Truth be told those two Leftist shills, NPR and PBS, haven’t needed a federal subsidy for decades. Democrat insistence upon them was to maintain the fig leaf that these were taxpayer supported and neutral defenders of all that is right and good.
Go here to read from a NPR former insider about the bias. Trump once again makes good on something that Republican presidents since Reagan have talked about and only talked about.
This is wonderful.
As others have noted, NPR/PBS/CPB shot themselves in the foot. They believed they were untouchable and if nothing else, the events of the past few months should remind all normal-thinking people that nothing and no one is untouchable.
The crazies and True Believers, though, will probably have to be dealt with differently.
NPR’s board in 1977 hired George McGovern’s former campaign manager as their chief executive. They stopped trying to be an impartial institution around that time if not earlier. If you recall their Central America reportage ca. 1986, you’ll recall they were using stringers drawn from the ranks of political pilgrims. (See Fred Barnes critique published in The New Republic in 1987). Their ‘legal affairs reporter’ was the wife of a Democratic member of Congress. They’ve had some satisfactory programming over the years (Thistle and Shamrock, This American Life) and production values second to none in the world of radio broadcasting. The local programming where I’ve lived has been agreeable. The rest of it has been explicitly leftist or framed in a way to promote leftist conclusions. They didn’t hire people who might object. You found token counterpoints in occasional commentary. (George Will called the formula, “Seven parts propaganda, one part ‘balance’). Not sure they do that anymore as I stopped listening. You could make the same critique of PBS. (There I do see the commentary. The Republicans they hire are manifest shills like David Brooks and Margaret Hoover).
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It’s another manifestation of a phenomenon you see everywhere and which has corrupted everything. Liberals fancy public institutions, public discourse professional associations, schools &c are there property and have to be devoted to promoting their political viewpoint. They’re like a claque of parasitoid wasps and professionals never seem to be able to prevail against them.
Please note that the majority of American households had cable television by 1986. It was around that time that the public subsidies should have been pulled. The elderly bint currently running NPR is trying to sell the idea that rural areas would be without coverage without NPR, something that was not true when NPR was founded. They hired a really stupid liar as their chief executive.
Many Legal -immigrants I worked with would listen to NPR to learn english pronunciation. I would often warn them that “all things are not considered, on All Things Considered”. And I suspected that leftist propagandists knew of immigrants listing for pronunciation; NPR was meticulous about their clear pronunciation. I grew to have a strong hatred for this malicious propaganda, targeting new immigrants.
Good riddance, NPR.
BTW, if you fancy local stations should have a public subsidy, county governments in each broadcast area can chip in per their preferences. No need to centralize distribution.
Wow! Talk about hubris! On the second page, the author talks about presence of liberal bias, contending it wasn’t that bad. ..I can assure you, it was. During one summer in the late 90s, I had tried listening to All Things Considered, thinking that it’d be worthwhile to hear contrary opinions. ..like an honest debate. ..They didn’t. I quit listening within a few weeks, I considered them to be All Things Inconsiderate.
I have long considered that much of their adult programming… leaned heavily on the creedence we would gave based on childhood memories. After all, they gave us Big Bird, Kermit, and Bert and Ernie. ..and the Count. ..and The Bloodhound Gang (from 3-2-1, not the music group). Surely they’d have their act together. Well, they had their act together from secular viewpoint, true. Didn’t mesh well with Catholic-inspired ideas. They actually made me mad: I began to consider that they ARE/WERE public funded. Using my taxpayer dollars. ..I didn’t make much in the first place. I felt rather cheated.
*sigh* And, ..sad to day, Garrison Keillor’s …unusual.. approach did not remain funny or fresh for nearly as long as it should.
On the whole, I have a comparatively bittersweet view of PBS and NPR. I will not be terribly saddened to see them go.
Though if I marry and have a family, I will definitely look for Sesame Street, Old School. Definitely good content with the alphabet and counting.
I stopped listening to NPR in 2008. I was vacationing in North Carolina in mid-November, and I recall listening to the local public radio station and the redundant-named NPR experts (Sara Sarasohn, Rob Robertson, Carl Carlson, Libby Liberalson, Demi Demicrat) were discussing the election. Someone actually stated as a point of fact that Obama had won North Carolina because “... a lot of educated people had moved into the state“.
Wow!
… I still miss Car Talk though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEyrDxyUuh4
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Something agreeable from days gone by.
“… I still miss Car Talk though.”
Me too CAG!
We too miss Click and Clack (Tom and Ray Magliozzi). The brothers retired Car Talk in Oct 2012. It had a good run 1977 to 2012. NPR continued to broadcast the old episodes for awhile. When Tom died in 2014 Ray did a live show in memory of his brother. My husband reminded me that we always planned our Saturday shopping around 1000 so we could listen on our car radio.
There is a website https://www.cartalk.com/radio/our-show. I just listened to #2556 THE JEEP MANGLER. Hearing their laughter made me smile. Other content on the site: Buying Guides, Deals, Repair Shops, Car Reviews, Cars A-Z.
Re NPR complaints, It would be better for the FCC to bring back AM long range radio than to count on short range FM for emergency notifications.
Great point about long range AM radio, CAM, which further highlights the farcical absurdity of the CEO claiming NPR is somehow a critical lifeline in remote areas.
Tweets by their CEO make it plain that their board hired a red haze sectary – the sort of person who 40 years ago you might have found on Pacifica Radio or on the masthead of The Nation. Except she’s worse inasmuch as 40 years ago red haze sectaries did not let the cat out of the bag by yammering like the villains in Allen Drury novels.
The need for Federally funded television and radio programming is over, IMHO. With the internet and with access to electricity, televisions, and radio in every state in the Union, taxpayer funded broadcasting has become obsolete. Especially when it has such a partisan and agenda-driven slant.
Perhaps simply eliminating the news programming from these public media outlets would do the trick. It would for me, anyway.
That said, I do think PBS and NPR both have some excellent programming that is not used to push agendas and politics on us, and which has a high level of excellence and offers programming not offered by other outlets. This includes classical music, documentaries such as “The Civil War” and other excellent historical and educational programming, and children’s programming such as “Mr. Rogers”, “The Electric Company”, and the pre-woke “Sesame Street” (pre-1990s).
[…] Religious Orders? – Rome Reports9. What is Downtown Steubenville For? – John Byron Kuhner10. Big Bird Weeps – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American […]
So glad. They hate us. We are paying their salaries and for programs that hate us.