Bozell Column: Time to Cut Off NPR
National Public Radio continues to define itself in every way as a taxpayer-funded nest of leftism. NPR couldn’t just supportively report on the Occupy Wall Street protests. A fire-breathing spokeswoman for the "Occupy DC" protests against capitalism was also an NPR host.
Lisa Simeone was an NPR anchor for their weekend version of the newscast "All Things Considered" for a year and a half, from late 2000 to early 2002. Now this radical was leading protests as she hosted a radio documentary series called "Soundprint" and an arts show, "The World of Opera."
Liberals have focused on the opera show so as to dismiss criticism from conservatives. Time TV writer James Poniewozik joked "Have you long worried that your station was undermining capitalism through its broadcasts of the Ring Cycle? Tired of having your children brainwashed by the socialistic messages of La Traviata?"
Okay, so put the shoe on the other foot. Imagine an NPR opera host working the weekends for the Tea Party. Time magazine writers would require smelling salts.
They are focusing on the opera angle in order to dodge the much larger issue. In an era of trillion-dollar deficits, how much longer are we going to pretend that it is an essential function of government to prop up the wholly unnecessary NPR to spew on the air the same warmed-over Sixties bilge the OWS rabble spews on the streets? It’s time for Congress to cut the umbilical cord and stop bankrolling this rogue political operation.
The narrower question about Lisa Simeone was whether NPR was going to live up to its own ethics rules, which forbid attending protests, let alone organizing them and serving as public-relations staff for them. The "Soundprint" series, which is not produced by NPR but is a current-events show, fired Simeone. That decision was a no-brainer.
But the opera show, also not produced by NPR, but by an affiliate station in North Carolina, arrived at a different solution. NPR announced it would no longer distribute the program to the 60 stations which air it. Instead, the local station would. That’s merely solving an appearance problem, and nothing more.
It is inexcusable that NPR didn't fire Simeone long ago. It did nothing to stop Simeone before the story blew up in their faces. There was Simeone in a YouTube video uploaded three months ago, declaring with an angry face that, "The time has come to stop these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the other places we're now bombing with our drones and other equipment, and to demand that money that's being spent and wasted on slaughter come home here to spent in the U.S. on human needs."
Simeone promised she and her gang were going to sit on the cold ground for months to demand radical "reforms" in American government. A quick Google search found Simeone was all over the news as a spokeswoman in the first weeks of the protests. It was only when The Daily Caller exposed this radical that NPR acted.
In this atmosphere of controversy, one of NPR’s current news anchors, Michele Norris, announced that she would temporarily step down from the anchor chair (and political reporting) for a year while her husband, Broderick Johnson, works as a senior advisor to Obama’s re-election campaign. She’ll still report, just not fry the political hot potatoes.
This is hardly shocking. The former NPR news boss Ellen Weiss – the one that hastily fired Juan Williams for his Fox News appearances – had a husband who served on President Obama’s advisory council on faith-based issues. The notion that NPR is attached at the hip to ultraliberal Democrats isn’t just something you hear on the air. It’s an attachment that includes marriages and deep friendships and long-standing quiet political alliances.
It’s natural that in this spotlight, NPR would try to avoid appearances of a conflict of interest. But the entire enterprise is a massive conflict of interest – created by Democrats and funded by Democrats and protected from scrutiny of its "news" product by Democrats. With today’s massive debt, the government could not only remove the subsidies, but sell off all the property and fancy equipment it’s subsidized for decades. It’s a compromise to merely turn off the spending spigot and call it...uneven.
- Brent Bozell's blog
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Comments
NPR's war
Submitted by Tim Graham on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 10:58pm.
A current obsession on public-radio airwaves is the leftist complaint of a “GOP war on voting” by demanding voters produce proof of citizenship or a driver’s license at the polls. This is denounced as suppressing the vote. But NPR uses government money to produce reporting that’s been a war on conservatives. Look no further than NPR’s naked attempt to disqualify that alleged pervert Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court.
Frontline
Submitted by grammajane on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:35pm.
did a story tonight about the death penalty and of course, it took place shortly after Gov.Perry was elected. Although the guy was found guilty it had to be mentioned that Perry didn't use his call for a 30 day review and stop the death penalty and the criminal was exucuted. Interesting how frontline picked this time to show this story for at least the second time. What can we do to stop the funding? Have written to State Reps. What else???
Time to end "Occupy Middle East"
Submitted by lrgon on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:40pm.
Bringing the troops home including the 5,000 civilian troops ones that NOBamanos is leaving in Iraq!
We are wasting our treasure on wars of OCCUPATON Mr. Bozel. And as bad as National Public Radio is, it isn't eating up our treasure and driving up our debt as much as this militarism that you have ignored for the last 11 years.
You were once against the Vietnam war but you are siding with a man who has broken just about every barrier the Founding Fathers put up to block people like Obama from becoming a dictator by willy nilly sending troops anywhere he pleases and murdering people wilthout a trial.
Occupy Irgon's "brain" with some history
Submitted by Unsane on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:45pm.
Wrong, Irgon. Your calling the business we have to take care of in the Middle East "wars of occupation" how much you hate your country. It's also a slap in the face to the people who actually care enough about it to defend it.
And tell me, my history-deficient kook: I know that it burns you up to know that freedom must actually be defended from time to time. Contrary to your belief, freedom isn't there for the asking. You truly believe the Founding Fathers didn't want us to have a military. If this is so, can you explain the virtual state of war that existed with France in the late 1790s? Or Thomas Jefferson's sending of the Marines against the beys in the Med? Hmmmmmmmmmm?
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Phweet. Burble. Burble. Burble.
Submitted by The Vet on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 12:55pm.
Smelling your own farts again Loon? If you truly believed what you say, then you would shut your big fat trap because you will be next in line for all the murderin' without trials. But that is the conspirocrank way. Nothing to fear from a bunch of lies.
Aw look. The Loon has a song dedicated to him. Fly away now Loon, you gonna get murdered without a trial by the Obamas.
Imagine what Time magazine
Submitted by wdvander on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:47pm.
Imagine what Time magazine editors would have required if W had approved a drone strike that led to the death of a 16 year old American citizen. This is, of course, comparible to Time's response to the NPR debacle.
The repubs have had ample opportunity to cut off funding for NPR
Submitted by Dave. on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 2:43am.
...as well as that for the CPB.
The fact that they haven't speaks volumes.
They are part of the problem, not the solution.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
They voted to defund NPR, but...
Submitted by Unsane on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 12:22pm.
The government is not unicameral. It is in fact bicameral. Therein lies the problem.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Uns,
Submitted by Dave. on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 8:50pm.
They could have done it back in '94, but when push came to shove and it was time to put their money where there mouth was, they suddenly went all went all squishy.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Good point
Submitted by Unsane on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 9:16pm.
Won't (and can't) argue that, but this House voted to defund.
We will just have to remind them to keep doing so until we get NPR/CPB defunded forever.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)