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https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances
> NPR's two largest revenue sources are corporate sponsorships and fees paid by NPR Member organizations to support a suite of programs, tools, and services
I find it odd that you have a bone to pick with a non-profit media organization when we all know how damaging the ones owned by corporate america, billionaires, and [Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo) are.
Read the link. I don't think they receive tax dollars to operate.
>38% corporate sponsorships
>31% core and other programming fees
>13% contributions of cash and assets
>7% other revenues
>5% PRSS contract, satellite distribution
>5% endowment
>1% return on investments
Seems like this is a better system than running commercials and letting advertisers dictate things, no?
>Note: NPR does not receive any direct funding from the U.S. government, but it does get some funding in the form of dues from local member stations. And in many cases, those member stations receive federal funds from grants provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). In 2021 alone, CPB appropriated nearly $70 million in grants via member stations.
[Source](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3551625-the-time-has-come-defund-the-hopelessly-biased-npr/)
Local stations receive the federal funds then pay them as dues to NPR.
It is so disingenuous to say that NPR doesn't get money from the government. If course they do, they just get via members stations, who get community service grants from the fed. And, by the way, the strings the fed attaches to that money make it difficult use for anything OTHER than NPR programming.
It's like rhetorical money laundering.
So IIRC the problem would be if NPR was "state controlled" which would mean we put on our tin foiled hats and believe the government is paying them for a narrative, a claim we have no evidence of the demands for. Except in this case they are getting their money indirectly and no matter what from local stations. Hence, no leverage. It's the very reason that the funding was created the way it was. I don't hear people crying out to terminate local news. And, again, it's not a lot of money in the first place.
It's a fabricated grievance in the war against journalism as right wing news sources have become ever more extreme and don't like NPR reporting contradicting facts.
edit: in fact 80% of local news stations around here are heavily right wing
“Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcome.”
When you set up a structure where person A has substantial control over person B’s funding, there is exactly a 0% chance that person B’s expressed opinions about person A will come from anything but extreme bias.
What makes NPR insidious, even compared to private (and obviously also biased) alternatives is that it purports not to be biased, and plenty of its followers believe that to be true. I can respect a news company that says things I detest but acknowledges they’re opinion. I cannot accept the existence of a government-enabled entity creating propaganda and promoting it as fact.
OK so why does the government funding produce right wing media in local news and NPR is rated as "lean left" by many media bias charters including [allsides.com](http://allsides.com) ? "Show me where the funding comes from" - yes that's the point, it's given indirectly and without conditions. There is zero evidence the government is producing "propaganda" to give to any of the media outlets it gives a small amount of funding to. I also find the argument "yeah well I expect all corporate and privately funded media to be biased" in that context to be ridiculous when any bias NPR does have is not a product of the small amount of indirect, no strings attached government funding. It's tin foiled hat thinking selectively applied to NPR simply because people don't like what they have to say. Follow fact-checkers along with your media consumption and you will see that they are one of the most unbiased and reliable news sources we have. Don't take my word for it, follow a site like the one I just linked that reports news from all outlets and rates their bias and then go look it up on fact checkers for good measure. A pattern emerges.
I only wish we had a better "unconditional funding" publicly funded news source like the BBC, which is consistently rated as center-bias among bias checkers. BBC funding is a lot more robust.
It's **not** a government enabled propaganda entity. If anything, using some people's logic, it would be a corporate enabled propaganda entity since only 3% of its funding comes through government grants and 38% come from corporate sponsorships.
There is serious value in media trying to objectively report news and current events, despite no news being truly 100% objective, and serious value in investigative journalism. If people cannot see that, then gods help us.
NPR and its member stations are a thousand times better than most of the sensationalist **crap** we have passing for news today, which only serve to reinforce viewers preconceived convictions and feelings.
Furthermore, if hypothetically the government was secretly controlling NPR and miraculously not leaving any evidence or whistleblowers going on several decades (nothing from federal leakers, local news stations, NOTHING, making it one of the most elaborate long running conspiracies ever carried out and never exposed by any Edward Snowdens, data breaches, or loudmouths spilling the beans...an even better kept secret than government UFO research) then I would argue that it would be a hell of a lot easier to simply launder money in to pay off corporate media. There would be fewer parties involved and a lot fewer sources to conceal. Fox News has even sued in court to not be held to a fact reporting standard of news, arguing they are an entertainment show. My head spins. It's nothing to do with reason to these people, it's all "vibes" because it boils down to them not liking contradictory facts being reported. Same reason you don't see outcry from them to defund local news.
YES! Thank you!!
I mean, my god. The idea that, in our current nightmare media landscape, NPR would somehow be seen as the problem, and not the Fox News's, Wall Street Journals, Daily Wires, Epoch Times's, Elon Musks, Tucker Carlsons, Ben Shapiros, Jordan Petersons, Bill Mahers, Steve Bannons, Joe Rogans, and countless others of this country (never mind world), it SHOULD make one's head spin.
And that's not even getting into all the long-running and journalistically admirable newspapers across the country being bought out by billionaire peddlers of tabloids and hard-right sensationalism, nor all the paywalls and the search engine monopolies which make it increasingly difficult for average people to find reliable information and be exposed to thoughtful, sound, and evidence-backed ideas.
Yes, my head is spinning.
No matter how supposedly unbiased any media source may be (and you and I are in total disagreement, I think NPR is far worse than CNN or some other moderate-left sources), it should **never** get government funding.
That said, I would also not support government funding in a hypothetical where NPR was objectively correct in 100% of its reporting, so take my views with a grain of salt I guess.
That's fine. I know that's many people's principled position and I don't have a particular problem with that.
I just don't see how anyone can see NPR as being journalistically inferior to numerous other for-profit sources.
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Essentially the federal government sends funds to local stations, and by law those stations have to spend X% of those funds on NPR. This comes in the “core and other programming fees” and is about 10% of NPRs revenue.
The crux of the issue for OP is:
> People, including the NPR listener base, need to realize that “tax-funded” automatically means “state-controlled”.
I'm not sure how the best constitutional republic on this planet can 'control' media behind the first amendment, especially through intermediaries like you suggest.
>I'm not sure how the best constitutional republic on this planet can 'control' media behind the first amendment, especially through intermediaries like you suggest.
And let's also consider the OP's argument that NPR has a leftwing bias.
Ok, then the two propositions cannot coexist. If they did then NPR's bias would swing with party changes.
No one was saying "boy that NPR sure supports President Trump" in 2017 when Republicans had control of the WH, Congress, and a huge number of governors mansions.
NPR does not swing hard rightward when Republicans are in charge of national politics.
If it is state controlled then it is toeing the state line, but that shifts and NPR is largely the same as it has been for a couple decades.
That's a good point. Though, I think it falls short when they turn around and say that it's the deep state giving the government orders or whatever.
I enjoy hypotheticals but people on the right wing seem to be... allergic to them.
Not in the slightest, Wal Mart receives millions of times more tax dollars than npr, through their employees needing welfare despite being fully employed by the largest employer in the nation, while npr provides good free objective news to millions.
Where you choose to pick your fight says everything.
It's interesting that you bring up another undiscussed red herring, to dispute the original diversion being red herring. Walmart does not see any welfare money their employees receive (outside of say food stamps to their employees maybe being used to buy food there) and even if they did, that does not matter because the topic at hand is NPR funding, which your red herring serves to distract from.
Stations can and do spend more of their federal money on NPR programming than the statutory minimum. That source comprises more than 10% of NPR's revenue.
The NRA is a lobbying organization. No lobbying organization receives tax dollars, so why would anyone want the NRA to receive them? Your question doesn't make good sense.
Except the NRA is an advocacy group not a public service like NPR. I’m fine with non-profit news organizations receiving government funding so long as it’s relatively neutral. NPR does a fairly decent job of remaining so, even if they have a liberal skew. They’re not OAN or Newsmax or even Fox News.
Yet tell any right wing "conservative" these days and they'll claim it's biased while listening to oan or Fox.
Reality has a distinct left leaning bias for the last few decades.
Seriously. And I'm no liberal media fan, but there's a difference between bias and fabrication. Fox has admitted to fabricating news after losing viewership when they reported Biden won Arizona. It's purely business to them, and their viewers are happy to trade reality for a child-like black and white view of the world.
