Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha is co-leading a coalition of 21 attorneys general in support of two lawsuits filed in May by National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) against President Donald Trump.
The lawsuits challenge Trump’s May 1 executive order, which targets “taxpayer subsidization of biased media” and argues that public funding of these media outlets is “not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
Neronha and the attorneys general have a different take.
“Public media is a public good,” states the 41-page amicus brief filed Friday. “That good is even more valuable at the local level, where newsworthiness, reach, and financial incentives often do not align.”
“NPR and PBS are American institutions responsible for delivering emergency information, educational programming, and reliable news, all of which Americans use to inform how they live their lives,” Neronha said in a Friday statement. “These massive cuts would have dramatically negative impacts on the flow of public information, especially in rural and tribal areas, with potentially life-threatening consequences.”
Trump’s directive would terminate both direct and indirect federal funds for NPR and PBS, and “cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law,” according to the order text.
The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and all other federal agencies to cancel grants and any other lingering financial support by June 30. The order argues that the Corporation has failed to abide by federal law by subsidizing the national networks and their affiliates, which Trump claims do not meet a standard of “fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
The two lawsuits challenging Trump’s order were filed separately, with the first arriving on May 27 from NPR and three Colorado public radio stations — including the tribal-serving KSUT. The second lawsuit came on May 30 and was filed by PBS and a Minnesota affiliate. Both lawsuits argue that the threatened funding exceeds presidential authority, and erodes the information infrastructure needed for emergency alerts and local news.
The amicus brief filed Friday is co-led by the attorneys general of Colorado, Arizona, and Minnesota, plus Neronha. An additional attorneys general from 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, signed the brief.
The brief details how emergency notification systems often rely on public broadcasters as primary or secondary venues to deliver emergency messages, Amber Alerts for abducted children, Silver Alerts for older people or people with disabilities who are missing, and other kinds of notifications. The broadcasters’ infrastructure can also serve as backups for notifications about electrical and internet outages, as they “often have hardened and resilient infrastructure that allows them to continue broadcasting during emergency situations,” the brief states.
The brief also argues for public media as an essential educational resource and lifeline for rural and underserved communities who may lack reliable access to broadband internet or non-free news sources.
“Public media connects millions of Americans,” the brief reads. “It touches life’s ordinary and extraordinary moments, from school lessons in the living room to life-saving emergency alerts in the midst of a storm. … Losing public media would erode that trust and leave many American communities in the dark.”
Joining the four co-leading states and the District of Columbia are attorneys general from the states of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
