Weeks after Donald Trump declared that he was cutting federal funding for public broadcasters, PBS followed in NPR’s footsteps and sued the president to block his executive order, calling it unconstitutional and “blatant viewpoint discrimination.”
In the complaint that was filed in the U.S. District Court of Washington Friday, the network – which was joined by member station Northern Minnesota Public Television – accused the administration of violating the broadcaster’s First Amendment rights. The lawsuit also claimed that the executive order broke the laws that “forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”
“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,” a PBS spokesperson said in a statement.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The executive order makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech,” the lawsuit stated. “That is blatant viewpoint discrimination.”
The complaint added: “And the EO smacks of retaliation for, among other things, perceived political slights in news coverage. That all transgresses the First Amendment’s protection of both speech and freedom of the press.”
The public broadcaster’s lawsuit comes days after NPR filed a similar complaint against the president. NPR, which gets roughly 2 percent of its annual budget from the federal government, argued that Trump overstepped his powers by trying to strip funding that had been Congressionally appropriated.
“The president has no authority under the Constitution to take such actions,” alleges the NPR lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday. “On the contrary, the power of the purse is reserved to Congress.”
“It is not always obvious when the government has acted with a retaliatory purpose in violation of the First Amendment. ‘But this wolf comes as a wolf,’” the NPR complaint added. “The Order targets NPR and PBS expressly because, in the President’s view, their news and other content is not ‘fair, accurate, or unbiased.”
In his executive order earlier this month, Trump accused the public broadcasters of “biased” coverage and said that federal funds should instead go to “fair, accurate, unbiased and nonpartisan news coverage.”
The order came after he had repeatedly threatened to claw back the funding allocated to NPR and PBS. Trump has also attempted to fire members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors, resulting in another lawsuit to block those terminations.
“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime,” White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told The Washington Post earlier this week. “Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS. The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.”
PBS relies more heavily on government funds than NPR, with nearly 16 percent of its $373 million annual budget coming directly from grants provided to it by the coproration. The network’s lawsuit also claims that Trump’s order could potentially harm the large portion of its funding that comes from local station dues.