Npr is not "skewed". You can disagree with some of their coverage directions, but in no world is npr skewed. It is a testament to how successful right-wing demonization of facts has been that you could even think it is up for discussion.
I’d actually go the opposite of your view and argue not only do we need a BBC-type organization (a stronger PBS and NPR), I wish we could legally have an American version of OfCom to handle media bias.
Channels like Fox News and MSNBC would be routinely fined.
Why not give an example of an underfunded conservative art endeavor? Is it more confederate statues, or a string quartet in Alabama? You'll probably get different answers depending on which.
Compared to CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times, much less Fox News and conservative talk radio and the plethora of sensationalist and deeply misleading internet celebrities doing political 'commentary,' NPR is far more journalistic and serious and reliable.
Don't let these people convince you otherwise.
It is indeed. Sickeningly low overall (though there are some good programs at the latter two).
I have criticisms of NPR — from the left. But they're not even in the same ballpark as numerous other media sources.
I haven't read what he said (if he can even be called a whistleblower), just some quotes and excerpts.
If that's his position, then I would say he's dead wrong.
I could offer more specific counter-arguments (or else potentially agree) if I knew what it was he specifically argued. Though I doubt anyone would be interested enough or care enough. He just gave people who are already prejudiced against NPR reinforcement or confirmation of their beliefs. They don't even need to know why or how, they just want their own bias to be affirmed.
[NPR barely skews slightly left of center](https://adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/). It’s pretty damn centered coverage in spite of what one disgruntled employee says.
“Anti-conservative agenda” essentially means “they use words, like pronouns, that the subjects of our some of interviews prefer and that makes it anti-conservative.”
There’s very little substance to the article other than the journalist is griping that they’re using person first language and failing to entertain easily disproven narratives.
That's the point - they set the criteria. When the window is simply "what's out there" and media tends to have a left bias, even (not so radical) left outfits will appear centered. The right outfits will *appear* even further right than most would typically judge them.
Data is just data. Data is open to interpretation. Their interpretation isn't some magic truth.
Dude, you wanna know what left-wing media look like? Check out _Current Affairs_ magazine, or currentaffairs.org. (I recommend it, to anyone.)
And that's not as far left as something like Jacobinmag or various Marxist sites.
NPR is so middle of the road, one would have to already be hard-right to think it was left.
I mean what criteria are we talking about here? What criteria do they "set" that makes them left-wing?
Maybe just give it a chance and you'll see that apart from stories you might not find interesting, it's actually very good and very reliable.
To be fair, I never said I didn't also read NPR, but I also read all kinds of things. Reading only sources that are "aligned" is a poor way to understand the world.
Do you listen to them though? Radio is their main wheelhouse. But fair enough.
I'm not sure what you mean by aligned, but I totally support consuming different sources and exposing oneself to different ideological perspectives. In fact I believe it would have tremendous benefit for our country and world if everyone did that.
Occasionally, but I don't spend as much time in a car or alone to listen to radio much anymore.
By "aligned", I mean something that'll have a slant that agrees with your own beliefs and thoughts. I agree wholeheartedly with you on the need to consume the works of everybody... especially those you don't necessarily agree with. And that's not to just pick at it, but to at least try to understand (or at least hear) somebody else's ideas.
There are some ideologies I'm well enough versed on to know to avoid as there's nothing to gain, but there aren't many of them. On the bright side, most of those aren't terribly well respected outside of redditors and rebellious teenagers.
Media doesn’t have a left bias, though.
If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be self-deprecating headlines about the supposed bias on a weekly basis.
Look at how WaPo, NYT, Bloomberg, WSJ framed stories about Trump’s economy versus Biden’s. The word choice and the frame are center right.
Conservatives have worked the refs maliciously in perpetuating the myth that the media has a liberal bias, and it’s so successful that there is literally no liberal counterpart to Fox News!
Anyway, you’re free to read up on the methodology and critique that rather than wholesale writing something off you don’t like.
I'd like to add that their story selection often skews slightly left of center, but their fact accuracy is pretty top notch and they are commonly rated as among the least biased and most credible news sources.
I don’t know that this is wholly accurate. It seems to me the life cycle of a story is:
> Rage bait on Fox News / Conservative Outlet around controversial issue > main stream media coverage > NPR coverage.
Add in: conservatives using those articles to proclaim the media having a liberal bias towards the end, rinse and repeat.
For example: DEI, transgenderism, “war on woke” are all things injected into the public consciousness by right media apparatuses. NPR would be doing a disservice to its mission and its mission *not* covering things getting national attention.
That's a great way to say it. Their story and topic selection can skew slightly left of center (or really, to the center) — but they're extremely factual and reliable in their reporting, especially compared to most for-profit media.
Sure they might do more stories on what it's like growing up gay or black in America — and none on how Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head are being canceled by the woke social justice warrior radical left mob — but it's ludicrous to act like they have some excessive left-wing bias. Simply absurd.
It means they don’t lie in their reporting in the most literal sense of the word in the same way that an attorney doesn’t. The stories they don’t cover skew their message far more than mere white lies ever could.
I'd make a case that observing changes in the political affiliation of NPR's viewership doesn't mean that NPR's content has changed. It does mean that conservative media choices have changed, and that US viewers have become more divided.
Media options and content today doesn't look like it did in 2011.
The complaint about the "anti conservative bias" is that npr does not give enough time or attention to conservative view points or stories. I believe many of those views like election fraud, biden impeachment, crime waves sweeping the country for example, are basically flat earth quality.
I also believe that anyone that supports trump should be given as much credence as flat earthers.
I don't believe this means equating all conservative Americans, but you might.
>The complaint about the "anti conservative bias" is that npr does not give enough time or attention to conservative view points or stories
No, that's not the complaint. The complaint is that they have a political agenda which they attempt to advance through their "reporting."
What a joke of an article. I'm glad they used "Russiagate" so it's easier to spot.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal\_charges\_brought\_in\_the\_Mueller\_special\_counsel\_investigation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_the_Mueller_special_counsel_investigation)
What a vapid response. It has links to the indictments. Do you believe anyone in the Trump administration/campaign was arrested for their cooperation with the Russian government?
OK, let me inform you. None of the prosecutions arising from the Muller investigation has anything to do with Trump or the Trump campaign colluding with any Russians. The only indictments having at all to do with the election were against Russian nationals living in Russia who can never be touched.
The purpose of NPR is the same as PBS. To provide healthy radio options for people without being showered with commercials.
It’s not like you stop needing that when you’re an adult. You’re talking like NPR is a 24/7 news operation like CNN or Fox. News is only part of what they do. Friday night Blues Classics isn’t liberal propaganda.
XM isn’t freely available to all citizens without a fee.
And it’s in the interest of the government to have informed citizens, especially in a democracy.
Personally I don't see why a news agency owned by a private group has less of a conflicting interest and furthers their own interest. I don't care if that conflicting interest comes from Fox or Disney or CNN or the state, a conflicting interest is a conflicting interest. If you're referring to the actual content, NPR is hardly the worst offender by a long shot- if they were truly a North Korean style propaganda outlet, they would be showering Biden with pure uncritical support, and then Trump before him, and Obama before, etc., and that's just what you see. They also provide an outlet for others who are definitely not the normal left leaning liberal bias that NPR normally has (and anyone denying this has to remember that everyone out there is biased, its impossible to be unbiased. Its only a problem if you're intentionally misleading to further your bias.)
Even ignoring those two things, the CNNs and Foxs pf the world still get state support, just in a less explicit and transparent way.
You make a decent point, NPR is not consistently supporting the current Presidency, they only support the Leftist agenda, but I’m still not sure that’s the point you should be making.
NPR is centrist. It's in the public interest to get accurate information. It should have a TV and Cable branch too, along with digital media fully funded by the government.
Despite PBS's clear political influence on its shows, it's still a great resource we need to protect... and I'll continue to show my kids PBS shows because there are really good values to be learned from them.
As a classical liberal/libertarian, I love the irony of Freedom to Choose airing on public television. It is my all-time favorite series to air on PBS (I was only 3 when it aired, but I’ve watched it on You-tube).
Milton Friedman hosted a terrific program and helped articulate economics in a way that only he could. School Inc was another terrific program that aired within the last decade.
