The cure for NPR and PBS

MoveOn.org and their comrades, NPR and PBS, are terrified. In an email from Noah T. Winer (Moveon.org’s "Campaign Director") on 8 February 2007 they claimed that "George W. Bush is trying - yet again - to slash funding for NPR and PBS." They describe the FY 2008 budget as including "devastating cuts to public broadcasting," and that "the independent journalism our country needs" is "under the knife." MoveOn.org wants Congress to "guarantee a permanent funding stream free from political pressure," and "keep partisan appointees from pushing a political bias." Two questions immediately come to mind: first, why should government fund them at all; and second, have they not seen any of Bill Moyers programs?

Congressman Ed Markey (RAT - Massachusetts), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s telecom panel, and who National Journal rates as 97% liberal, commented on the cuts saying that "in a 24-7 television world with content often inappropriate for young children, the public broadcasting system represents an oasis of quality, child-oriented educational programming." You begin to wonder if Ted Kennedy is happily sharing his supply of Chivas with Markey if he is so blind as to not see how private companies that have no taxpayer funding that are providing similar programming found on PBS. I guess he’s not heard of A&E, Animal Planet, BBC America, BBC World News, Biography Channel, Discovery Channel, Discovery HD Theater, Discovery Health Channel, Discovery Home, Discovery Kids, Discovery Times, FitTV, History Channel, History International, TLC (The Learning Channel), The Military Channel, The Science Channel, Travel Channel; not to mention three channels broadcast in Spanish (Discovery Kids en Español, Discovery en Español, