The FCC is investigating NPR and PBS

Federal Communications Chair Brendan Carr has ordered investigations into NPR and PBS with the goal of slashing the money given to the government-funded organizations, The New York Times reports.

The investigations are ostensibly about PBS and NPR’s member stations’ sponsorships, according to a letter from Carr obtained by the Times. “I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” the letter reads. “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.” Both PBS and NPR’s chief executives told the Times that their advertising complies with the FCC’s underwriting regulations.

“To the extent that taxpayer dollars are being used to support a for profit endeavor or an entity that is airing commercial advertisements,” the letter continues, “then that would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars.”

Carr is already facing pushback. In an emailed statement to The Verge, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says the investigation is “yet another Administration effort to weaponize the power of the FCC. The FCC has no business intimidating and silencing broadcast media.”

Carr’s move is in line with other Trump administration efforts to cut funding for public goods and services. Carr — who Trump appointed to the commission in 2017 — wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC. While Carr’s chapter largely focused on using the commission to rein in big tech, a separate chapter on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting called for cutting off the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the government-funded nonprofit that supports PBS and NPR. The document, written by Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez, called out public media’s “demonstrated pattern of bias” against conservatives.

The Heritage Foundation is by no means the only conservative organization to target with NPR. The public radio station and its local affiliates have long been targets of the right. Most recently, in 2024, on the heels of his successful ouster of Harvard president Claudine Gay, right-wing strategist Chris Rufo launched a “campaign to expose” NPR CEO Katherine Maher’s “anti-speech, anti-truth philosophy.” As writer Renee DiResta pointed out, Rufo’s beef with Maher began with an essay by now-former NPR editor Uri Berliner published in the Free Press about how his employer had gone woke. Rufo then accused Maher of “following the Claudine Gay playbook,” and published two posts about Maher in City Journal, the Manhattan Institute’s in-house magazine — including one in which he implied Maher was a CIA asset.

Update, January 30th: Added comment from FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez.