President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to stop federal funding for PBS and NPR. The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.”
Republican and evangelical opposition to PBS and NPR is not new. What’s new is a president willing to sign an executive order to defund both.
Every Republican president since Richard Nixon has proposed reducing, or eliminating entirely, the congressional appropriation for CPB.
“Among the many enemies of public broadcasting, the Heritage Foundation stands out.”
In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act. This act established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which also created the Public Broadcasting Service for television in addition to National Public Radio.
NPR aired its first broadcast on April 20, 1971, covering United States Senate hearings on the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia. The afternoon drive-time newscast All Things Considered premiered on May 3, 1971.
Among the many enemies of public broadcasting, the Heritage Foundation stands out. The Heritage Foundation would gladly light the fire that burns PBS and NPR to the ground.
Mike Gonzalez, the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, gleefully compares the fate of public broadcasting to the Chinese dynasties that had “lost the Mandate of Heaven.” With a hint of sarcasm, Gonzalez anticipates the fall of public broadcasting: “Neither Fred Rogers nor Big Bird can save them now.”
This fight is not about balancing budgets; it’s about evangelical attempts to control information. Evangelicals always insist on filtering new information through the narrow lens of their dogma.
They fight PBS and NPR with the same zeal they oppose evolution and global warming. In evangelical eyes, PBS can be ascribed blame for much of what is wrong in the world – the loss of “Christian values” and the undoing of a Christian and American way of life.
Efforts to destroy PBS and NPR also revolve around sexuality and secularism. Evangelicals cry, “Oh the gayness of PBS!”
Clipping from Dallas Morning News in 1999, courtesy of UNT Digital Library
The most telling example of evangelical frustration was Jerry Falwell Sr.’s war against the British children’s show Teletubbies. Falwell warned, “Remember homosexuals do not reproduce, they recruit.”
With his usual viciousness and front-loaded self-righteousness, Falwell claimed “Tinky Winky,” the purple Teletubby, was gay. “He is purple — the gay pride color, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle — the gay pride symbol.” The character had a boy’s voice, he continued, but he often carried a red purse — ahem. The article was titled “Parents Alert: Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet.”
Today, Franklin Graham carries on Falwell’s anti-gay ministry. Graham pointed to a 2021 episode of the PBS kids show the Odd Squad, which ran from 2014 to 2024, that featured a wedding between two women. Graham suggested if the network moved away from LGBTQ storylines and instead ran more Bible stories, there would be greater support for funding.
Graham’s pleas for “more Bible stories” equates to Bible Belt state legislatures attempting to place the Ten Commandments and Bibles in every class, make the teaching of Bible courses part of the curriculum, and having prayers in public schools. All these issues belong together as one solid evangelical attempt to “lord it over” a diverse nation with one brand of evangelical faith.
A few of the PBS children’s shows:
- Arthur
- Sesame Street
- Curious George
- Wild Kratts
- Cyberchase
- Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
- Dragon Tales
- Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman
- Clifford the Big Red Dog
- Thomas and Friends
And PBS has arts and culture shows like Masterpiece Theater, and Ken Burns’ historical films (the Civil War and baseball). There’s the science guy, Bill Nye. He’s been attacked repeatedly for teaching kids actual science.
PBS didn’t create our secular age. Rep. Brandon Gill, R–Texas, argues PBS “pushes leftism.” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., accuses it of “liberal indoctrination.” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y.,) says it is “propaganda from the left.”
These biased opinions ignore nonpartisan investigations to show the balanced presentation of news on both PBS and NPR.
“They think what they know is the fullness of God’s revelation.”
Both PBS and NPR reflect high standards of journalism that cannot be swayed by the desired control evangelicals want to exert. They want all stories told their way.
Evangelicals fit what Paul Griffiths, in Intellectual Appetite, labels “sequestered knowledge.” They think what they know is the fullness of God’s revelation and it is for their exclusive use and all new knowledge must pass through their strictures and structures. This is a form of censorship and control.
Evangelicals fail to note that a nation becoming more diverse is not a nation falling apart. That a nation embracing people of all races, cultures, sexuality, nations and religions is not a failing nation. They have constructed a false enemy and a false conclusion.
There are ways PBS is more humanly Christian than all the Christian nationalists.
While evangelical leaders were attacking higher education, working-class Christians were training their children to go to college. My dad, a Southern Baptist lay preacher, deacon and Sunday school teacher, insisted I get a college education. When I pointed out that all the revival preachers making the rounds through our SBC church were staunchly opposed to higher education, Dad was not deterred. He had a sixth-grade education followed after World War II with a GED and he said: “Those preachers never finished college and they are afraid and envious. You are going to college.”
The Oberlin Faith Cabin Library is the only such building that still exists. It is located on the Seneca Junior College campus. (Photo: Visit Oconee)
There’s a lesson to be learned in a new PBS documentary on public libraries, called Free for All. One part of the film talks about “faith cabin libraries.”
Dawn Logsdon tells the story of a poor white man who worked in a lumber mill. A Black school teacher promised to help this young man get an education. And he did.
When this young man came home, he visited the school of his mentor and noticed there were hardly any books. He made it his mission to bring books to that school’s library. The white laborer and Black school teacher helped build these libraries in other places. They were called Faith Cabin Libraries — established on nothing but faith. And these libraries were part of a church-based movement. Donations came from all over the country, primarily from Christian congregations, but also from Jewish congregations.
This story matters because Faith Cabin Libraries were the precursor to PBS and NPR. These public servants were determined to increase knowledge.
Today’s evangelicals, in a relentless attack, jeopardize our ability to increase knowledge. Maybe they should watch more shows on PBS.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.
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