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Judge rules Trump order eliminating NPR, PBS funding is unconstitutional
(www.washingtonpost.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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I would argue that not only should we be funding PBS and NPR, but we should spend whatever money is needed to get unbiased facts out to the people. Not only to create the data, but to ensure that it is widely disseminated.
Although it tends to be pretty dry, PBS Newshour is one of the least biased sources of news that I've seen. I want a less dry version of that. Just to get more people to watch, but not to be sensational.
I think a modern democracy cannot be expected to work if people get biased news, and so if I was redoing the US Constitution, I'd make it one of the Bill of Rights that people have the right to an unbiased source of news, and furthermore that people who are speaking on behalf of the government must tell the truth.
People cannot vote correctly if they don't have the correct information to vote with. That's the very basis of democracy.
I honestly don't think this is possible.
Who's deciding what counts as "biased" or "unbiased", and how do we ensure there's no corruption there?
How do we determine "the truth" about controversial subjects when general opinion is split?
Even if you did determine a magical method to broadcast exclusively factual information without any spin; the choice of which information gets broadcast inherently introduces bias. You can't put literally everything that happened on Earth in a day on the evening news, so you have to choose and prioritize which information to broadcast, introducing the bias.
I've always thought a better solution would be having news sources be more explicit about their biases, rather than pretending they don't have any, but I realize that just introduces more problems without necessarily fixing anything.
There's a similar problem with defining "pornography", but one of the most famous Supreme Court decisions managed to rule on it, saying "I know it when I see it."
It also doesn't matter whether it's an attainable goal. For a famous current example, the 2nd Amendment says the right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed." There's famously, and problematically, no exceptions, depending on how you read the "militia" part. Yet how many people are arguing that, for example, violent criminals currently serving prison terms should be allowed weapons inside prisons? The whole constitution, as is, is only followed as much as it can reasonably be followed.
No, the important thing isn't whether a lofty goal can be achieved, but that obvious violations can be detected and punished. And that as long as we have a lofty goal, we can continue to aim to better ourselves and try to achieve the goal at some point in the future.
I appreciate the comprehensive take. So tired of people claiming to know which sources are biased and which aren't, acting as though they are somehow immune to it while everyone who disagrees with them is subject to it. And you are right, there is no great solution except that news needs to be as decentralized as possible, from many independent sources.
Public funding of unbiased news is complicated. That can very easily turn into propaganda if the government can decide what is or is not biased. In fact, any arbiter of bias can turn it into propaganda. But if there's nobody who can regulate it, then biases will go unchecked, all while being paid for.
I don't know where the balance is. PBS is great, but I think it's because their funding also includes private donations from individuals who value their product.