Will County Gazette

Will County Board member Steve Balich is applauding President Donald Trump’s executive order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS—and agrees that taxpayer dollars should never be used to support what he calls biased and uncompetitive media outlets.

Trump’s executive order titled “Ending taxpayer subsidization of biased media” emphasized that the government should “fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage.”

Balich, a longtime critic of public broadcasting, voiced support for the funding cut. 

“I see media, especially NPR and newspapers, as biased to anything that does not fit their narrative,” Balich told the Will County Gazette. “I see no reason my tax dollars should go to pay for biased or missing information.” 

Will County residents can currently tune in to WBEZ (95.1 FM), the NPR affiliate operated by Chicago Public Media—which also owns the Chicago Sun-Times—and WILL-FM 90.9 from Urbana-Champaign. They also receive television broadcasts from Chicago’s WTTW (PBS, Channel 11) and WILL-TV (Channel 12).

These organizations will all lose funding after Trump’s executive order, citing revelations of partisan imbalance. 

Amid the backlash over Trump’s defunding order, the Chicago Sun-Times defended Chicago Public Media’s $2 million federal subsidy, noting "Freedom of the press is under threat."

Balich disputed the notion that the cuts threaten freedom of the press.

“Freedom of the press is any outlet pushing any agenda—biased or not—but there is nothing about getting tax dollars as a part of this freedom,” he said.

Balich argued that public media’s reliance on government support is a sign of its failure to compete in the open market.

“Taxpayer funding should never pay for any media and let the companies prosper or fail based on their product,” he said. “Which is why taxpayer-funded media is upset with losing taxpayer funding. They have a bad product and can’t compete with others with better likability.”

In a recent congressional hearing, NPR CEO Katherine Maher admitted the network had avoided stories that could be politically damaging to Democrats while emphasizing others critical of Republicans, regardless of their accuracy.

Maher was also confronted about past social media posts reflecting controversial left-wing views including her 2020 assertion that “America is addicted to white supremacy,” that the concept of a “free and open” Internet was a “white male Westernized construct” and Trump is a “deranged racist sociopath.” 

The hearing followed criticism from former NPR senior editor Uri Berliner, who spent 25 years with the organization before resigning shortly after publishing an op-ed titled “How NPR lost America’s trust” lambasting NPR for its “absence of viewpoint diversity.”

In the op-ed, Berliner accused NPR of ignoring major stories, like the Hunter Biden laptop controversy, while promoting now-debunked narratives, such as Trump-Russia collusion.

It was also recently revealed at a congressional hearing that NPR’s Washington, D.C., newsroom includes 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans.

“News sources to some people are like seeing something on Facebook and thinking it is totally true,” Balich said. “News sources in the good old days told the truth but were selective on what story was published and which part of a story was told.” 

Balich framed the defunding decision as part of a broader mandate voters gave to Trump—one focused on cutting wasteful spending and prioritizing American interests over failing institutions.

“The country voted for Donald Trump with the knowledge he would stop wasting tax dollars on things we do not need,” Balich said. “America First is for all Americans regardless of party. It is fixing where we live. Getting rid of media that can’t survive on their own is logical and the result of people not buying what they put out.”