On the eve of a critical Senate vote to end forced taxpayer subsidies for public radio, Google stepped in to help NPR dodge accountability after one of its Texas affiliates failed to deliver timely reporting about the devastating July 4 floods that killed at least 134 people across the state.
Both Google and NPR have been shown to use their resources to push a liberal agenda and support Democrats. It now appears that the tech giant is using its resources to try to help its public radio accomplice.
The tech giant adjusted its AI-generated responses, downplaying Texas Public Radio’s failure to issue timely alerts about the floods during the early morning of Independence Day, a Media Research Center review has found.
This follows an MRC report calling out TPR on Monday for slowwalking its live reporting of the Texas floods while posting calls to action on social media. TPR, a member of the influential NPR network, is participating in a lobbying campaign to bully lawmakers into continuing to funnel tax dollars into their coffers.
Key Findings: On Thursday, MRC asked Google whether NPR had slept through the deadly Texas floods. Initially, Google’s AI overview admitted that TPR did not did not anticipate the severity of the flooding and were not fully prepared for the scale of the disaster initially. The station’s editors were asleep in the comfort of their homes while Texans fought for their lives.
But by Monday—the day before the Senate began to consider President Donald Trump’s request to rescind funding for NPR and PBS—Google changed its answer when presented with the same prompt: “No, NPR did not ‘sleep through’ the Texas floods.”
