Former NPR CEO: ‘This has not been a great week for free speech’

Former NPR CEO Vivian Schiller criticized CBS’s canceling of Stephen Colbert’s show in a Saturday interview amidst pushback of a decision that the network said was made due to financial constraints.

“This has not been a great week for free speech and speaking truth to power, without a doubt,” Schiller said on MSNBC.

CBS has garnered criticism for the move, which many took in the context of its decision earlier this month to settle a lawsuit brought by President Trump for $16 million. CBS’s parent company, Paramount, is currently seeking federal approval for a merger deal with entertainment conglomerate Skydance.

Colbert panned CBS’s move afterwards, calling the settlement a “big fat bribe” in his monologue and pointing out Paramount’s merger effort. Paramount’s lawyers had previously characterized the lawsuit, which took issue with CBS’s editing of an interview with former Vice President Harris, as “without basis in law or fact.”

Schiller acknowledged Saturday that the evidence around the cancellation of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" was “circumstantial,” but still called the move “curious.” The network has maintained that the decision was motivated by financial concerns.

“We have to also make note that Stephen Colbert is unafraid to, again, speak truth to power,” the former NPR executive said. “He does it in a very bipartisan way over the years, and comedy and parody is an important part of a democratic ecosystem.”

Schiller’s comments come after a difficult week for NPR, the media organization she helmed for three years. Republicans voted to zero out funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a nonprofit that provides a small slice of money to NPR’s national headquarters and a significant portion of revenue for the broadcaster’s member stations.

Schiller told NPR’s media reporter this week that she thought the loss of federal funds was inevitable, and that the network should have better prepared itself ahead of the vote by Congress.

“Any evidence-based news organization that reports critically is going to be accused of left-wing bias,” she said. “Journalism and government funding in the United States — those two things are incompatible.”

Schiller exited NPR in 2011 over her own controversy surrounding federal funding. Republicans at the time were threatening to cut the broadcaster’s funding when video surfaced of a prominent NPR fundraiser attacking Tea Party activists.

The fundraiser’s comments, made to two conservative activists posing as potential donors, prompted outrage from Congressional Republicans, and NPR’s board eventually forced Schiller out.