CNN's Brian Stelter sent out his "Reliable Sources" email on July 28 with the chirpy headline "Surprise: PBS and NPR are still alive and kicking." Why on Earth would that be a surprise? Depriving these liberal networks of taxpayer money wasn't a death sentence.

In last year's debate over defunding, PBS and NPR executives routinely claimed federal funding was a tiny fraction of their budget — and that cutting them off would have a horrible result. How does that make sense? Then again, PBS and NPR executives also claimed they weren't biased, which was preposterous.

NPR's "Public Editor" Kelly McBride explained: "The entire public media network, including every member station across the country as well as PBS and NPR, runs on about $3.2 billion a year. The federal grants represented about 16 percent of that total." That's not a tiny fraction.

One year after President Donald Trump signed the bill to defund them, Stelter happily reported: "Station executives credit a burst of philanthropy caused by the GOP's funding cut." He then touted a "terrific story" on the state of so-called public broadcasting by NPR media reporter David Folkenflik. A surge in donations, he admitted, "would appear to confirm the position of some conservative critics who say people who value public media can pay for it themselves."

What these reporters have failed to explain is that the surge in what NPR calls "rage-giving" came from the Left. Folkenflik used the word "conservative" five times to describe their opponents, but never used any words like "liberal" or "left" to describe the ardent supporters now surging their money into the system. No conservatives were allowed to make any criticisms of NPR. It was all fluff.

In April, he reported Connie Ballmer — wife of Steve Ballmer, one of the Microsoft founders — contributed $80 million to NPR, and another anonymous donor added $33 million. They like NPR exactly as it is, and NPR and PBS never moved a whisker closer to the center as the Republicans held hearings and prepared to defund them.

This entire aftermath could have been predicted. The result is exactly what conservatives argued, that it was unjust to take our money to put on relentlessly biased programs and that liberals should be the ones to pay for their liberal-pleasing propaganda.

PBS and NPR also please the Left by the stories they smother. The "public" networks haven't reported on their airwaves about the Anthony Fauci diary entries released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). They were completely supportive of all of the Fauci-ordered lockdowns on schools, businesses, churches and even family holiday gatherings.

In 2020, NPR also notoriously proclaimed that Hunter Biden's laptop was a "pure distraction," not a news story. In the years afterward, as other liberal media outlets admitted the laptop was authentic and newsworthy, NPR adamantly refused to bend. On July 18, NPR aired a softball interview by weekend anchor Scott Simon under this empathetic headline: "Hunter Biden shares his painful road to recovery and fight against political scrutiny."

"Public" broadcasting is a powerful communications tool for the left, with hundreds of affiliates in large cities and rural communities, pumping out narratives nationwide about how everything Trump and his conservative supporters are pushing is toxic, even "un-American."

These networks hope the funding cutoff is temporary. Whenever Democrats get back in control, they will reopen the spigot, signaling what we all know: "public broadcasting" is Democrat Radio and Democrat TV.

Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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