I have mixed feelings too. I donate to public media and use it regularly, but am empathetic to arguments against the government funding it. At the same time something about it makes me uneasy.

Some of it is I just think public media is a good return on investment, even if it's not ethically compelled. However, if I'm honest, I think my real concern is that I don't believe this was done in good faith, and believe it reflects an implicit but real impingement on freedom of speech. I do think sometimes context matters, in terms of understanding a broader pattern, and in this case that pattern points to restrictions on speech. The impartiality rationale for the decision is undermined, for example, when you have the press pool being chosen by the administration (rather than journalists; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/white-house-says-it-will-d...) and composed of ultra right wing organizations the way it is. It points to a lack of impartiality on the part of the government, and therefore, an imposition on free speech rights. It's hypocritical to complain about NPR being biased, even while you decide who will cover you.

I don't think it's possible to have completely neutral or impartial news coverage, and I think that reality was abused in the discussions about why to eliminate funding. Maybe the law was set up to fail in that regard — I think that's a fair argument — but regardless this, like a lot of other decisions, seems like the wrong one to me by virtue of a much larger string of decisions.