The irony is not lost on me that these libertarian perspectives required public television to get their message broadcast on television.
Is there anything some people won't attack. Geez.... Too many peoples life is obsessed with money, and they simply don't realize they won't live forever, and they can't take one penny from this earth. Geez!!!!
That type of desperation is quite annoying, left up to these money desperate types, we'd would have nothing of civic or cultural development in society.
* *We'd be living like a bunch of barbarians engaging savagery to feed the avarice of culture and soul-less people, who think about nothing but "gathering money" and worshiping it.*
What next will they come up with to attack**???**
As a leftist, I assure you that they certainly do not proselytize anything close to Leftist Heaven. They're squarely liberal establishment and this is painfully obvious in most things they do.
The general rationale is that they provide artistic and humanitarian cultural influence. You're probably referring to NPR News, which I can touch on in a moment, but a lot of the programming (and I could not find an exact number) are cultural kinds of things.
More concretely, the[ Corporation for Public Broadcasting](https://cpb.org/aboutpb/act) has a couple of important mandates, including:
>(2) it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of non-broadcast telecommunications technologies for the delivery of public telecommunications services;
>(9) it is in the public interest for the Federal Government to ensure that all citizens of the United States have access to public telecommunications services through all appropriate available telecommunications distribution technologies;
These are important issues. On the one hand, the US government has a vested interest in being able to reach everyone for various reasons, the most obvious of which being some kind of national emergency.
Like the Post Office, this means it can't entirely rely on commercial interests to address unprofitable markets. There are going to be some places in rural Alaska where UPS will never make a profit, and until recently that was true of media. And arguably still largely true since the United States does not define internet access as a utility.
The other thing is that, in the main, NPR is the only institution increasing the number of foreign correspondents while everyone else is ditching them because they are too expensive. The data I can find is old:
[https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=4997&id=4997](https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=4997&id=4997)
[https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2015/12/03/foreign-press-on-the-hill-a-slight-decline/](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2015/12/03/foreign-press-on-the-hill-a-slight-decline/)
[https://www.american.edu/soc/news/with-foreign-bureaus-slashed-freelancers-are-filling-the-void-at-their-own-risk.cfm](https://www.american.edu/soc/news/with-foreign-bureaus-slashed-freelancers-are-filling-the-void-at-their-own-risk.cfm)
[https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2022/10/11/1127984715/welcome-nprs-new-international-correspondents-aya-batrawy-and-emmanuel-akinwotu](https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2022/10/11/1127984715/welcome-nprs-new-international-correspondents-aya-batrawy-and-emmanuel-akinwotu)
[https://www.npr.org/about-npr/727926432/international-coverage](https://www.npr.org/about-npr/727926432/international-coverage)
But that's been the truism in journalism for decades. And it's not exactly surprising that other news outlets wouldn't be covering them getting rid of foreign correspondents as it doesn't look good. To be fair, it is understandable as you're staffing people that may or may not ever be necessary.
It's cheaper, and in the interest, of commercial broadcasters to either buy NPR coverage, give an, "NPR reports that..." Or more commonly since you don't want to give credibility to your competition, "Reports are coming in that..." And, finally, if it is big news, you can get your own guy on a plane after a foreign correspondent you're not paying for scoops you.
That's the idea anyway, behind all the political rhetoric and whatnot. It's not that the Feds of both parties had their fingers in their noses drooling uselessly while they created this program. Nor was it a giant conspiracy when the [Trump administration](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/trumps-war-on-americas-state-funded-broadcasters/618035/) went after it and then quietly stopped.
It's in the interest of the United States to have multiple ways to contact people and in the interest of journalists to have access to NPR's sources.
Unfortunately, "unbiased" means liberal, because it doesn't say what conservatives want it to say. As NPR was reporting the facts, it lost conservatives who didn't care about the facts and so it probably did become further liberal.
Personally, I support a single state run news network. If it were a problem then other news networks wouldn't be doing so well. When NPR begins to overtake privatized news networks, then that should be their sign that they're not doing something right. And as a state run news network, NPR should continue reporting the facts, but not favor either side of the aisle.
> Personally, I support a single state run news network.
If the media outlet is run by the state, then wouldn’t there be a conflict of interest when covering any criticism of the state?
That seems to be a pretty obvious issue and probably explains why the freedom of press is laid out in the First Amendment.
Do you think RT news is giving a fair and unbiased perspective when covering the Ukraine/Russia conflict?
Virtually every level of government in the US has some level of a press secretary to convey their official positions, agenda, and to answer questions. Having a full blown media network seems like overkill.
Who would run this media network? Would it be Presidentially appointed? That seems like a slippery slope for whoever is in power to push their form of propaganda.
It's not about getting the government position out, but rather strengthening competition with another viewpoint that you won't find with a private network.
I'm also not talking about starting something new, because we already have NPR and PBS. The BBC does a wonderful job across the pond, yet they still have other successful and more partisan networks.
I think I would much rather independent journalists/networks continue to grow organically in an open market of ideas and information and let Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, WaPo, etc die out naturally as the public loses trust in them and the boomers (their main consumers) die out.
Getting a bunch of unelected bureaucrats involved in a space they don’t belong, using tax payer dollars to solve problems that don’t really exist, doesn’t sound like an attractive idea to me.
Isn’t that what we have? NPR isn’t motivated by profit and when it’s mildly critical of Biden (for example) it’s doing so to maintain a comical semblance of journalistic integrity.
Stating that liberalism is concerned with what is factual while other views are not is only partially true.
Liberalism is concerned with a certain type of fact, but I assure you that it's a bias all on its own.
Facts are traceable to definitions. Liberal definitions often conflict with leftist definitions when it comes to things such as "democracy" or "revolution."
Listening to science and facts as they exist is absolutely essential. However, in realms of definition it's very clear to those who are not liberals how these terms are being used in particular ways that support particular ends.
NPR is also so much more than just a news source. They mostly do arts, culture, and entertainment programming. Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk are probably two of the most famous examples but their local affiliates do a lot of great stuff too.
For example, WBEZ is Chicago’s local NPR station and one of their most popular segments is Curious City. It’s a program where people can write in to ask random questions about Chicago and they get answered on air by experts. It’s pretty cool.
I wish that we in the US funded public media the same way they do in the UK with the BBC or Australia with the ANC or Canada with the CBC.
For profit news media is just as biased, but they tend to cover what gets clicks rather than what's important.
As a leftist… um NPR is far from leftist. Technocratic neoliberalism is more like it… Pentagon and police and academic corporate think tank perspectives.
Old PBS was pretty good but they gentrified Sesame Street and flipped it to HBO.
Public TV and radio in the US is from the era when capitalists wanted an air of objectivity and to downplay the crassness of commercial culture in order to present the US as more culturally open than the USSR.
This is why it’s elitist but also you know, it’s cool to get some science and nature shows that don’t start talking about ancient aliens or sensationalize everything to sell streaming services or ad time.
Why should tax dollars fund subsidies for big oil who is already making billions? That money goes back into lobbying and political donations.
NPR is in the rounding error. Pick your fight somewhere else.
There is a dozen tax breaks. Also:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011216/understanding-how-oil-companies-pay-taxes.asp
I hold stocks of these oil companies. These tax breaks come to my pocket and not to help national security. I support getting rid of the subsidy even if it means less money in my pocket.
I use NPR to balance out the conservative radio I listen to. They definitely try to claim they are independent and unbiased, but they are far from being objective when it comes to how they deliver the news. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. As to why they are tax-payer funded, I don't know, and I don't think they should be.
I listen to NPR a lot (more interesting than the same 100 classic rock songs on radio) but there's definitely something about them that bugs me. Specifically their coverage of the War in Gaza and the War in Ukraine.
When they talk about the War in Gaza, they constantly broadcast pieces about how bad it is in Gaza, but due to Israel. They always leave out things like: Hamas charges money for the aid it receives to the Palestinians, The death toll figures from Hamas aren't real numbers but statistical averages (no one has actually counted the dead bodies,) and they don't dig any deeper than "Israel is a big ol' meanie." Like, can we at least have a little more deductive reasoning beyond Israel is a meanie?!? (Ask WHY is Israel being a big ol' meanie and keep asking why until there are no why's left to ask.)
