FCC Chairman Brendan Carr opened up a probe of NPR and PBS Thursday over their airing of commercial announcements. The New York Times warned of a “politicized” debate over public broadcasting. They don’t want any debate. To suggest it tilts left "politicizes" it. But somehow, to tilt left is....not politicizing things? Apparently, liberal bias is the desirable norm. Anything the disrupts it is "politicized."
Reporters Benjamin Mullen and David McCabe began:
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has waded into the politicized debate over NPR and PBS, ordering up an investigation that he said could be relevant in lawmakers’ decision about whether to continue funding the public news organizations.
In this piece, Carr questioned if these commercial messages undermine the notion of non-commercial broadcasting:
“To the extent that these taxpayer dollars are being used to support a for-profit endeavor or an entity that is airing commercial advertisements,” Mr. Carr wrote, “then that would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars.”
Many underwriting announcements on NPR come from its progressive foundation backers, which give you hints about the tilt. PBS News Hour routinely touts its support from American Cruise Lines, BNSF Railways, Consumer Cellular, and Raymond James financial services.
NPR CEO Katharine Maher issued a statement: “We are confident any review of our programming and underwriting practices will confirm NPR’s adherence to these rules.”Likewise, PBS announced it had worked “diligently to comply with the F.C.C.’s underwriting regulations.” Both NPR and PBS played up their “educational programming.”
The Times ended their story with two leftist defenders of public broadcasting, but refrains from identifying them as on the Left -- the standard practice.
Alex Griffing at Mediaite quoted from NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, but his quote contained several false claims: “Underwriting has been an increasingly important part of public broadcasting finances in recent decades as federal and state governments have pulled back from such funding. On average, NPR receives about 1 percent of its funding directly from the federal government each year, according to publicly available materials. PBS receives 16 percent, according to a network spokesperson.”
Federal funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has steadily climbed over time, and now stands at around $535 million a year. NPR routinely lies with this "one percent" claim -- watch for the weasel word "directly" -- since CPB sends millions to NPR stations all across the country and then they send it back to NPR as payments for NPR programs.
You can bet that the leftist "public" broadcasters see this as a double threat: deny their federal funds or deny their corporate underwriting funds. The "public" broadcasting system has long demonstrated the worst combination of a public-private partnership. They take revenue from all sources and pump out reliable left-wing propaganda.
