Opinion: Get NPR Off The Public Dole

From Glenn Garvin The Miami Herald:

Honest — the column you are about to read does not argue that National Public Radio is programmed by Karl Marx. But as I watch NPR’s public-relations counterattack in the wake of the scandals of the past couple of weeks, I can’t help but think of that old Marxist strategy of “heightening the contradictions” of capitalism.

Faced with a serious move in Congress to eliminate their funding, NPR bosses are arguing that losing their taxpayer subsidy would mean the death of journalism, democracy and possibly the devolution of the entire human race. But without even taking a breath they add that federal funding is barely 2 percent of their budget. You don’t need IBM to tell you that those two statements don’t compute.

If just 2 percent of NPR’s money comes from the government, why not just tell Congress to take a flying frack at a rolling doughnut? Two percent, heck, you could make that up on doughnuts. Tens of millions of Americans have taken hits of more than 2 percent in this economy and lived to tell about it. And think of the inner tranquility that 2 percent nip and tuck would buy: Nobody from NPR would ever again have to listen to some braying reactionary complaining that NPR has more practicing witches on its staff than Republicans. (Even if it’s true: NPR reporter Margot Adler is a Wiccan high priestess, while any registered Republicans on the staff remain deeply closeted.)

The answer: NPR gets a lot more than 2 percent of its budget from taxpayers — perhaps 20 times that. It’s completely a creature of government subsidies and cannot possibly survive in anything like its current form if Congress plucks public broadcasting from the federal teat. NPR’s real costs are hidden in a system of back-and-forth payments quaintly known along the Bogota-Miami axis as “money-laundering.”

Read more here.