Posted on 03/22/2011 1:30:39 PM PDT by Nachum
More than 800 public radio stations around the country are keeping one ear on Congress these days as momentum seems to be building to eliminate or at least drastically reduce the amount of taxpayer support they get.
After passing a budget last month that eliminated all federal funding for public broadcasting, the House last week passed a bill that specifically targets National Public Radio and its more than 800 member stations.
H.R. 1076 would prevent public radio stations from using federal community grants to buy outside programming. In other words, they would have to find some other way to purchase the popular NPR shows that define them as a public radio station.
The pain would not be shared evenly across the country by public radio stations. Listeners of NPR affiliates in big cities would probably never notice a change at all.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Does anyone believe these feel good bills will pass the Senate and be signed by Obama into law? - tom
“Buh bye”
We can hope.
I was reading something the other day, where some NPR personalities said they were accused of being too conservative as often as they were accused of being too liberal. That’s only because their listeners are frothing-at-the-mouth-crazy-liberal, the same ones who voted for John Edwards because they thought Hillary Clinton of all people was too conservative.
Government should not be in the business of providing or sponsoring news, ever. I would think so even if NPR was considered to have a conservative slant. State-sponsored media never produces anything but propaganda.
They said they only get 2% of their funding from the government
what’s the big deal?
they can buy fewer paperclips next year...
They have lied about their finances all along.
The defenders of public funding showed some statistics that portrayed Public Radio as a salvation in the remote parts of Alaska, and of course, alluding to other remote parts of America also.
The fallacy is, if these remote areas need radio, let the internet provide it. Then the remote people can get a variety of programming, not propaganda.
If the Republicans were serious, they would have attached this to the latest continuing resolution. The limp wristed pubby leadership thinks that these symbolic stand alone votes are going to appease the Tea Partiers so they can get back to pissing away our opportunities to make real changes.
2012 will be more about flushing feces like Cantor and Beonor out of leadership (if not out of Congress) and replacing them with actual conservatives willing to do the heavy lifting necessary.
I’m pretty sure NPR will be OK because the libs will pickup the shortfall with their donations.
Does that mean they can still have our money for administrative purposes and also for "in-house" programming?
If so, since money is fungible, they can just jockey the cash around so it does not look like our tax dollars are being used to buy outside programming.
Nothing changes but it looks good on the RINO resume.
Let me offer this opinion. Back in the 1970s when NPR started....the vast number of the local stations had nothing to fill time. There were a couple of east coast universities (especially around Boston, Washington and NY City) that had pieces and parts to help fill the hours. So NPR came to be this central bureau where you got this feed and the already funded shows helped to fill a void.
Years passed, and NPR funded various shows to help fill out the hours even more. If you were around the first five years....the vast number of hours were filled with jazz, opera, classical music, poetry, and discussions on Steinbeck and Hemingway. I know...because I sat there as a kid and found this mix interesting.
Years more passed, and NPR learned how to pay up various programs that related to special interests (environmentalists helped...as did elitist groups). You got less jazz, opera and classical. News...or what you tried to call this media chit-chat talk...became the rage.
The truth of the matter today? If you are in Texas...your media department at Texas Tech could easily stand up and fill the void of NPR. They could find Texas-related people to interview and lots of Texas music to fill the airwaves. The same is true in Tennessee, Kentucky, and so on.
For local stations to worry? They might think that because NPR told them to worry. But the truth is that they’d make their local listeners happier by carrying their local version of events and culture in the state. They’d actually be able to get more classical music, jazz, opera, and poetry...than they get currently from NPR.
For you folks from NPR...the real house-cleaning isn’t from congress...it’s from your local stations when they figure this whole thing out.
.......it’s from your local stations when they figure this whole thing out......
Virtually all public stations are state owned and many are operated by the state universities. A Republican Governor can just go and tell them to reduce NPR programming and replace with something conservative to balance.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.