Sen. Ted Cruz presses NPR on potential ties between donations, coverage

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wants National Public Radio to explain whether it tailored its coverage of climate change, health care and other topics to match the views of deep-pocketed donors.

Mr. Cruz, the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said Tuesday he sent a letter to NPR CEO Katherine Maher highlighting a possible nexus between donations and coverage.

For instance, he said the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation committed $4 million in November to support NPR’s coverage of “global health and development issues.”

In January, the station published a report about buzzwords in global health that quoted Bill Gates as saying the 2024 election would be a “turning point for both health and climate.”

The Microsoft founder also highlighted a $250,000 donation from a charitable trust focused on the root causes of poverty and homelessness, including “racist housing, zone and land use policies.”

Shortly later, he said, NPR published an interview with former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge on “confronting a ‘racist’ system.”

“The timing and content of certain NPR articles align with earmarked, multimillion-dollar donations from left-wing nonprofits looking to advance their own narratives in the press,” Mr. Cruz said. “In other words, NPR may be engaged in a payola scheme to leverage its dwindling credibility as a nonpartisan news organization to ‘help’ partisan, left-wing megadonors.”

NPR denied Mr. Cruz’s accusations in a statement Tuesday.

“NPR’s newsroom is independent and free from outside influence; our supporters have no input into our editorial decisions and no access to our journalists. We’re grateful to all who support public media’s mission to deliver impartial, fact-based news and reporting to the American public,” the broadcaster said.

Mr. Cruz said NPR must adhere to “objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature” because it receives federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

NPR derived less than 2% of its revenue — $5.5 million out of $309 million — from CPB in 2022, though local stations receive federal funding, then pay fees to NPR to use its content, according to the senator.

Mr. Cruz gave NPR a Friday deadline to provide information on its funding — including all private grants, awards and donations over $5,000 — and whether it takes precautions to ensure financial contributions don’t affect editorial choices.

The senator released a corresponding memo with his letter, listing eight perceived links between donations and coverage.

“These and other examples show that NPR has strayed far from its ethos of ‘independent journalism in the public interest’ by allowing its liberal donors to buy desired ‘news’ coverage,” Mr. Cruz wrote in his letter. “If the American taxpayer is going to finance a public broadcaster, then they deserve nothing less than fair and unbiased reporting.”