{"id":2372990,"date":"2025-02-07T01:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T06:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/?p=2372990"},"modified":"2025-02-07T06:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T11:57:13","slug":"defund-npr-its-about-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/2025\/02\/07\/defund-npr-its-about-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Defund NPR? It\u2019s About Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The New York Times <\/em>recently reported<\/a> that NPR and PBS are bracing for a funding battle under the new administration.<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s been talk about defunding NPR and PBS for years \u2014 who can forget Mitt Romney being accused of wanting to \u201cfire Big Bird<\/a>\u201d during his 2012 presidential bid \u2014 there\u2019s reason to believe it could actually happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One reason is pretty obvious. \u201cElon Musk is gunning for public media,\u201d reports the Times<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that Musk has a beef with NPR, which he labeled \u201cstate-affiliated media\u201d in 2023, prompting NPR to quit Twitter. (It\u2019s also clear that NPR has a beef with Musk, whom they cover with a barely concealed hostility, the most recent example being the 1,000-word treatment they devoted to Musk giving<\/a> a \u201cNazi salute\u201d when he extended his arm to thank those in attendance at a celebration for President Donald Trump in Washington, DC.)<\/p>\n

Musk will find plenty of allies in his quest to defund NPR and PBS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For years, conservatives have bristled at NPR\u2019s slanted political coverage and cultural commentary, which promoted books<\/a> teaching parents how to make toddlers \u201cwoke.\u201d Calls to defund grew more intense during the pandemic, a period that saw much of NPR\u2019s journalism turn into polemic<\/a> and obscurantism, including an article that directly compared<\/a> Americans who believed COVID-19 may have come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology to QAnon conspiracy theorists. (The CIA now agrees<\/a> that COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak, but NPR has yet to label the Agency QAnon kooks, to my knowledge.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The complaints go beyond conservatives and libertarians, however.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2024, one editor who described himself as a Sarah Lawrence-educated, Berkeley-minded, Subaru driver \u201craised by a lesbian peace activist mother\u201d resigned from NPR<\/a> in protest. He went on to publicly scold<\/a> NPR for abandoning \u201cstraightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president\u201d for journalism that \u201cveered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump\u2019s presidency.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Media can take sides<\/a> in presidential elections. Taxpayer-funded media may not<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, there are plenty of arguments (good and bad) to continue funding NPR and PBS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both media outlets do some pretty good journalism at a time when good journalism is in decline. Additionally, anyone who does a quick Google search will find an abundance of evidence showing NPR and PBS receive only a small percentage<\/a> of their revenues directly from the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Howard Husock, a senior fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, last year wrote a piece<\/a> for Fox News in which he described efforts to defund NPR as \u201cquixotic\u201d and misguided. Husock didn\u2019t defend NPR, which he described as \u201can echo chamber\u2026with a liberal spin.\u201d But he argued that in the unlikely event that such a defunding effort succeeded, it would likely make NPR\u2019s bias<\/a> worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA defunded NPR would almost surely become a culture war martyr,\u201d Husock wrote. \u201c<\/strong>We should expect major left-liberal big philanthropy \u2014 including the Ford<\/a>, MacArthur<\/a> and (George Soros\u2019) Open Society<\/a> Foundations\u00a0 \u2014 to rush to fill the gap, followed by Carnegie<\/a>, Hewlett<\/a> and a host of others,\u201d many of which already sponsor<\/a> NPR programming.<\/p>\n

When even conservatives like Husock defend these public expenditures, it stands to reason that NPR and PBS could dodge the executioner\u2019s axe once again. This would be most unfortunate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, NPR and PBS do some good work. But the idea that taxpayers are funding media at a time when the world is drowning in media \u2014 podcasts, movies, radio, Twitter, YouTube, cable news, movies, and more \u2014 is nonsensical. This is doubly true when one considers the US government is $36 trillion in debt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

People who say<\/a> defunding NPR and PBS isn\u2019t going to balance the budget have a point, of course. We\u2019re talking about relatively small revenue streams here (though everything looks small when you\u2019re talking about a $2 trillion annual deficit).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, that one-to-two-percent figure comes with caveats. While it\u2019s true that NPR typically receives around two percent of its budget directly<\/em> from the federal government, federal dollars account for an enormous percentage of NPR\u2019s overall revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul Farhi explained more than a decade ago how the game is played.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWashington plays a critical role in public radio\u2019s finances,\u201d Farhi explains<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em>. \u201cCongress passes millions of tax dollars through the federally chartered Corporation for Public Broadcasting to NPR\u2019s member stations, which in turn use some of those funds to buy programs from NPR.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through this complicated, bureaucratic payment system, NPR receives station fees that typically account for 40 percent of its annual budget (perhaps a bit less in recent years). Considering that NPR has an operating budget of about $300 million<\/a>, we\u2019re talking about more than $100 million a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Again, this may not make a massive dent in the federal deficit, but few would deny there\u2019s something unseemly about taxpayers ponying up their hard-earned dollars so NPR can pay hosts $500,000 salaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, we shouldn\u2019t lose sight of the fact that there\u2019s a purpose to all this spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the saying goes<\/a>, \u201cHe who pays the piper calls the tune.\u201d Those who control these tax dollars are in a sense purchasing the allegiance of those who shape the ideas<\/a>, opinions, and thoughts of the American public. They are in a very real sense the political allies of the DC bureaucracy and political establishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is what makes government-funded media so sinister. It undermines the independence of media organs. Americans instinctively recognize this. We laugh at the crude propaganda machines of other nations and can tell you about the propaganda efforts of Goebbels<\/a>; many of us even can remember the ridiculous messaging of Baghdad Bob<\/a>. Yet far fewer Americans seem able to recall the US government\u2019s long history of using propaganda<\/a>, which grew more sophisticated<\/a> over the years and involved planting disinformation<\/a> at news outlets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is this: the government has no business funding media (though it clearly has a desire to not just fund media but control it<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to go into the whole social contract thing, and start quoting Hobbes<\/a> and Locke<\/a>, but the raison d\u2019etre<\/em> for government is that it\u2019s supposed to fund \u201cessential services\u201d that markets can\u2019t provide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To accept the premise that the government should be funding media outlets destroys the whole idea that government should be limited. You might as well argue that the government should be funding the Dallas Cowboys.<\/p>\n

Put aside Husock\u2019s arguments of utility, and his belief that congressional hearings can help bring NPR to heel and make it a less-partisan media organ. Look instead to first principles. The Founding Fathers had a clear philosophy on the proper role of government, and funding media operations isn\u2019t something you\u2019ll find enumerated anywhere in the Constitution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Defunding NPR and PBS and all <\/em>government-sponsored media isn\u2019t just about saving taxpayers money, and it\u2019s certainly not about placating Elon Musk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about restoring the federal government to its proper role.<\/p>\n

The post Defund NPR? It\u2019s About Time<\/a> was first published by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)<\/a>, and is republished here with permission. Please support their efforts.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times recently reported that NPR and PBS are bracing for a funding battle under the new administration. While there\u2019s been talk about defunding NPR and PBS for years \u2014 who can forget Mitt Romney being accused of wanting to \u201cfire Big Bird\u201d during his 2012 presidential bid \u2014 there\u2019s reason to believe …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":2372992,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2372990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2372990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2372993,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2372990\/revisions\/2372993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2372992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2372990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2372990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2372990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}