For anyone wondering whether the government was right to pull the plug on PBS, a recent NewsHour segment offers a compelling answer. The network, in a piece packaged as straight reporting, skipped serious inquiry and instead delivered a glowing tribute to professional left-wing activism in Minnesota.
The report, filed by senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown, opened with vague references to “tougher economic pressures” on smaller arts organizations—pressures the segment never actually specified. Viewers were left to infer a connection to Trump administration budget cuts, though no evidence was provided.
Brown then pivoted to the emotional state of the Twin Cities, citing “waves of trauma” from George Floyd’s murder, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a recent ICE surge that left two people dead. He praised small community groups for being “on the front lines, getting out of the studio and into the streets, even in the freezing cold.”
The segment featured TaikoArts executive director Jennifer Weir, who described showing up with drums as “getting plugged into a collective energy source.” But what exactly these drum circles were protesting—and why—was never explained. The piece then moved to Mixed Blood Theatre, whose director Mark Valdez proudly declared, “We are foremost a social justice organization, secondarily a theater company.”
Valdez detailed the group’s “Say Your Rights Out Loud” sessions, where actors role-play ICE agents and participants practice asserting their rights. Brown, without a hint of irony, called it “a kind of rehearsal or a kind of performance, but with real consequences.”
The segment then lamented declining public and private funding for these self-described activist groups, taking particular umbrage at “recent cuts” and “pushback” from the Trump administration—again without specifics. Notably, the piece never questioned why taxpayer dollars should support organizations that train activists against immigration enforcement, a policy area where Americans hold deeply divided views.
Brown concluded by literally joining a drum circle, describing the experience as “exhilarating, exhausting.” It was a fitting end to a segment that functioned less as journalism and more as an infomercial for a particular political agenda.
This isn’t merely a case of liberal bias, which is common enough in legacy media. It’s a wholesale abandonment of the journalistic duty to interrogate, challenge, or even acknowledge opposing perspectives. The piece treated professional agitation as an uncontroversial hobby, like birdwatching or knitting.
As the White House escalates its critique of cultural institutions, PBS’s performance undercuts its own defense. When a taxpayer-funded network produces what is essentially a promotional video for leftist activism, it hands ammunition to those who argue public broadcasting should be defunded.
Viewers learned nothing from this segment—except, perhaps, that PBS has fully embraced a role as a megaphone for a narrow political worldview. At this point, it’s not bias. It’s an ad.
