The National Public Radio (NPR) headquarters in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, May 5, 2025.
Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
National Public Radio on Tuesday sued President Donald Trump over his executive order to cease all federal funding for the nonprofit broadcaster.
Trump’s May 1 order violates the First Amendment’s protections for speech and the press and steps on Congress’ authority, NPR and three other public radio stations wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
The order “also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information,” according to the legal complaint against Trump and a handful of top officials and federal agencies.
NPR and three of its member stations — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio — want Trump’s order permanently blocked and declared unconstitutional.
It “expressly aims to punish and control Plaintiffs’ news coverage and other speech the Administration deems ‘biased,'” attorneys for the news outlets wrote. “It cannot stand.”
NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, had previously vowed to challenge Trump’s order, which asserts that government funding of the news is “not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
Founded in 1970, NPR says it employs hundreds of journalists whose work is broadcast by more than 1,000 local stations. While most of its initial funding was allocated by Congress and delivered through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, the arrangement was changed in the 1980s as the Reagan Administration sought to shrink public media funding.
Now, the CPB sends federal money to local member stations, who then buy NPR programming. Those member station fees comprise a 30% share of NPR’s funding, while just 1% of NPR’s revenue comes directly from the federal government, according to the organization. The largest share of its funding, 36%, comes from corporate sponsorship, NPR says.
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