PBS President: ‘I Can’t Make Any Sense of the Argument That We Are Somehow Biased in Any Way’

SANCHEZ: “I do want to zero in on something that you mentioned specifically about curriculum that‘s geared to children, because part of the argument from the administration is that public broadcasting has become politically biased. They describe it as radical woke propaganda disguised as news. How do you respond to that? And that being part of the reasoning for PBS and other public media no longer deserving taxpayer support?”

KERGER: “I don‘t think that Daniel Tiger‘s Neighborhood is a biased program. It teaches children basic skills around letters and numbers. And when you look at the breadth of programing that we — we are very much committed to serving all of America. The news programing that we do represents about 10 percent of our broadcast schedule, and that includes the News Hour, of which I‘m very proud of, of the excellence of the journalism of that series. So, I would push back. I always — biased one way or another. I asked them for examples. People often struggle to come up with examples of what really they‘re talking about. So, I — we‘re always interested, obviously, in making sure that we‘re serving a multiplicity of viewpoints. You know, Bill Buckley made his home on public broadcasting with a series called Firing Line, which continues today with Margaret Hoover. We are interested in having different perspectives that we bring forward. But when I look at the range of our programing on public broadcasting, I can‘t — I can‘t make any sense of an argument that we are somehow biased in any way.”