By Tom Toth
National Public Radio (NPR) has, again, come under fire for their leftist agenda by way of an activist employee.
This time, the employee chided Chris Gibson, a career officer in the United States Army, for “[living] off the taxpayers,” saying that he should “find a real job like the rest of us.”
The retired officer, as it so happens, is now a member of Congress representing New York’s 19th Congressional district — as a Republican — which provides the perfect explanation for the ridiculous criticism from someone who also, at least partially, lives off the taxpayer.
But as long as we’re talking about “real jobs” and the legitimate use of taxpayer money, let’s evaluate the annual costs and issues facing public broadcasting.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives over a billion taxpayer dollars a year, including over $420 million in federal funding. All the while, the organization has been riddled with one scandal after another showing the organization’s, quite literal, “true blue” colors.
In 2010 former NPR contributor Juan Williams, a liberal, voiced an opinion on the Fox News program “The O’Reilly Factor,” as a Fox News contributor, on Fox News’ dime (which in itself may have been NPR’s overarching problem with Williams) that was a little too far from the leftist standard of political correctness to be tolerated by the “non-partisan” publicly funded broadcasters and Williams was fired soon thereafter.
A year later, NPR’s CEO and senior vice president for fundraising both resigned after inflammatory comments against the GOP and conservatives, including calling members of the Tea Party movement “seriously racist, racist people,” went viral across the web.
But the long and short of taxpayers’ relationship with NPR is that it ought come to an end, for the benefit of both — and most outside of Washington know it.
For starters, NPR’s CEO has stated that the organization would be better off without federal funding “in the long run.” And this makes sense, tax dollars actually make up only a minority percentage of NPR’s overall annual budget. Further, NPR’s corporate culture of political activism and one-sided analysis is well-established and not changing any time soon, no matter how many embarrassing videos admitting as much spread around the web. The minute public funds to the broadcast organization dry up, any false pretenses of impartiality and public responsibility go away with the dollars.
NPR can be free of public scrutiny and stay true to their corporate culture. The American people can be free of a billion dollar annual commitment to a non-essential organization that would almost definitely survive the transition.
All that’s left is to make it happen. After all, we’d hate for public broadcasting station employees to feel that they didn’t have a real job.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The NPR employee who attacked Rep. Gibson’s military service was released from his position at the NPR station after this article was published.
Tom Toth is the digital content director and a contributing editor for Americans for Limited Government.