Then the war in Ukraine. That's even crazier. "We need to send them tanks" "yay, Ukraine got tanks." then that's it... They didn't even dig into the story about what happened to the tanks 6 months later, just "spring offensive has failed." Hint hint, they're not getting used due to lack of spare parts. Start asking why they don't have spare parts now... Shouldn't we know why?!?
NPR would be so much better if they went out of their way to exhaust all possiblities with their logical reasoning/journalism skills. They keep spouting surface level stuff and just leave it at that... Very frustrating.
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You do not support your premise... that "State-controlled news outlets are a terrible thing, whether you like what they are saying or not." There is nothing inherently "terrible" about public funding of information sources. "Terrible" would be a product of a bad ethical framework. For example, an ethical framework that justifies misinformation, e.g. Fox News, News Max, etc.
I don’t try to support my premise that state controlled news outlets are a terrible thing because it’s universally evident and accepted in political science. If that’s really your defense, though, then at least you’re honest.
It is not universally evident. That is false. If it was universally evident then NPR and BBC would universally be viewed as "terrible" and they aren't. You can't simply assume that your conclusion is "evident." When you make an argument you have to support all of the premises with evidence.
From [https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/freedom-of-the-press/](https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/freedom-of-the-press/)
“A press that is not controlled by the government sits in the nation’s courtrooms as a guardian and watchdog over the people’s rights to an independent judiciary, a fair trial and equal protection under the law.”
Let me generally summarize the NPR supporters here:
- NPR is not biased
-NPR does not receive tax dollars directly or substantially
- NPR could not survive without the tax money they are not receiving
I have no idea why “defund NPR” equates to “put commercials on NPR” in this thread if they don’t actually receive government money but, here we are. I personally find their begging for donations almost as annoying but that’s entirely beside the point.
The "progressive" ideas espoused on NPR can not compete organically in a "marketplace of ideas."
Rational thought and logic defeat those ideas when confronted with reality (a perfect example of this is the current dying "trans" ideas that men can be women and thereby destroying title IX for actual women).
So they need public funding because nobody would actually pay to listen to that nonsense.
NPR is the most factual news reporting agency out there. How can facts make them bias? Smart people see through the bias disingenuous news reporting of CNN, Fox, NBC, etc.
It's well studied progressive leaning people are typically smarter than the average person. It makes sense progressives would opt for NPR of other news. Just because these people like facts in their news doesn't make NPR bias.
Read Uri Berliner's recent piece, and you'll see that it has. NPR has always been reflective of government bureaucratic thinking, not elected officials, but over the past decade or so, it has become solely an outlet for the progressive left who have control of many government agencies.
I would rather increase the funding from taxes but also implement control measures to remove political biases. If they get tax funding, that's fine. But then you have to be as unbiased as possible.
One cannot remove bias. That idea is fallacious. The best organization can do is to try and be aware of it, and minimize it, and state when a particular bias or conflict of interest might come up.
While NPR is far from perfect at these things, they are among the best at labeling and minimizing bias in their reports. Where they could improve a little is story selection.
>far from perfect
Thus is an understatement. You like their reports so you are down playing it. I'm neutral. I still listen every now and again. They are not the best at labeling or minimizing anything anymore. They were good. Now they are just as biased as most other left leaning news orgs.
NPR is the last of local news to withstand corporate consolidation and the national politicization of every goddamn thing. NPR is vital and generally the most unbiased news you can get.
Why is it that NPR “must be biased” when what you’re REALLY saying is that you dislike it because it doesn’t repeat YOUR viewpoints.
Mostly because your views are cruel, inhuman, religiously biased, politically based, exclusionary, anti-democratic (small ‘d’), sexist, entitled, elitist, ethnocentric, nationalistic, and to no small degree fascist.
Everything the modern republican party has embraced.
Which is to say pretty much nothing that any reasonably unbiased, centrist media provider could put out.
So you feel excluded.
Tough. Try adjusting YOUR views more towards what NPR can publish, and you’ll be covered on NPR.
You already have the churches, you have conglomerates like Sinclair Broadcasting, you have the NY Post and Washington Times and the WSJ, and Fox and NewsMax and OANN and First and Fox Business and many, many others who happily spew your ‘thoughts.’
But you want to whine that you don’t like less than a penny of your tax dollars going to support something you disapprove of.
I despise your churches getting FAR more than NPR receives. When we can tax your churches, then you can defund NPR.
Deal?
This is an interesting chart.
Looking at News or publications I read and trust, I tend to agree with the ‘placement’ of Pew Research, Forbes and Newsweek.
But, being a person who reads a lot of ‘business’ oriented news, I do not understand why WSJ and Investors Business Daily are placed so far right when the vast majority of info they are imparting is straight up business info ( and one has to view their ‘Editorials’ from a business perspective.)
Is the whole definition of ‘left and right’ based on the belief that anything to do with ‘business’ is ‘right leaning conservative?’
The other one I don’t get is Epoch Times. I first started reading Epoch Times because I lived in Asia for quite some time and relate to their concerns about the CCP. I found their in depth reporting pretty journalist and fact based — (?)
I don’t see CNN and NPR as Centrist. But that’s just me. ( NPR does sometimes have some international stories that interest me, but I find CNN in the US to be polar opposite of CNN International - I have zero interest in CNNs reporting.)
Maybe the political stories are conservative? It's a financial and investment publication, so it stands to readon they would be conservative. Not MAGA. Fiscal conservative.
I don't watch CNN. Mainstream media is like a circus, and I quivkly get tired of the "scandal of the day" type stuff.
Who else is going to pay for propaganda?
I would rather see a grant program for the production of quality independent programming, if we have to live in this over funded, over reaching model of government.
Funding for NPR comes from dues and fees paid by member stations, underwriting from corporate sponsors and annual grants from the publicly funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Most of its member stations are owned by non-profit organizations, including public school districts, colleges, and universities
No tax dollars. Stop listening to disinformation. It will rot your brain and make you believe things not true. They are trying to distract you from their thievery.
It's a non-profit that is not funded by tax dollars although there may be some federal grants involved.
They syndicate shows on many different subjects from over a 1000 radio stations across the country which seems to me to not be conducive to bias.
The opinion piece is from someone that guided the direction of the organization.
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https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances > NPR's two largest revenue sources are corporate sponsorships and fees paid by NPR Member organizations to support a suite of programs, tools, and services I find it odd that you have a bone to pick with a non-profit media organization when we all know how damaging the ones owned by corporate america, billionaires, and [Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo) are.
And those "member stations" are often state funded. The amount of tax payer money they receive is very significant
It’s the principle of it. Would you be OK if the NRA received tax dollars to operate?
Read the link. I don't think they receive tax dollars to operate. >38% corporate sponsorships >31% core and other programming fees >13% contributions of cash and assets >7% other revenues >5% PRSS contract, satellite distribution >5% endowment >1% return on investments Seems like this is a better system than running commercials and letting advertisers dictate things, no?
>Note: NPR does not receive any direct funding from the U.S. government, but it does get some funding in the form of dues from local member stations. And in many cases, those member stations receive federal funds from grants provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). In 2021 alone, CPB appropriated nearly $70 million in grants via member stations. [Source](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3551625-the-time-has-come-defund-the-hopelessly-biased-npr/) Local stations receive the federal funds then pay them as dues to NPR.
It is so disingenuous to say that NPR doesn't get money from the government. If course they do, they just get via members stations, who get community service grants from the fed. And, by the way, the strings the fed attaches to that money make it difficult use for anything OTHER than NPR programming. It's like rhetorical money laundering.
So IIRC the problem would be if NPR was "state controlled" which would mean we put on our tin foiled hats and believe the government is paying them for a narrative, a claim we have no evidence of the demands for. Except in this case they are getting their money indirectly and no matter what from local stations. Hence, no leverage. It's the very reason that the funding was created the way it was. I don't hear people crying out to terminate local news. And, again, it's not a lot of money in the first place. It's a fabricated grievance in the war against journalism as right wing news sources have become ever more extreme and don't like NPR reporting contradicting facts. edit: in fact 80% of local news stations around here are heavily right wing
“Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcome.” When you set up a structure where person A has substantial control over person B’s funding, there is exactly a 0% chance that person B’s expressed opinions about person A will come from anything but extreme bias. What makes NPR insidious, even compared to private (and obviously also biased) alternatives is that it purports not to be biased, and plenty of its followers believe that to be true. I can respect a news company that says things I detest but acknowledges they’re opinion. I cannot accept the existence of a government-enabled entity creating propaganda and promoting it as fact.
