CPB revives $36 million NPR deal killed after Trump’s strain : NPR

The Company for Public Broadcasting agreed Monday to satisfy a $36 million, multi-year contract with NPR that it had yanked after strain from the Trump White Home.

The association resolves litigation filed by NPR accusing the company of illegally yielding to Trump’s calls for that the community be financially punished for its information protection. The argument, a part of a broader lawsuit by NPR and several other stations in opposition to the Trump administration, targeted on CPB funding for NPR’s operation of a satellite tv for pc distribution system for native public radio stations.

The decide within the case had explicitly advised CPB’s authorized staff he didn’t discover its protection credible. CPB attorneys had argued that the choice to award the contract to a brand new consortium of public media establishments was pushed by a need to foster digital improvements extra swiftly. In its submission Monday night to the court docket, CPB didn’t concede that it had acted wrongfully — nor that it had yielded to political strain from the administration.

Federal subsidies for public broadcasting stopped on Oct. 1 because of a party-line vote over the summer season by Congress, referred to as a rescission. Solely a skeleton crew stays at CPB, which was created as a nonprofit company greater than a half-century in the past to funnel federal subsidies to public media. Whereas PBS has had layoffs and NPR is monitoring its personal funds, many native stations throughout the nation have been hit laborious.

Over the course of the litigation this fall, mounting proof appeared to show that CPB’s board chair and executives had acted in opposition to NPR in what turned out to be a futile try and salvage the company’s personal future.

In hearings final month in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court docket Decide Randolph Moss advised CPB’s authorized staff they’d not made a reputable case for why the company reneged on the contract only a day after a high White Home official warned senior CPB leaders in opposition to doing enterprise with NPR. A trial had been set to start out on Dec. 1.

CPB’s change of thoughts — and NPR’s ensuing lawsuit — sparked consternation and unease inside the bigger public media ecosystem. The 2 organizations had served as companions for many years. However that relationship frayed earlier this yr, because the system got here underneath assault from the Trump administration.

Trump’s public marketing campaign in opposition to NPR and PBS began in earnest quickly after he returned to the White Home. Trump kicked it into excessive gear in late March with a sequence of social media posts.

In early April, CPB leaders sought to get cash out the door earlier than Trump took motion in opposition to public media. On April 2, CPB’s board permitted the extension of a contract with NPR to distribute public radio packages, together with these not produced by NPR. The association stretched again 4 a long time. The quantity included tens of millions nonetheless due on the then-current contract.

The following day, CPB’s board chair and two senior executives met with a high White Home funds official who attested to her “intense dislike for NPR.” The funds official advised them CPB did not need to “throw the child out with the bathwater,” in keeping with a deposition from CPB government Clayton Barsoum submitted as a part of NPR’s authorized filings.

And the day after that — simply 48 hours after that board vote — CPB reversed itself. CPB government Kathy Merritt knowledgeable NPR’s high official over the satellite tv for pc and distribution service that it needed to be spun off: it couldn’t be a part of NPR. NPR refused to take action. CPB revised the scope of the contract and solicited new bids. NPR’s submission proved unsuccessful.

In the meantime, the White Home was ramping up the strain. It accused NPR and PBS of bias. On April 14, for instance, it issued a proper assertion that referred to as their choices “radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘information’.” NPR and PBS’s chief executives have rejected the accusations of bias.

On Could 1, Trump issued an government order that no federal cash ought to go to the 2 public broadcasting networks. NPR and three Colorado public radio stations then filed swimsuit in opposition to the White Home, saying they have been being unlawfully punished as a result of the president didn’t like their information protection. They contended the manager order represented a violation of First Modification protections. Their swimsuit names CPB as a defendant as effectively for, of their characterization, bending to the president’s will. In Monday’s authorized submitting, CPB agreed that the manager order was exactly the form of authorities interference that Congress sought to stop in establishing CPB because it did.

In the summertime, Republican leaders within the U.S. Congress, urged on by Trump, pulled again all $1.1 billion for future public broadcasting that had already been permitted and signed into legislation by the president.

All through the authorized battle, NPR has mentioned, whatever the end result of the case, it might work with the contract winner — a consortium of public radio organizations referred to as Public Media Infrastructure — to make sure the satellite tv for pc and distribution system functioned correctly. With the settlement in place, CPB is nonetheless urgent forward with that contract.

NPR’s broader constitutional case in opposition to Trump’s government order purporting to ban federal funding of public media continues. A listening to on its deserves is scheduled for December.

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. It was edited by Deputy Enterprise Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editors Gerry Holmes and Vickie Walton-James. Beneath NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR company official or information government reviewed this story earlier than it was posted publicly.