Archive May 2, 2025

Two American public broadcasters will receive subsidies from President Donald Trump in an executive order.

Late on Thursday, Trump issued an order to stop federal funding for PBS and NPR, accusing them of spreading “left-wing” propaganda and producing biased reporting.

The US president’s most recent attempt to stop the government from funding the media that he finds unfavorable for his administration is known as the “order.” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued an alarm about an “alarming deterioration in press freedom.”

The White House claimed in a social media post that the outlets were using “radical, woke propaganda” disguised as “news” and that they were receiving millions from taxpayers.

Trump ordered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which gives media access to government funding, to “cancel existing direct funding to the extent permitted by law and… decline… future funding.”

He also argued that the news organizations’ indirect sources of public funding be eliminated, putting in risk to their future existence.

According to reports, CPB spends about half a billion dollars on funding each year for PBS and NPR, but they also rely heavily on private donations.

The order’s immediate impact on the outlets, which are typically funded by Congress two years in advance to shield them from political influence, is not known.

Paula Kerger, PBS’s CEO and president, warned last month that cuts in funding would “disrupt the essential service” of the outlet.

Additionally, it is reported that the White House requested that Congress halt funding of the CPB, a private, nonprofit organization established by Congress in 1967 and whose oversight of administering the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting.

“Preoccupant deterioration in press freedom”

Since taking office in January, Trump has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for artists, libraries, museums, and theaters as part of a broad campaign to reduce spending. Additionally, he has threatened to hold universities from receiving federal funding for research and education.

Media has been a significant target. Trump also vowed to end US agencies for global media, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in March.

Federal courts, however, criticized the administration, claiming that it had overstepped its bounds by requesting congressional authorization to hold back funds.

As a gift to US adversaries, critics criticized the effort to shut down the outlets, which broadcast in many foreign states under authoritarian regimes that restrict media freedom.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, however, more people are concerned about the country’s media freedom.

In its annual report released on Friday, RSF warned of “unprecedented” difficulties for independent journalists around the world and “an alarming decline in press freedom” in the US under Trump.

A former Hong Kong lawmaker who was imprisoned as part of a massive crackdown on dissent in China described her prison time as “Kafka-esque.”

After serving more than four years in prison for crimes against national security, Claudia Mo, a former journalist who co-founded the pro-democracy Civic Party, was released on Tuesday.

In a massive national security case involving the participation of 47 activists in an unofficial primary election, Mo, along with three other former politicians, admitted to conspiracy to subvert state power in 2022.

In the landmark case, which was criticized by Western governments and human rights organizations as an example of Beijing violating freedoms in the former British colony, 44 additional activists entered pleas of guilty or conviction.

Mo claimed on Friday that she had brushed up on her French while she was in detention and read more than 300 books as her first comments since her release.

“Thank you for your concern and concern regarding my release. The first few months of the program were almost Kafka-esque. Thanks to the social arrangements inside, Mo said in a Facebook post that I didn’t experience the two main incarceration traumas: loneliness and boredom.

Mo thanked her supporters, including retired Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was detained on suspicion of causing national security in 2022 and who ran press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders.

She said, “My thoughts are with my fellow-defendants who are still in custody.”

With the passage of a comprehensive Beijing-decreed national security law in 2020, Hong Kong was once home to a vibrant political opposition and a free-wheeling media scene.

Following the erupting of frequently violent mass antigovernment protests in 2019, Beijing and the Hong Kong government have praised the law for restoring order and order to the city.

According to local media reports, Hong Kong national security police detained the father and brother of the Hong Kong Democracy Council’s leader, Anna Kwok, on suspicion of handling her finances.