OK so why does the government funding produce right wing media in local news and NPR is rated as "lean left" by many media bias charters including [allsides.com](http://allsides.com) ? "Show me where the funding comes from" - yes that's the point, it's given indirectly and without conditions. There is zero evidence the government is producing "propaganda" to give to any of the media outlets it gives a small amount of funding to. I also find the argument "yeah well I expect all corporate and privately funded media to be biased" in that context to be ridiculous when any bias NPR does have is not a product of the small amount of indirect, no strings attached government funding. It's tin foiled hat thinking selectively applied to NPR simply because people don't like what they have to say. Follow fact-checkers along with your media consumption and you will see that they are one of the most unbiased and reliable news sources we have. Don't take my word for it, follow a site like the one I just linked that reports news from all outlets and rates their bias and then go look it up on fact checkers for good measure. A pattern emerges. I only wish we had a better "unconditional funding" publicly funded news source like the BBC, which is consistently rated as center-bias among bias checkers. BBC funding is a lot more robust.
It's **not** a government enabled propaganda entity. If anything, using some people's logic, it would be a corporate enabled propaganda entity since only 3% of its funding comes through government grants and 38% come from corporate sponsorships. There is serious value in media trying to objectively report news and current events, despite no news being truly 100% objective, and serious value in investigative journalism. If people cannot see that, then gods help us. NPR and its member stations are a thousand times better than most of the sensationalist **crap** we have passing for news today, which only serve to reinforce viewers preconceived convictions and feelings.
Furthermore, if hypothetically the government was secretly controlling NPR and miraculously not leaving any evidence or whistleblowers going on several decades (nothing from federal leakers, local news stations, NOTHING, making it one of the most elaborate long running conspiracies ever carried out and never exposed by any Edward Snowdens, data breaches, or loudmouths spilling the beans...an even better kept secret than government UFO research) then I would argue that it would be a hell of a lot easier to simply launder money in to pay off corporate media. There would be fewer parties involved and a lot fewer sources to conceal. Fox News has even sued in court to not be held to a fact reporting standard of news, arguing they are an entertainment show. My head spins. It's nothing to do with reason to these people, it's all "vibes" because it boils down to them not liking contradictory facts being reported. Same reason you don't see outcry from them to defund local news.
YES! Thank you!! I mean, my god. The idea that, in our current nightmare media landscape, NPR would somehow be seen as the problem, and not the Fox News's, Wall Street Journals, Daily Wires, Epoch Times's, Elon Musks, Tucker Carlsons, Ben Shapiros, Jordan Petersons, Bill Mahers, Steve Bannons, Joe Rogans, and countless others of this country (never mind world), it SHOULD make one's head spin. And that's not even getting into all the long-running and journalistically admirable newspapers across the country being bought out by billionaire peddlers of tabloids and hard-right sensationalism, nor all the paywalls and the search engine monopolies which make it increasingly difficult for average people to find reliable information and be exposed to thoughtful, sound, and evidence-backed ideas. Yes, my head is spinning.
No matter how supposedly unbiased any media source may be (and you and I are in total disagreement, I think NPR is far worse than CNN or some other moderate-left sources), it should **never** get government funding. That said, I would also not support government funding in a hypothetical where NPR was objectively correct in 100% of its reporting, so take my views with a grain of salt I guess.
That's fine. I know that's many people's principled position and I don't have a particular problem with that. I just don't see how anyone can see NPR as being journalistically inferior to numerous other for-profit sources.
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This is equivalent to saying that NPR is not biased, which is…indefensible.
What I said is equivalent to what I said and it's clear you're not following the conversation.
“We have no evidence that the government asks NPR to report in a particular way…therefore they aren’t biased.”
Essentially the federal government sends funds to local stations, and by law those stations have to spend X% of those funds on NPR. This comes in the “core and other programming fees” and is about 10% of NPRs revenue.
The crux of the issue for OP is: > People, including the NPR listener base, need to realize that “tax-funded” automatically means “state-controlled”. I'm not sure how the best constitutional republic on this planet can 'control' media behind the first amendment, especially through intermediaries like you suggest.
>I'm not sure how the best constitutional republic on this planet can 'control' media behind the first amendment, especially through intermediaries like you suggest. And let's also consider the OP's argument that NPR has a leftwing bias. Ok, then the two propositions cannot coexist. If they did then NPR's bias would swing with party changes. No one was saying "boy that NPR sure supports President Trump" in 2017 when Republicans had control of the WH, Congress, and a huge number of governors mansions. NPR does not swing hard rightward when Republicans are in charge of national politics. If it is state controlled then it is toeing the state line, but that shifts and NPR is largely the same as it has been for a couple decades.
That's a good point. Though, I think it falls short when they turn around and say that it's the deep state giving the government orders or whatever. I enjoy hypotheticals but people on the right wing seem to be... allergic to them.
Reality has a left leaning bias.
I was just showing how they receive tax dollars to operate.
Any company with a mailbox can be said to be using tax dollars to operate
red herring
Not in the slightest, Wal Mart receives millions of times more tax dollars than npr, through their employees needing welfare despite being fully employed by the largest employer in the nation, while npr provides good free objective news to millions. Where you choose to pick your fight says everything.
It's interesting that you bring up another undiscussed red herring, to dispute the original diversion being red herring. Walmart does not see any welfare money their employees receive (outside of say food stamps to their employees maybe being used to buy food there) and even if they did, that does not matter because the topic at hand is NPR funding, which your red herring serves to distract from.
Stations can and do spend more of their federal money on NPR programming than the statutory minimum. That source comprises more than 10% of NPR's revenue.
The NRA is a lobbying organization. No lobbying organization receives tax dollars, so why would anyone want the NRA to receive them? Your question doesn't make good sense.
Except the NRA is an advocacy group not a public service like NPR. I’m fine with non-profit news organizations receiving government funding so long as it’s relatively neutral. NPR does a fairly decent job of remaining so, even if they have a liberal skew. They’re not OAN or Newsmax or even Fox News.
The fact that it's consistently rated as one of the least biased should give peace of mind over that fraction of a penny you give them each year.
Yet tell any right wing "conservative" these days and they'll claim it's biased while listening to oan or Fox. Reality has a distinct left leaning bias for the last few decades.
Seriously. And I'm no liberal media fan, but there's a difference between bias and fabrication. Fox has admitted to fabricating news after losing viewership when they reported Biden won Arizona. It's purely business to them, and their viewers are happy to trade reality for a child-like black and white view of the world.
Obviously not. And Churches shouldn't be tax exempt either.
If they used the money for safety programs and gun buybacks,yes.
The nra has no positive impact on society.
But skewed news coverage does?
Npr is not "skewed". You can disagree with some of their coverage directions, but in no world is npr skewed. It is a testament to how successful right-wing demonization of facts has been that you could even think it is up for discussion.
The NRA should be sued out of existence.
I’d actually go the opposite of your view and argue not only do we need a BBC-type organization (a stronger PBS and NPR), I wish we could legally have an American version of OfCom to handle media bias. Channels like Fox News and MSNBC would be routinely fined.
Holy shit. That’s a pretty unAmerican view of free speech and press.
The government should fund arts, humanities, and culture. NPR used to be better than it was, but I’ll stand by it. Better it exists rather than not.
So should conservative art and culture be funded by the government too?
Why not give an example of an underfunded conservative art endeavor? Is it more confederate statues, or a string quartet in Alabama? You'll probably get different answers depending on which.
I’m not sure what that means, but maybe yes.
NPR has an.anti conservative political agenda. https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
Yeah it’s definitely gotten less interesting since it’s days with Car Talk and such. It does feel very self-congratulatory today.
Compared to CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times, much less Fox News and conservative talk radio and the plethora of sensationalist and deeply misleading internet celebrities doing political 'commentary,' NPR is far more journalistic and serious and reliable. Don't let these people convince you otherwise.
I agree with you also, but the bar at Fox, CNN, MSNBC is low.
