Trump Just Defunded Public Media. Did NPR Help Bring This Disaster on Itself?

In the latest installment of Blue City Blues, we welcomed Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania, to join us in delving into the Trump-led defunding of public broadcasting. Zimmerman, whose incisive public commentaries have been published at the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and elsewhere, is the author of a recent op ed at The Hill in which he called on public broadcasters (and elite universities) to “openly admit their liberal biases.”

As a highly educated cosmopolitan, in that piece Zimmerman (who outs himself as an NPR donor and lifelong Democrat) argues that it is glaringly obvious that NPR “caters to people just like me.” Openly acknowledging this orientation, he adds, might have enhanced the network’s credibility and bolstered public support in the face of Trump’s grossly exaggerated caricature of public media as advancing “radical, woke propaganda,” among other false claims.

Our conversation explores how NPR, while always liberal, in recent years allowed a creeping "one-sidedness" to shape its coverage, alienating many core listeners, traditional liberals as well as conservatives. He argues that calling for self-reflection isn't "capitulation" to the Trump administration, but rather a necessary step toward fostering viewpoint diversity and upholding "small-l liberal values" like open exchange. While acknowledging the existential threat Trump’s defunding poses for smaller, rural NPR stations, the discussion turns to the broader political ramifications and lessons for blue cities, where public broadcasting’s core demographic and donor base reside.

The conversation also goes beyond the plight of public media, drawing parallels to the challenges faced by elite academic institutions as they navigate unprecedented authoritarian, ideologically motivated attacks from Trump 2.0. Zimmerman believes that, despite these alarming attacks, universities must continue to build on recent efforts to redress their own turn towards cultural authoritarianism and work to restore an internal culture embracing intellectual pluralism. Zimmerman provides examples of where he thinks both universities and public media have failed to embody principles of open discourse, making them more vulnerable to conservative attacks and external pressures. The episode concludes by considering the future of public broadcasting in a post-funding era, and the possibility of restoring the "enlightenment liberal principles" that once defined these institutions.

Read Jonathan Zimmerman, “On NPR and at elite universities, liberals should openly admit their biases,” The Hill, July 12, 2025.

Quinn Waller is our editor. 

About Blue City Blues: 

Twenty years ago, Dan Savage encouraged progressives to move to blue cities to escape the reactionary politics of red places. And he got his wish. Over the last two decades, rural places have gotten redder and urban areas much bluer.  
 America’s bluest cities developed their own distinctive culture, politics and governance. They became the leading edge of a cultural transformation that reshaped progressivism, redefined urbanism and remade the Democratic Party.
But as blue cities went their own way, as they thrived as economically and culturally vibrant trend-setters, these urban cosmopolitan islands also developed their own distinctive set of problems. Inequality soared, and affordability tanked. And the conversation about those problems stagnated, relegated to the narrowly provincial local section of regional newspapers or local NPR programming. 
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