Last week, John wrote about Pres. Trump’s executive order defunding public broadcasting (PBS, NPR) and whether or not it will stand up.
I’m more interested in the reaction of the public broadcasters: unhinged hysteria. From the U.K. Guardian,
NPR and PBS push back against Trump’s order to cut funding: ‘This could be devastating’
PBS’s Paula Kerger and NPR’s Katherine Maher say they’re looking at legal options to defend against White House.
“Legal options.”
We’ve been told for decades that public broadcasting gets only a tiny percent of their funding from the Feds. From NPR itself,
NPR typically receives about 1% of its funding directly from the federal government, and a slightly greater amount indirectly; its 246 member institutions, operating more than 1,000 stations, receive on average 8% to 10% of their funds from CPB.
By contrast, PBS and its stations receive about 15% of their revenues from CPB’s federal funds.
Every time funding is threatened, it becomes an instant existential crisis. The Guardian,
On Sunday, Kerger warned that some stations in smaller communities across the US could lose 40 to 50% of their funding. “And for them, it’s existential, and that’s what’s at risk if this funding goes away,” she said.
1 percent? 50 percent? It’s whatever number is needed to prevail in whatever the argument is at that instant. In the free-food grift, they speak of “food deserts.” In the free-media grift, they speak of “news deserts.” Big Bird and Elmo are invoked.
But they don’t stop there. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer,
“This is not about balancing the budget,” she said in the statement. “The president’s order is an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America.”
The 1st Amendment guarantee of a free press can only be fulfilled by taxpayer funding of specific, private nonprofits?
I’ve done a few stints in both federal and state government over the decades. The song never changes: once a private nonprofit company receives the first taxpayer dollar, it believes that the first instance creates a property right to perpetual taxpayer funding at ever-increasing levels. With no questions asked.
So, it is exactly about balancing the budget. If no line item can ever be cut, oblivion awaits.
The Plain Dealer quotes from the Executive Order itself,
“No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies,” the order states, claiming that both networks have strayed from their statutory obligations of impartiality.