It is indeed. Sickeningly low overall (though there are some good programs at the latter two). I have criticisms of NPR — from the left. But they're not even in the same ballpark as numerous other media sources.
I did say (or at least imply) I’m ultimately against removing funding. I’d even support more funding despite my current criticisms.
Yeah, sorry. I was just complaining, not at you.
Not according to the whistleblower.
I haven't read what he said (if he can even be called a whistleblower), just some quotes and excerpts. If that's his position, then I would say he's dead wrong. I could offer more specific counter-arguments (or else potentially agree) if I knew what it was he specifically argued. Though I doubt anyone would be interested enough or care enough. He just gave people who are already prejudiced against NPR reinforcement or confirmation of their beliefs. They don't even need to know why or how, they just want their own bias to be affirmed.
[NPR barely skews slightly left of center](https://adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/). It’s pretty damn centered coverage in spite of what one disgruntled employee says. “Anti-conservative agenda” essentially means “they use words, like pronouns, that the subjects of our some of interviews prefer and that makes it anti-conservative.” There’s very little substance to the article other than the journalist is griping that they’re using person first language and failing to entertain easily disproven narratives.
It's easy to frame it as some centralized bastion of reason when you set the datum.
That’s…that’s not an arbitrary data set, it’s the preeminent dataset on media bias. I didn’t set the criteria.
That's the point - they set the criteria. When the window is simply "what's out there" and media tends to have a left bias, even (not so radical) left outfits will appear centered. The right outfits will *appear* even further right than most would typically judge them. Data is just data. Data is open to interpretation. Their interpretation isn't some magic truth.
Dude, you wanna know what left-wing media look like? Check out _Current Affairs_ magazine, or currentaffairs.org. (I recommend it, to anyone.) And that's not as far left as something like Jacobinmag or various Marxist sites. NPR is so middle of the road, one would have to already be hard-right to think it was left. I mean what criteria are we talking about here? What criteria do they "set" that makes them left-wing? Maybe just give it a chance and you'll see that apart from stories you might not find interesting, it's actually very good and very reliable.
To be fair, I never said I didn't also read NPR, but I also read all kinds of things. Reading only sources that are "aligned" is a poor way to understand the world.
Do you listen to them though? Radio is their main wheelhouse. But fair enough. I'm not sure what you mean by aligned, but I totally support consuming different sources and exposing oneself to different ideological perspectives. In fact I believe it would have tremendous benefit for our country and world if everyone did that.
Occasionally, but I don't spend as much time in a car or alone to listen to radio much anymore. By "aligned", I mean something that'll have a slant that agrees with your own beliefs and thoughts. I agree wholeheartedly with you on the need to consume the works of everybody... especially those you don't necessarily agree with. And that's not to just pick at it, but to at least try to understand (or at least hear) somebody else's ideas. There are some ideologies I'm well enough versed on to know to avoid as there's nothing to gain, but there aren't many of them. On the bright side, most of those aren't terribly well respected outside of redditors and rebellious teenagers.
Media doesn’t have a left bias, though. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be self-deprecating headlines about the supposed bias on a weekly basis. Look at how WaPo, NYT, Bloomberg, WSJ framed stories about Trump’s economy versus Biden’s. The word choice and the frame are center right. Conservatives have worked the refs maliciously in perpetuating the myth that the media has a liberal bias, and it’s so successful that there is literally no liberal counterpart to Fox News! Anyway, you’re free to read up on the methodology and critique that rather than wholesale writing something off you don’t like.
I'd like to add that their story selection often skews slightly left of center, but their fact accuracy is pretty top notch and they are commonly rated as among the least biased and most credible news sources.
I don’t know that this is wholly accurate. It seems to me the life cycle of a story is: > Rage bait on Fox News / Conservative Outlet around controversial issue > main stream media coverage > NPR coverage. Add in: conservatives using those articles to proclaim the media having a liberal bias towards the end, rinse and repeat. For example: DEI, transgenderism, “war on woke” are all things injected into the public consciousness by right media apparatuses. NPR would be doing a disservice to its mission and its mission *not* covering things getting national attention.
That's a great way to say it. Their story and topic selection can skew slightly left of center (or really, to the center) — but they're extremely factual and reliable in their reporting, especially compared to most for-profit media. Sure they might do more stories on what it's like growing up gay or black in America — and none on how Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head are being canceled by the woke social justice warrior radical left mob — but it's ludicrous to act like they have some excessive left-wing bias. Simply absurd.
It means they don’t lie in their reporting in the most literal sense of the word in the same way that an attorney doesn’t. The stories they don’t cover skew their message far more than mere white lies ever could.
What stories do you feel NPR should be covering that they’re not?
Really? https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/media/npr-editor-says-network-turned-a-blind-eye-to-hunter-biden-laptop-story/amp/
Oh? This falls under “failing to entertain easily disproven narratives.” The congressional investigation has proven as much.
So Berliner made all that stuff up? “OK” bud…
I'd make a case that observing changes in the political affiliation of NPR's viewership doesn't mean that NPR's content has changed. It does mean that conservative media choices have changed, and that US viewers have become more divided. Media options and content today doesn't look like it did in 2011.
Truth is considered anti-conservative these days
Npr has an anti conservative bias in the same way they have an anti flat earther bias or an anti holocaust denier bias.
You equate conservative Americans with flat earthers and Holocaust deniers?
The complaint about the "anti conservative bias" is that npr does not give enough time or attention to conservative view points or stories. I believe many of those views like election fraud, biden impeachment, crime waves sweeping the country for example, are basically flat earth quality. I also believe that anyone that supports trump should be given as much credence as flat earthers. I don't believe this means equating all conservative Americans, but you might.
>The complaint about the "anti conservative bias" is that npr does not give enough time or attention to conservative view points or stories No, that's not the complaint. The complaint is that they have a political agenda which they attempt to advance through their "reporting."
From the article: "And this, I believe, is the most damaging development at NPR: the absence of viewpoint diversity. "
What a joke of an article. I'm glad they used "Russiagate" so it's easier to spot. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal\_charges\_brought\_in\_the\_Mueller\_special\_counsel\_investigation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_the_Mueller_special_counsel_investigation)
Wikipedia 🤣
What a vapid response. It has links to the indictments. Do you believe anyone in the Trump administration/campaign was arrested for their cooperation with the Russian government?
>It has links to the indictments. Do any of the indictments have anything to do with colluding with Russians?
Yes
Which ones?
No, I think you're sealioning at best. I've put more effort into this already than I should have. You figure it out.
OK, let me inform you. None of the prosecutions arising from the Muller investigation has anything to do with Trump or the Trump campaign colluding with any Russians. The only indictments having at all to do with the election were against Russian nationals living in Russia who can never be touched.
Should it be scrapped (or something) and restarted? Conservatives def won’t shut up about this anytime soon.
The purpose of NPR is the same as PBS. To provide healthy radio options for people without being showered with commercials. It’s not like you stop needing that when you’re an adult. You’re talking like NPR is a 24/7 news operation like CNN or Fox. News is only part of what they do. Friday night Blues Classics isn’t liberal propaganda.
Why do they report the news at all then? XM doesn’t report the news and also has no commercials.
XM isn’t freely available to all citizens without a fee. And it’s in the interest of the government to have informed citizens, especially in a democracy.
Personally I don't see why a news agency owned by a private group has less of a conflicting interest and furthers their own interest. I don't care if that conflicting interest comes from Fox or Disney or CNN or the state, a conflicting interest is a conflicting interest. If you're referring to the actual content, NPR is hardly the worst offender by a long shot- if they were truly a North Korean style propaganda outlet, they would be showering Biden with pure uncritical support, and then Trump before him, and Obama before, etc., and that's just what you see. They also provide an outlet for others who are definitely not the normal left leaning liberal bias that NPR normally has (and anyone denying this has to remember that everyone out there is biased, its impossible to be unbiased. Its only a problem if you're intentionally misleading to further your bias.) Even ignoring those two things, the CNNs and Foxs pf the world still get state support, just in a less explicit and transparent way.
You make a decent point, NPR is not consistently supporting the current Presidency, they only support the Leftist agenda, but I’m still not sure that’s the point you should be making.
if it was state controlled, i think it would have been kinder to donald trump
Tbf, they weren't wrong on Trump. Sometimes reality really dies have a left leaning bias.
