National Public Radio (NPR) factoids
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-radio-npr/
In 2003, NPR received over $200 million from the estate of Joan Kroc, the widow of McDonalds mass franchiser Ray Kroc. Most of the funds were deposited in NPR’s endowment.
In 2010, NPR received $1.2 million from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) to launch the Impact on Government project, which intended to station two reporters at each state capital to report on state-level government affairs. The donation attracted controversy because of George Soros’s reputation as a left-of-center donor and because it was announced on the same day NPR fired Juan Williams for comments he made on Fox News. Critics accused NPR of demonstrating left-wing bias, despite claiming to be a broadcasting organization for public benefit.
In 2017, 2018, and 2019, the Trump administration submitted budget proposals to Congress which would eliminate all funding for CPB and NPR. Congress declined to cease funding for CPB.
The left-leaning Knight Foundation has evaluated NPR as attempting to stay unbiased, but representing the interests of “those of the politically correct elite left” consisting of a “coalition of government bureaucrats, academics, entertainers, philanthropists, ethnic group activists, [and] corporate leaders.”
In 2014, the Pew Research Center released a survey of the average ideological placement of audiences for major news outlets. NPR’s audience was rated solidly on the left and on the same level of left orientation as the audiences of HuffPost, Buzzfeed, and the Washington Post. The report found that NPR’s audience was more left-leaning than Fox News’s audience was right-leaning. 37
In 2017, former NPR CEO Ken Stern wrote an op-ed for the New York Post in which he described his time at NPR as being influenced by left-of-center bias. Stern wrote, “When you are liberal, and everyone else around you is as well, it is easy to fall into groupthink on what stories are important, what sources are legitimate and what the narrative of the day will be.”
Since 1998, NPR has spent $8,209,115 on lobbying, according to OpenSecrets. Annual lobbying expenditures mostly stayed around $100,000 until 2007, when NPR spent $437,000. After that year, lobbying expenditure stayed between $411,000 and $677,000 annually.
NPR has been criticized for using taxpayer funds to lobby the government for benefits. In 2020, NPR spent $639,000. The organization targeted the House and Senate versions of the Local News and Emergency Information Act, which proposed to expand the Payment Protection Program (PPP) for media outlets to the benefit NPR-affiliated stations. NPR also lobbied for the House and Senate versions of a bill which would create a “Public Radio Music Day” to celebrate public radio music stations.
In 2011, the Washington Times criticized NPR for lobbying against Republican efforts to cut government funding to the organization.
Since 1990, employees of NPR have given $48,489 in political contributions. The vast majority of recipients have been Democrats. In the 2020 election cycle, NPR employees gave almost $13,000, with 92% going to Democrats. Recipients included President Joe Biden, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and failed U.S. House of Representatives candidate Claire Russo.