PBS suing Trump administration over defunding three days after NPR filed similar case
PBS filed suit Friday against President Donald Trump and other administration officials to block his order stripping federal funding from the 330-station public television system, three days after NPR did the same for its radio network.In its lawsuit, PBS relies on similar arguments, saying Trump was overstepping his authority and engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” because of his claim that PBS’ news coverage is biased against conservatives.“PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,” lawyer Z.W.Julius Chen wrote in the suit, filed in U.S.
District Court in Washington.“But regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television, our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”It was the latest of many legal actions taken against the administration for its moves, including several by media organizations impacted by Trump’s orders.PBS was joined as a plaintiff by one of its stations, Lakeland PBS, which serves rural areas in northern and central Minnesota.
Trump’s order is an “existential threat” to the station, the lawsuit said.A PBS spokesman said that “after careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations.”Through an executive order earlier this month, Trump told the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to stop funding the two systems.Through the corporation alone, PBS is receiving $325 million this year, most of which goes directly to individual stations.PBS, which makes much of the programming used by the stations, said it gets 22% of its revenue directly from the feds.
Sixty-one percent of PBS’ budget is funded through individual station dues, and the stations raise the bulk of that money through the gove...