Quincy Reporter

Mecki Kosin, Vice Secretary of the Adams County Republican Party and longtime member of the Illinois Tea Party, is adding her voice to the growing chorus of conservatives applauding President Donald Trump’s recent executive order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS.

Trump’s executive order, titled “Ending taxpayer subsidization of biased media,” cites growing concerns about political bias in public broadcasting and states that government funding should support “only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage.”

Kosin, who also owns and operates the Travel House of Quincy, said she agrees that public media has veered far off course—becoming a taxpayer-funded mouthpiece for progressive politics rather than a neutral source of information.

“I totally agree with the critics! Far too many times I have seen public media platforms leaning very left,” Kosin told the Quincy Reporter. “They do not [deserve funding] in my opinion, because they shill for the Left!”  

Trump’s executive order will cut off millions in federal subsidies to public broadcasters, including the Chicago Sun-Times, which is owned by Chicago Public Media and stands to lose its $2 million annual taxpayer subsidy.

The defunding would also impact Quincy’s public broadcasters, including Quincy Public Radio, which airs NPR content from St. Louis’s KWMU, and WQEC, the local PBS affiliate serving Quincy.

The White House justified the move by citing a lack of political diversity in public media—a claim bolstered by former NPR editor Uri Berliner, who spent 25 years with the organization and noted in an op-ed titled “How NPR Lost America’s Trust,” published by The Free Press just prior to his resignation, that NPR has an “absence of viewpoint diversity.”

In the op-ed, Berliner accused NPR of ignoring major stories, like the Hunter Biden laptop controversy, while promoting now-debunked narratives, such as Trump-Russia collusion.

It was also recently revealed that NPR’s Washington, D.C., newsroom employed 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans.

Kosin said she’s felt that imbalance for years as a former listener of NPR who has grown disillusioned.

“I do agree with [Berliner]!” she said. “I used to listen to NPR quite a bit in the past, and found it good. But no longer! They now only shill for the far left! And they have TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome], which has turned out to be a real mental illness in my view.” 

Kosin also criticized the broader state of journalism in the U.S., arguing that much of what’s presented as reporting today is actually ideological commentary.

“Since when does the press report any more?” she asked. “All we get is opinions and editorials on what we should think! Private outlets will find out soon enough, because their customers either like their take or not. But if I have to pay for an outlet through my taxes—that then espouses ideas totally opposite my own—how do I have any freedom, while they are propped up financially because I cannot deny paying taxes?”

Trump’s directive followed a congressional hearing in which NPR CEO Katherine Maher admitted the network had avoided covering stories that could politically damage Democrats. 

Maher, a former head of Wikipedia and current board member of Signal, has also drawn criticism for past statements questioning the value of the First Amendment and Western norms of free expression.

In a recent congressional hearing, NPR CEO Katherine Maher admitted the network had avoided stories that could be politically damaging to Democrats while emphasizing others critical of Republicans, regardless of their accuracy.

Maher was also confronted about past tweets reflecting controversial left-wing views including her 2020 assertion that “America is addicted to white supremacy,” that the concept of a “free and open” Internet was a “white male Westernized construct” and Trump is a “deranged racist sociopath.” 

Maher, a former head of Wikipedia and current board member of Signal, has also drawn criticism for past statements questioning the value of the First Amendment and free expression.

Kosin expressed support for Trump's argument that media outlets should be held to the same accountability as private businesses.

“Of course, it does,” she said when asked if leadership shapes a media outlet’s bias. “Any business reflects how the owner or leader of that business thinks and acts. But private companies can succeed or fail by the way they are run—public ones get propped up! We the People should not fund any media, other than privately through voluntary subscription or membership.”

The Media Research Center praised the defunding measure, calling NPR and PBS the “TV and radio equivalent to MSNBC” out of step with the values of many taxpayers. 

Rapid Response 47, a grassroots conservative network, went further, accusing the NPR and PBS of spreading “radical, woke propaganda.”

Kosin sees the issue as one of basic fairness and democratic accountability.

“It saddens me that so many in our country want President Trump to fail—or worse!” she said. “If he succeeds as President, don’t we all win?”