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Posted on 07/19/2025 11:57:41 AM PDT by grundle
https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2025/07/19/instead-of-4/
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
July 19, 2025
According to the political ideology that I subscribe to (libertarian), I’m supposed to be in favor of ending government funding of NPR. And from a theoretical point of view, I agree with that position.
But for me, the real world always supersedes any theory. NPR, along with its government funding, is a long standing tradition in this country, just like the national parks, the national museums, and the Post Office. So even though it goes against libertarian theory, I support a continuation of all of those things.
I like to call myself a “bad” libertarian because I am always happy and willing to disagree with libertarian theory whenever there is real world evidence against it.
Anyway, a lot of people who subscribe to libertarian (and conservative) ideology want to end government funding of NPR.
But I have a much better idea.
We should continue with government funding of NPR, but we should also ask them to please explain why their editorial board consists of 87 registered Democrats and 0 registered Republicans, and why they suspended senior editor Uri Berliner after he mentioned that information in an essay that was published by The Free Press.
On April 9, 2024, the Free Press published this opinion column by NPR senior editor Uri Berliner:
Original: https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
In that opinion column, Berliner wrote the following:
I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None.
Seven days later, on April 16, 2024, NPR published the following:
Original: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1244962042/npr-editor-uri-berliner-suspended-essay
NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism
NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had “lost America’s trust” by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.
Berliner’s five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.
Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner’s essay for the online news site The Free Press. It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network’s coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.
Instead of defunding NPR, we should ask them to please explain why their editorial board consists of 87 registered Democrats and 0 registered Republicans, and why they suspended senior editor Uri Berliner after he mentioned that information in an essay that was published by The Free Press.
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>>Instead of defunding NPR, we should ask them to please explain why their editorial board consists of 87 registered Democrats and 0 registered Republicans,
Can’t we do both?
We might also ask why they need 87 people on their editorial board. I think major newspapers only have 8 to 10 on their editorial board.
Whenever someone questions whether Democrats have communistic leanings, I just ask them why the actual Communist Party never fields any candidates under their banner. They don’t need to. Democrats.
Communist Party member folk singer Pete Seeger first refused to answer at HUAC hearings about being a Communist, saying “That’s not the question you should be asking. You should ask....” Then the Fifth.
He much later said “I am out of the Communist Party. I don’t need it any more. Look at what the Democratic Party does. It does everything we in the Communist Party used to fight for. Black rights. Overthrow of capitalism. Power for the working people in labor unions. Affordable housing and public transportation. Cutting down the power of the defense complex. We get it all from the Democratic Party now.”
Why should any of that be in the stead of a defund?
They will just get half of them to reregister as Republican. They will still be lockstep liberals.
Good ploy. Get Murkowski and Collins to sweet talk them into the changeover. “Political labels are just labels.”
The author seems to think that public shaming is going to change the ways of committed leftists?
Just defund them already.
-PJ
What a ztupid idea.
Ask them?
Why?
Do you think they care whether you think that they are logically consistent.
They just want your forced to provide by the muzzle of a gun dollars.
No, not instead of, but in addition to.
It will take years for NPR and PBS to run out of money. You think they’ve been spending the billions they received from the federal government? Hell no, they’ve been stashing it in investment funds against a day like this. It will take decades for them to run dry. It will just slow them down a bit, while they weep and moan about how unfair a majority vote to defund actually is. What needs to happen is for the enabling legislation that created their charter needs to be rescinded as well.
Defund. There are more than enough tv channels, radio stations, podcasts, independent channels, etc. There’s no need for tax dollars to support one.
No, we should defund them AND ask them those questions.
In addition to defunding....
Ironic. Uri Berliner punished for using the Free Press....
It will take a lot longer than many think for them to collapse, but I doubt it will be more than 4 years. They may get enough of an increase in donations to survive the rest of this year without having to make changes, but they will soon enter a death spiral, as they also have a very high cost structure, as that 87 member editorial board is far from the only place they have bloated payroll.
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