A view of the sign outside National Public Radio headquarters in Washington, D.C., on July 22. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption
NPR asked a federal judge to block the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from awarding a $57.9 million grant to a new consortium of public media institutions to operate the satellite that connects the public radio system for the next five years.
NPR’s submission, filed Friday afternoon, gives insight into the behind-the-scenes tensions within public media this year as congressional Republicans successfully moved, at President Trump’s insistence, to strip public broadcasting of all funding they had already approved for the next two years.
NPR has run the satellite-based system for more than four decades. It enables hundreds of public radio stations and other outside producers to air and share programming, including many shows and stations with no affiliation with NPR itself. CPB is the congressionally funded private corporation through which federal money is funneled to public radio and TV stations, PBS and, to a lesser extent, NPR.
The money at issue is not part of the money NPR receives toward its own annual operations, which has typically represented 1% to 2% of its operating budget. PBS and its member stations have, on average, received 15% of their budgets from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; for public radio stations, that figure has been roughly 10%, though the figure has varied widely.
That subsidy for all public media evaporates starting Wednesday with the new federal fiscal year.
The federal funding for the public radio satellite distribution system is calculated separately from the money set aside for NPR and its member stations.
According to NPR’s court submissions, NPR had been told by CPB in early April that it would soon receive more than $30 million to cover the next three years for running the service, plus the balance on the current year. CPB then swiftly reversed course, with an executive citing a decision at the CPB board level saying NPR could not be involved, the court filing alleges.
Earlier Friday, CPB had announced it was giving the contract to the new consortium, called Public Media Infrastructure. Its members include New York Public Radio, PRX, the Minnesota-based American Public Media, and Station Resource Group, a consulting firm. The National Federation of Community Broadcasters, an association of smaller stations that are not part of the NPR network, is also participating.
“By awarding this grant to PMI, CPB is placing trust in stations to drive the future of radio content distribution, ensuring that interconnection is not only reliable but also innovative, representative and sustainable,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement. “This decision reflects CPB’s commitment to support the entire public media system, especially rural and community stations, and to prepare the system for the future.”
NPR and three of its Colorado member stations are already suing the White House over Trump’s May order banning CPB from spending any federal money on NPR, saying it is a violation of its Constitutional protections. Trump has called NPR and PBS “monsters” and accused them of bias. NPR says that demonstrates an unlawful retaliation for its exercise of free speech.
“We seek a clear judgment that finds the illegality and unconstitutionality of this executive order, and, in doing so, establishes definitively that public media enjoys the same protections from viewpoint discrimination as any other entity of the free press,” NPR Chief Executive Katherine Maher wrote to member station officials Friday evening.
“We enter into this motion with great reluctance,” she continued. “This decision has