NPR, PBS Survive 11th Hour Spending Deal

Despite several ugly recent episodes and considerable movement by conservative activists to defund it, federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio survived an 11th hour deal on a spending bill to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

According to a story by Jonathan Strong at The Daily Caller, the continuation of funding for public broadcasting is one of several significant victories for Democrats regarding the policy riders in the bill still emerging 12 hours after Democratic and Republican leaders struck a deal to avert government shutdown.

NPR surviving stands out given the considerable momentum held by its critics following two recent episodes that brought its alleged liberal bias to national attention.

The first involved the firing of anchor Juan Williams for comments he made on Fox News regarding his experiences on airplanes.

“Look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous,” Williams told Fox host Bill O’Reilly.

Critics blasted NPR not just for firing Williams over the comments, pointing out that Williams underlying point was how important it is to overcome unintentional feelings of nervousness.

NPR also drew criticism for the way it fired Williams: over the phone; the executive who fired him later resigned.

In a second episode, an undercover sting by conservative provocateur James O’Keefe caught a top NPR executive blasting the Tea Party as “racist” to what he thought was a Muslim group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood contemplating donating $5 million.

Ron Schiller, the executive on the video, also said NPR would be “better off” without federal funding.

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