PrintOctober 25, 2010
How Public Is NPR's Funding?
De-fund NPR! In the wake of the firing of Juan Williams by National Public Radio, we've once again heard conservative voices issue that call. NPR representatives respond, as they always do when their dependence on government purse strings is noted, by arguing that only two or three percent of the service's money comes from the federal government. NPR apologist Norah O'Donnell recently threw out a one- to three-percent figure on MSNBC.We don't see these people volunteering to give up that three percent, but we have to admit that this amount of funding is not the gigantic boondoggle we might prefer to oppose. Is this three-percent number a fair claim by the NPR crowd? Apparently, in a very limited sense, it is, but in a more comprehensive analysis, it is nowhere near accurate.To understand NPR funding, we have to recognize that public radio is a two-tier operation. There is, on the one hand, the network itself, the Washington-based producer of programs that actually terminated Juan...(Read Full Article)