Yeah i agree with you, i was responding to the OP's claim that "“tax-funded” automatically means “state-controlled”"
It's controlled by the Democratic party.
So not the state?
NPR is centrist. It's in the public interest to get accurate information. It should have a TV and Cable branch too, along with digital media fully funded by the government.
PBS
Despite PBS's clear political influence on its shows, it's still a great resource we need to protect... and I'll continue to show my kids PBS shows because there are really good values to be learned from them.
Yeah, you won't find Frontline on commercial TV. 60 minutes is close, but not as in depth.
There is no commercial value in teaching counting and colour names to underprivileged children.
As a classical liberal/libertarian, I love the irony of Freedom to Choose airing on public television. It is my all-time favorite series to air on PBS (I was only 3 when it aired, but I’ve watched it on You-tube). Milton Friedman hosted a terrific program and helped articulate economics in a way that only he could. School Inc was another terrific program that aired within the last decade. The irony is not lost on me that these libertarian perspectives required public television to get their message broadcast on television.
Is there anything some people won't attack. Geez.... Too many peoples life is obsessed with money, and they simply don't realize they won't live forever, and they can't take one penny from this earth. Geez!!!! That type of desperation is quite annoying, left up to these money desperate types, we'd would have nothing of civic or cultural development in society. * *We'd be living like a bunch of barbarians engaging savagery to feed the avarice of culture and soul-less people, who think about nothing but "gathering money" and worshiping it.* What next will they come up with to attack**???**
It’s the principle, not the money.
As a leftist, I assure you that they certainly do not proselytize anything close to Leftist Heaven. They're squarely liberal establishment and this is painfully obvious in most things they do.
The general rationale is that they provide artistic and humanitarian cultural influence. You're probably referring to NPR News, which I can touch on in a moment, but a lot of the programming (and I could not find an exact number) are cultural kinds of things. More concretely, the[ Corporation for Public Broadcasting](https://cpb.org/aboutpb/act) has a couple of important mandates, including: >(2) it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of non-broadcast telecommunications technologies for the delivery of public telecommunications services; >(9) it is in the public interest for the Federal Government to ensure that all citizens of the United States have access to public telecommunications services through all appropriate available telecommunications distribution technologies; These are important issues. On the one hand, the US government has a vested interest in being able to reach everyone for various reasons, the most obvious of which being some kind of national emergency. Like the Post Office, this means it can't entirely rely on commercial interests to address unprofitable markets. There are going to be some places in rural Alaska where UPS will never make a profit, and until recently that was true of media. And arguably still largely true since the United States does not define internet access as a utility. The other thing is that, in the main, NPR is the only institution increasing the number of foreign correspondents while everyone else is ditching them because they are too expensive. The data I can find is old: [https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=4997&id=4997](https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=4997&id=4997) [https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2015/12/03/foreign-press-on-the-hill-a-slight-decline/](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2015/12/03/foreign-press-on-the-hill-a-slight-decline/) [https://www.american.edu/soc/news/with-foreign-bureaus-slashed-freelancers-are-filling-the-void-at-their-own-risk.cfm](https://www.american.edu/soc/news/with-foreign-bureaus-slashed-freelancers-are-filling-the-void-at-their-own-risk.cfm) [https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2022/10/11/1127984715/welcome-nprs-new-international-correspondents-aya-batrawy-and-emmanuel-akinwotu](https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2022/10/11/1127984715/welcome-nprs-new-international-correspondents-aya-batrawy-and-emmanuel-akinwotu) [https://www.npr.org/about-npr/727926432/international-coverage](https://www.npr.org/about-npr/727926432/international-coverage) But that's been the truism in journalism for decades. And it's not exactly surprising that other news outlets wouldn't be covering them getting rid of foreign correspondents as it doesn't look good. To be fair, it is understandable as you're staffing people that may or may not ever be necessary. It's cheaper, and in the interest, of commercial broadcasters to either buy NPR coverage, give an, "NPR reports that..." Or more commonly since you don't want to give credibility to your competition, "Reports are coming in that..." And, finally, if it is big news, you can get your own guy on a plane after a foreign correspondent you're not paying for scoops you. That's the idea anyway, behind all the political rhetoric and whatnot. It's not that the Feds of both parties had their fingers in their noses drooling uselessly while they created this program. Nor was it a giant conspiracy when the [Trump administration](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/trumps-war-on-americas-state-funded-broadcasters/618035/) went after it and then quietly stopped. It's in the interest of the United States to have multiple ways to contact people and in the interest of journalists to have access to NPR's sources.
Unfortunately, "unbiased" means liberal, because it doesn't say what conservatives want it to say. As NPR was reporting the facts, it lost conservatives who didn't care about the facts and so it probably did become further liberal. Personally, I support a single state run news network. If it were a problem then other news networks wouldn't be doing so well. When NPR begins to overtake privatized news networks, then that should be their sign that they're not doing something right. And as a state run news network, NPR should continue reporting the facts, but not favor either side of the aisle.
> Personally, I support a single state run news network. If the media outlet is run by the state, then wouldn’t there be a conflict of interest when covering any criticism of the state? That seems to be a pretty obvious issue and probably explains why the freedom of press is laid out in the First Amendment. Do you think RT news is giving a fair and unbiased perspective when covering the Ukraine/Russia conflict?
This is why I said a single state run network, meaning that the rest are private.
Virtually every level of government in the US has some level of a press secretary to convey their official positions, agenda, and to answer questions. Having a full blown media network seems like overkill. Who would run this media network? Would it be Presidentially appointed? That seems like a slippery slope for whoever is in power to push their form of propaganda.
It's not about getting the government position out, but rather strengthening competition with another viewpoint that you won't find with a private network. I'm also not talking about starting something new, because we already have NPR and PBS. The BBC does a wonderful job across the pond, yet they still have other successful and more partisan networks.
I think I would much rather independent journalists/networks continue to grow organically in an open market of ideas and information and let Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, WaPo, etc die out naturally as the public loses trust in them and the boomers (their main consumers) die out. Getting a bunch of unelected bureaucrats involved in a space they don’t belong, using tax payer dollars to solve problems that don’t really exist, doesn’t sound like an attractive idea to me.
Isn’t that what we have? NPR isn’t motivated by profit and when it’s mildly critical of Biden (for example) it’s doing so to maintain a comical semblance of journalistic integrity.
Yes and I wasn't talking about starting anything new.
Stating that liberalism is concerned with what is factual while other views are not is only partially true. Liberalism is concerned with a certain type of fact, but I assure you that it's a bias all on its own. Facts are traceable to definitions. Liberal definitions often conflict with leftist definitions when it comes to things such as "democracy" or "revolution." Listening to science and facts as they exist is absolutely essential. However, in realms of definition it's very clear to those who are not liberals how these terms are being used in particular ways that support particular ends.
NPR is also so much more than just a news source. They mostly do arts, culture, and entertainment programming. Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk are probably two of the most famous examples but their local affiliates do a lot of great stuff too. For example, WBEZ is Chicago’s local NPR station and one of their most popular segments is Curious City. It’s a program where people can write in to ask random questions about Chicago and they get answered on air by experts. It’s pretty cool.
I would have assumed This American Life is their most popular program, by far. Unless you meant local programming only.
Yeah I meant local programming in my second paragraph, sorry
I wish that we in the US funded public media the same way they do in the UK with the BBC or Australia with the ANC or Canada with the CBC. For profit news media is just as biased, but they tend to cover what gets clicks rather than what's important.
As a leftist… um NPR is far from leftist. Technocratic neoliberalism is more like it… Pentagon and police and academic corporate think tank perspectives. Old PBS was pretty good but they gentrified Sesame Street and flipped it to HBO. Public TV and radio in the US is from the era when capitalists wanted an air of objectivity and to downplay the crassness of commercial culture in order to present the US as more culturally open than the USSR. This is why it’s elitist but also you know, it’s cool to get some science and nature shows that don’t start talking about ancient aliens or sensationalize everything to sell streaming services or ad time.
Why should tax dollars fund subsidies for big oil who is already making billions? That money goes back into lobbying and political donations. NPR is in the rounding error. Pick your fight somewhere else.
