The headline that coerced me into clicking on a link to an article at New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) is ‘The Independence of Public Radio Cannot Be Compromised.” My first thought was, what’s independent about NPR and NHPR?
“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.
But if the Corporation for Public Broadcasting cannot function independently of taxpayer funding, this undermines the premise. Neither Congress nor the President can constitutionally give taxpayer dollars to something it is then incapable of managing. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is either subject to federal oversight or an illegal redistribution of other people’s wealth and, therefore, subject to immediate dissolution.
By claiming to be beyond the government’s reach, you sort of kind of sign your death warrant.
Then things just get silly.
“In creating CPB, Congress expressly forbade ‘any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees or contractors…’ 47 U.S.C. § 398(c).”
Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, said this independence guaranteed by Congress “has informed the role of public broadcasting in the American interest for more than half a century, and is core to our relentless commitment to editorial independence and integrity in our service today.”
If you receive taxdollars, you cannot be independent, certainly not with the blatant partisan spin NPR and NHPR pretend is something other than factional cheerleading and in-kind political contributions to the Demcorat party.
And therin lies the problem.
Yes, the Trump administration is likely acting in an equally partisan interest, but with good reason. We don’t call it Nancy Pelosi Radio for nothin’. He is also right when he says that the media landscape has changed to such a degree that taxpayer-funded media, given all the other problems that Democrats claim to care about, is a poor use of other people’s money. [Related: Trump EO Defunds NPR and PBS]
There are plenty of independent media sources that peddle the left-wing agenda while pretending to be unbiased. There is no reason for taxpayers to support others.
It cannot be beyond the control of those elected to budget how and where our money is spent.
But if Congress created it, Mr. Trump can not just erase it. He will need Congress to do that (as with the Department of Ed and so on), but odds are good the Trump Administration has done its homework and NPR and PBS will have to do the one thing liberals can afford but are loath to do when taxpayers can be made to pay for something they claim we can’t do without. Fund it themselves.
