PBS Sues Trump Administration Over Push to Defund Public Broadcasters
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said the president's executive order violates its First Amendment rights; the filing also claimed President Trump does not have the authority to make decisions over funding for public broadcasters.
President Trump, the lawsuit added, was engaging in 'viewpoint discrimination' because he has claimed PBS is biased against him and other Republicans.
'PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,' the lawsuit said.'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.'
Friday's lawsuit comes a few days after NPR filed a similar lawsuit.
Trump signed an executive order on May 1 calling for the end of taxpayer subsidization of PBS and NPR, via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
'Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse and innovative news options,' the order said. 'Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.'
The president has also called NPR and PBS 'radical left monsters' that Republicans must defund in recent social media posts.
PBS has said it is receiving $325 million this year from the CPB, which accounts for 22% of its funding.
Last week, PBS chief Paula Kerger said the executive order would spell the end for a number of local news stations.
Kerger, in an interview with Katie Couric, lamented that 'there are stations that will go off the air' in rural areas if the president is successful, without projecting a specific number of PBS member stations that would cease to operate.
'I think we'll figure out a way, through digital, to make sure there is some PBS content,' Kerger said. 'But there won't be anyone in the community creating local content. There won't be a place for people to come together.'
On Friday, PBS was joined in its lawsuit by Lakeland PBS, a station that serves rural parts of Minnesota. The station said the president's push to defund PBS posed an 'existential threat' to it.
Whether Trump achieves his goal of defunding public broadcasters is to be determined. Congress has already allocated $535 million for public broadcasters this fiscal year, and beyond the NPR and PBS lawsuits, he is facing a lawsuit from CPB over a related issue — his decision to fire three of its board members.
The post PBS Sues Trump Administration Over Push to Defund Public Broadcasters appeared first on TheWrap.
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