I’m committing the unforgivable sin with my media friends here. I’m saying government should not be in the media business.
I have worked for 30 years in the activist old media and I’ve always found it odd that we had to compete with government doing public radio and TV in our market. It’s the same in virtually every market across the country. Now, granted, NPR and its affiliates don’t really compete because their ratings are so low (which is also a point that needs to be made), but it just made no sense to me that government would take a single listener away from those trying to build an audience through giving them what they want (BTW, local news feels it gives people what they need instead of what they want, which is part of another problem.)
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets $400 million annually, of which $4 million goes to NPR. Not a lot of cash, considering the size of the budget, but their tax exempt status is extremely valuable, plus, we’re talking about the principle here. Let’s begin the much bigger discussion on what government should and should not be funding, and perhaps this is a great place to start.
I’ve been on NPR shows before, I’ve been offered shows on NPR. I’ve always found the format stiff and restrictive. Oh, they like to say they are free-form and offering shows that could not make commercial media, but there is a reason they don’t make commercial media: nobody listens. With the advent of more media outlets through the internet, NPR has outlived its purpose. If you want to do a radio show about 15th century Renaissance Italian art and how it relates to the Medici architecture that you think may be seen in your local barrio, then go to blogspotradio.com and do it. Knock yourself out and build an audience with your money, not mine. Get a web site, promote it and put it up there as well. I’d like to do a show on Jim Bouton’s Ball Four and how it changed modern sports journalism by being the first book to look critically at athletes. I wouldn’t expect the public to be forced to pay for it, but I guarantee you I could get more listeners than most of the shows on NPR.
But getting listeners is not what NPR is all about. It’s about agenda. Juan Williams found that out, if he didn’t already know it. This was NPR walking off the set of The View. “Wait, you can say what you actually believe about Muslims, that’s outrageous and won’t be allowed here!” Exit stage left NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller (love that last name).
The Juan Williams firing has opened the leftist agenda of public broadcasting for all to see. If you are supported by tax dollars, are you going to do shows on raising taxes or lowering taxes? Ask any five-year-old, they would know the answer to that question.
My friends in the activist old media would find it heresy to suggest defunding NPR, or at least remove its tax exempt status, but clearly it has outlived its purpose, if it ever had one to begin with.