I grew up on public radio and public television. My mother, until it became impossible to stop us, only allowed us to watch "educational" tv when we were little. Some of the most influential and memorable people in my life were public tv or radio personalities: Robert J. Lurtsema, (Morning Pro Musica, the best classical program ever), Maggie Letvin, (who, as a teenage boy, I found profoundly attractive), Julia Child, Fred Rogers, Don Herbert, (Mr. Wizard), the Brandeis historian Abram Sachar whose lectures and personal observations of history I will never forget, and more. I don't remember that these people had any particular agenda to sell. But not anymore.
Today's public radio constantly, and artfully pushes a liberal agenda. There is no pretense of an unbiased approach. I have not done it yet but I would guess that if you did a statistical sampling of npr topics they would roughly be divided into two groups: 1. people oppressed by the white male power structure: lgbtq people, people of 'color' and females and 2. the horror of the white male power structure, especially as embodied by Donald Trump. And yet the majority of npr viewers are white and I would suspect that the majority of members of the board of directors are white, upper class males and females. They are arrogant and self righteous about their values and beliefs. Anthropogenic climate change and mutation and natural selection as a sufficient creative force, both controversial in much of America, are arrogantly taken as absolutes not to be questioned.
Also the quality of the programming has gone downhill. NPR has adopted the mass market approach to radio programming filling it with chit-chat about the news and outrage over things they expect or want their audience to be outraged over. They have become so predictable and banal that, even though they were once my go to for non chit chat, hot under the collar programming, I can no longer tolerate them.
Finally, because they are and have been a highly respected and trusted news source for so long to a large and influential audience, they are the target vehicle for very sophisticated propaganda. Non conventional political views are quickly shut down if expressed by callers. NPR is a stalwart of the reigning paradigm of authority in our country much of which needs to be examined and questioned by journalists not promoted by them.