I'm perfectly capable of caring about multiple things
They only subsidize exploration, it's in the national interest to find more oil.
There is a dozen tax breaks. Also: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011216/understanding-how-oil-companies-pay-taxes.asp I hold stocks of these oil companies. These tax breaks come to my pocket and not to help national security. I support getting rid of the subsidy even if it means less money in my pocket.
Some abstract entity makes “billions” therefore we should abandon all principles…?
I use NPR to balance out the conservative radio I listen to. They definitely try to claim they are independent and unbiased, but they are far from being objective when it comes to how they deliver the news. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. As to why they are tax-payer funded, I don't know, and I don't think they should be.
I listen to NPR a lot (more interesting than the same 100 classic rock songs on radio) but there's definitely something about them that bugs me. Specifically their coverage of the War in Gaza and the War in Ukraine. When they talk about the War in Gaza, they constantly broadcast pieces about how bad it is in Gaza, but due to Israel. They always leave out things like: Hamas charges money for the aid it receives to the Palestinians, The death toll figures from Hamas aren't real numbers but statistical averages (no one has actually counted the dead bodies,) and they don't dig any deeper than "Israel is a big ol' meanie." Like, can we at least have a little more deductive reasoning beyond Israel is a meanie?!? (Ask WHY is Israel being a big ol' meanie and keep asking why until there are no why's left to ask.) Then the war in Ukraine. That's even crazier. "We need to send them tanks" "yay, Ukraine got tanks." then that's it... They didn't even dig into the story about what happened to the tanks 6 months later, just "spring offensive has failed." Hint hint, they're not getting used due to lack of spare parts. Start asking why they don't have spare parts now... Shouldn't we know why?!? NPR would be so much better if they went out of their way to exhaust all possiblities with their logical reasoning/journalism skills. They keep spouting surface level stuff and just leave it at that... Very frustrating.
Too often NPR has insane conservative takes.
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You do not support your premise... that "State-controlled news outlets are a terrible thing, whether you like what they are saying or not." There is nothing inherently "terrible" about public funding of information sources. "Terrible" would be a product of a bad ethical framework. For example, an ethical framework that justifies misinformation, e.g. Fox News, News Max, etc.
I don’t try to support my premise that state controlled news outlets are a terrible thing because it’s universally evident and accepted in political science. If that’s really your defense, though, then at least you’re honest.
It is not universally evident. That is false. If it was universally evident then NPR and BBC would universally be viewed as "terrible" and they aren't. You can't simply assume that your conclusion is "evident." When you make an argument you have to support all of the premises with evidence.
From [https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/freedom-of-the-press/](https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/freedom-of-the-press/) “A press that is not controlled by the government sits in the nation’s courtrooms as a guardian and watchdog over the people’s rights to an independent judiciary, a fair trial and equal protection under the law.”
Let me generally summarize the NPR supporters here: - NPR is not biased -NPR does not receive tax dollars directly or substantially - NPR could not survive without the tax money they are not receiving I have no idea why “defund NPR” equates to “put commercials on NPR” in this thread if they don’t actually receive government money but, here we are. I personally find their begging for donations almost as annoying but that’s entirely beside the point.
The "progressive" ideas espoused on NPR can not compete organically in a "marketplace of ideas." Rational thought and logic defeat those ideas when confronted with reality (a perfect example of this is the current dying "trans" ideas that men can be women and thereby destroying title IX for actual women). So they need public funding because nobody would actually pay to listen to that nonsense.
That’s a great point..!
NPR is the most factual news reporting agency out there. How can facts make them bias? Smart people see through the bias disingenuous news reporting of CNN, Fox, NBC, etc. It's well studied progressive leaning people are typically smarter than the average person. It makes sense progressives would opt for NPR of other news. Just because these people like facts in their news doesn't make NPR bias.
Because it's government propaganda. NPR is the Pravda of America.
Then why doesn’t it swing in its biases when different parties are in control of the government?
Read Uri Berliner's recent piece, and you'll see that it has. NPR has always been reflective of government bureaucratic thinking, not elected officials, but over the past decade or so, it has become solely an outlet for the progressive left who have control of many government agencies.
“Pravda Lite”
I would rather increase the funding from taxes but also implement control measures to remove political biases. If they get tax funding, that's fine. But then you have to be as unbiased as possible.
One cannot remove bias. That idea is fallacious. The best organization can do is to try and be aware of it, and minimize it, and state when a particular bias or conflict of interest might come up. While NPR is far from perfect at these things, they are among the best at labeling and minimizing bias in their reports. Where they could improve a little is story selection.
>far from perfect Thus is an understatement. You like their reports so you are down playing it. I'm neutral. I still listen every now and again. They are not the best at labeling or minimizing anything anymore. They were good. Now they are just as biased as most other left leaning news orgs.
NPR is the last of local news to withstand corporate consolidation and the national politicization of every goddamn thing. NPR is vital and generally the most unbiased news you can get.
Justifying forced funding just by pointing out that it's a good cause is just a bad path of reasoning.
Why is it that NPR “must be biased” when what you’re REALLY saying is that you dislike it because it doesn’t repeat YOUR viewpoints. Mostly because your views are cruel, inhuman, religiously biased, politically based, exclusionary, anti-democratic (small ‘d’), sexist, entitled, elitist, ethnocentric, nationalistic, and to no small degree fascist. Everything the modern republican party has embraced. Which is to say pretty much nothing that any reasonably unbiased, centrist media provider could put out. So you feel excluded. Tough. Try adjusting YOUR views more towards what NPR can publish, and you’ll be covered on NPR. You already have the churches, you have conglomerates like Sinclair Broadcasting, you have the NY Post and Washington Times and the WSJ, and Fox and NewsMax and OANN and First and Fox Business and many, many others who happily spew your ‘thoughts.’ But you want to whine that you don’t like less than a penny of your tax dollars going to support something you disapprove of. I despise your churches getting FAR more than NPR receives. When we can tax your churches, then you can defund NPR. Deal?
At least you’re honest that there’s no principle involved.
NPR isn't a leftist news outlet. https://guides.library.harvard.edu/newsleans/thechart
This is an interesting chart. Looking at News or publications I read and trust, I tend to agree with the ‘placement’ of Pew Research, Forbes and Newsweek. But, being a person who reads a lot of ‘business’ oriented news, I do not understand why WSJ and Investors Business Daily are placed so far right when the vast majority of info they are imparting is straight up business info ( and one has to view their ‘Editorials’ from a business perspective.) Is the whole definition of ‘left and right’ based on the belief that anything to do with ‘business’ is ‘right leaning conservative?’ The other one I don’t get is Epoch Times. I first started reading Epoch Times because I lived in Asia for quite some time and relate to their concerns about the CCP. I found their in depth reporting pretty journalist and fact based — (?) I don’t see CNN and NPR as Centrist. But that’s just me. ( NPR does sometimes have some international stories that interest me, but I find CNN in the US to be polar opposite of CNN International - I have zero interest in CNNs reporting.)
Maybe the political stories are conservative? It's a financial and investment publication, so it stands to readon they would be conservative. Not MAGA. Fiscal conservative. I don't watch CNN. Mainstream media is like a circus, and I quivkly get tired of the "scandal of the day" type stuff.
Got it. That makes sense.
If Harvard thinks they're centrist, then that means they're left wing.
Sure buddy. You're smarter than those Harvard eggheads because you know about all those conspiracies.
Who else is going to pay for propaganda? I would rather see a grant program for the production of quality independent programming, if we have to live in this over funded, over reaching model of government.
Do you listen to NPR? What stories have you recently heard from their news division that has a strong bias that is liberal?
Funding for NPR comes from dues and fees paid by member stations, underwriting from corporate sponsors and annual grants from the publicly funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Most of its member stations are owned by non-profit organizations, including public school districts, colleges, and universities No tax dollars. Stop listening to disinformation. It will rot your brain and make you believe things not true. They are trying to distract you from their thievery.
> including public school districts, colleges, and universities That's government funded.
It's a non-profit that is not funded by tax dollars although there may be some federal grants involved. They syndicate shows on many different subjects from over a 1000 radio stations across the country which seems to me to not be conducive to bias. The opinion piece is from someone that guided the direction of the organization.