Posted on 03/22/2011 7:29:08 AM PDT by La Lydia
Even after they fired me, called me a bigot and publicly advised me to only share my thoughts with a psychiatrist, I did not call for defunding NPR. I am a journalist, and NPR is an important platform for journalism. But last week my defense for NPR ran into harsh political realities. Rep. Steve Israel (D- N.Y.) chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a fundraising letter with the following argument:
“They [Republicans] know NPR plays a vital role in providing quality news programming — from rural radio stations to in-depth coverage of foreign affairs. If the Republicans had their way, we’d only be left with the likes of Glenn Beck, Limbaugh and Sarah Palin to dominate the airwaves.” p> With that statement, Israel made the case better than any Republican critic that NPR is radio by and for liberal Democrats. He is openly asking liberal Democrats to give money to liberal Democrats in Congress so they can funnel federal dollars into news radio programs designed to counter and defeat conservative Republican voices.
Rep. Israel has unintentionally endorsed every conservative complaint about NPR as a liberal mouthpiece...it is also a statement of why NPR’s troubled management team has turned its fundraising efforts into a weapon to be used against its essential product — top quality, balanced reporting. No journalist should have to work with one finger in the political winds, anxiously waiting to see if Democrats continue to be pleased with what they hear on NPR as a counter to what they don’t like hearing from Rush Limbaugh.
But, wait, there might be one better argument for ending federal funding of NPR....
Journalists should not be doing news to please any donors — private citizens, political parties or government officials — out of fear of losing funding....
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
state and local governments should also stop funding PBS and Planned Parenthood.
This fits Juan Williams exactly.. an affirmative action journalist..
Juan is/was so dumb he thought that NPR was fair and balanced..
else why did he NOT quit himself.. unless he could care less.. about fairness..
Because an idiot can see they are not balanced..
O'Really carrying water for Williams speaks more against O'Really than it does for Williams..
Williams is blind to Obamas flaws.. willfully blind..
and O'Really can't see well either..
I am sure that those in the buggy whip industry also thought it was important to keep that industry going, even if technology had passed it by.
Once upon a time, when I could only get 3 TV channels and 2 or 3 non-short wave radio channels on the radio, NPR and the National Broadcast Service were created to provide commercial free and educational programing.
However, over time I can now watch over 100 TV channels and get over cable/Internet thousands of live and streaming radio-type shows.
There is nothing that NPR (or its TV affiliate) does with taxpayer money that couldn't be done by other funding means.
It is time to use taxpayer money for more important things, especially, because NPR has taken on an elite ideological bend, but also because technology has passed it by.
“Death blow” is not the point. The point is that no taxpayer should be having to pay for this propaganda involuntarily. Let NPR complete with everyone else. If it survives, so be it. If it doesn’t, such is the way of the world. It is a free country. NPR will be just fine without an annual federal/state donation.
They never should have got taxpayer money in the first place. They get plenty of donations from the public, the federal funds are just gravey, slush money etc. Some do-good liberal got the funding passed because it felt good, like the funding for the arts, some do-good liberal felt that a bottle of p-ss is art. Wake up people, there’s a bad recession happening.
How much of the CPB slice (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) is Federal funds?
Since Juan invokes Limbaugh’s name, I wonder if Rush will mention this column? He’s been very quiet about the defunding issue although, in the past, he has lamented - as have many - that broadcasters receive any type of tax-supported funding.
REVENUES
Federal Appropriation
$420,000,000
Estimated Interest
$2,000,000
Total
$422,000,000
Is our dear congress talking about defunding $420M from CPB as well? Or is all the chest-beating solely about NPR?
” ...we unwittingly(?) cultivated a core audience that is predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite. “Super-serve the core” — that was the mantra, for many, many years. This focus has, in large part, brought us to our success today. It was never anyone’s intention to exclude anyone.
But we have to accept — unapologetically — that this is the franchise we’ve built.
We have to look at this because the criticisms that are coming at us — whether they’re couched in other things — do have some legitimacy. We must, as a starting point, take on board some of this criticism. Before we can set a path, we have to own this.
One choice, at this transformational moment, is to say, “We are satisfied with what we are doing. We — in radio — are providing 11 percent of America with an extraordinary service.” If this is our choice, we need to carefully consider whether we warrant public funding and, if so, what the rationale would be.”
Feb. 25 by Sue Schardt, executive director of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR). http://www.current.org/audience/aud1105schardt.html
Like him or don't like him, an intellectually honest person will admit that he's correct.
Unwittingly my sweet bippy. A “predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite” is exactly the kind of moronic audience willing and able to give them money during their beg-a-thons.
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