As NPR takes CPB to court, public media infighting spills into view : NPR

The chasm between NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit that funneled federal money to public media until Congress cut off that funding earlier this year, is widening.

NPR's legal team privately questioned longtime CPB executive Patricia Harrison under oath earlier this month and plans to do so publicly at a court hearing Tuesday morning, according to the radio network's legal filings.

NPR presented evidence in court documents support his position that the nonprofit corporation's board initially approved a multi-year, multimillion-dollar contract with NPR to operate a satellite distribution system for public radio stations. Then, NPR alleges, CPB illegally bowed to political pressure by terminating the contract just days after President Trump warned that NPR should no longer receive federal dollars. NPR says this is yet another example of a major organization succumbing to the president's whim.

CPB denies that claim, saying it contracted with another group to better serve the country's diverse public radio stations. NPR and CPB declined to comment for this story, citing the lawsuit.

These two institutions, along with PBS, have been the backbone of public media for more than half a century. They formed a united front, at least publicly, lobbying lawmakers against return $1.1 billion has already been approved by Congress and signed by the President for the broader public media system.

However, behind the scenes CPB and PBS representatives gave the signal they won't object to defunding NPR, which has drawn the lion's share of Republican accusations of liberal bias.

White House Budget Officer Warns CPB of Her 'Strong Dislike of NPR'

NPR's legal documents offer the following timeline: In late March and early April, Trump called NPR and PBS.”monsters” and demanded that Congress stop federal funding for these projects.

On April 2, the CPB board directed officials to agree on the fine print of a contract with NPR to operate the satellite for the next three years, according to NPR documents. The Radio Network has operated a system through which local radio stations receive and share programs, podcasts and other content for four decades.

Two days later, a senior White House budget official met with the three PBC leaders.

“It would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater,” administration spokeswoman Katherine Sullivan said, according to accounts from CPB officials cited by NPR in its legal filings. She suggested that CPB could save its future and expressed her “strong dislike for NPR,” Harrison wrote to NPR CEO Catherine Maher a few days later, according to recent NPR coverage of the case.

Harrison expressed deep fears that the White House could attack the CPB and public media more broadly. “These rumors may turn into the boy who cried wolf,” Harrison wrote in her email to Maher. “Only the wolf is really coming.” A few days later, CPB's board of directors directed management to change the terms of the contract so that it could only be awarded to an organization completely independent of NPR.

Even though they decided to end their contract with NPR and privately linked the decision to the political climate, court documents show that several CPB executives told a newly hired Republican consultant that they couldn't simply announce they were ending the satellite contract with NPR to appease the White House.

“There are obvious political problems, but we cannot 'admit it' directly,” Debra Sanchez, CPB's chief of staff, wrote to Republican consultant Carl Forti in one of several similar conversations captured in NPR's court filings. “So we're in a bit of a quandary. What are the most powerful messages we can give about “why” or “because?”

Despite all these efforts, when Trump and his Republican allies in Congress stripped public media of subsidies, it was the beginning of the end for the PBC. Non-profit organization fired most of his staff last month and plans to close in January. Layoffs also followed at PBS and many public media outlets.

NPR and CPB are fighting in court over a separate settlement of tens of millions of dollars to operate the satellite system.

CPB says NPR and public media may have different interests

CPB argues that NPR is improperly acting as if it has the right to operate the satellite in perpetuity. His legal team rejected NPR's arguments that it acted under political pressure. Instead, CPB argues that with the elimination of federal subsidies, the radio network's interests may diverge from those of local public media. CPB's lawyers say the decision to award the contract to another group is intended to protect the station's long-term interests.

NPR's offer—a three-year contract worth nearly $36 million—pales in comparison to the new one announced in September. Its cost is estimated at $57 million over five years. CPB handed it over to a consortium that includes New York Public Radio, American Public Media, the National Federation of Public Broadcasters and the consulting firm Station Resource Group, among them. It's called Public Media Infrastructure and revives the dormant non-profit organization Public Radio International.

Earlier this month, Harrison told public media officials receiving the latest round of federal grants that the lawsuit would force her to make unflattering criticism of NPR management.

“As this lawsuit moves forward, CPB will be required to publicly release evidence of its and others' concerns about NPR's leadership, its resistance to innovation and reforms that many in our system have called on it to make, and its repeated disregard for the importance of federal appropriations that support public media,” Harrison warned in an Oct. 13 email to station officials.

In court filings, CPB said the April decision was made “after decades of research by outside consultants” and embodied “a strategy to create an independent organization that would be more inclusive of a broad range of public media outlets across the country” than NPR.

NPR says political pressure is behind changing views

According to NPR, the charges provide an example of what happens when institutions fall into disrepair as a result of a president's unprecedented exercise of executive power. CPB and the Trump administration are co-defendants in the case, which was brought by NPR and three Colorado public radio stations. Trump's decree which sought to simply order an end to all federal funding of public media. However, the PBC previously sued Trump over his attempts to oust board memberscalling it unconstitutional.

When CPB backed out of its contract with NPR, Sanchez hired Forti, a Republican consultant. On his first day on the job, April 10, he wrote a memo describing the CPB's mission as he saw it: “Bias: the belief both within the administration and among the general public that the media is biased against conservatives and, more specifically, against Trump. NPR is number one on these lists.”

On the same day Trump posted on the Internet: “NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A COMPLETE FRAUD!”

April 14 – the same day as news has appeared that Trump will formally request that Congress cancel all future funding for CPB. CPB Chief Operating Officer Katie Merritt called her NPR colleague Ryan Merkley to say the board had changed course. He will no longer provide federal money to operate the public radio satellite and distribution system unless it comes from NPR.

On Capitol Hill, as Trump pushed to eliminate all federal subsidies for public radio, CPB executives outlined a strategy to approach Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia—red states in which statewide public media networks enjoy widespread popularity. (CPB's board chairman previously headed Wyoming PBS.)

But it was in vain. The senators, along with all but two of their Republican colleagues, voted to successfully defund public media, helping seal the fate of the CPB.

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR's David Folkenflik. It was edited by deputy business editor Emily Kopp and managing editors Gerry Holmes and Vicki Walton-James. Per NPR's protocol for self-reporting, no NPR Corporation official or news executive reviewed this story before it was published publicly.