectly Natural,’” in which an author describes eating another human’s placenta: “It was really the prep that made it taste good. Granted, the [husband] was a chef and so he knew how to prepare it osso bucco style and used a really nice wine I had brought. It smelled great. It didn’t taste bad.”
- In 2017, PBS aired a panel devoted to what it “mean[s] to be woke” and “white privilege.”
- In 2017, PBS produced an entire movie celebrating a transgender teenager’s so-called “changing gender identity.”
- NPR CEO Katherine Maher once called President Trump “racist,” shared a photo of herself wearing a “Biden for President” campaign hat, serves on the board of a Soros-funded activist group, and described the “reverence for the truth” as a “distraction.”
- According to a 2024 study, PBS news staff used 162 variations of the term “far-right,” but only six variations of “far-left.”
- NPR repeatedly dismissed the theory that COVID-19 originated in a lab — a conclusion now deemed likely by the FBI, CIA, and Department of Energy.
- April 2020: “Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory Of Pandemic Emergence”
- May 2020: “As Trump Pushes Theory Of Virus Origins, Some See Parallels In Lead-Up To Iraq War”
- May 2021: “Many Scientists Still Think The Coronavirus Came From Nature”
- March 2023: “Virologist says COVID origin report could make it harder to study dangerous diseases”
- September 2024: “New research points to raccoon dogs in Wuhan market as pandemic trigger. It’s controversial”
- A 2024 Media Research Center study found that PBS’s coverage of the Republican National Convention was 72% negative, while coverage of the Democratic National Convention was 88% positive.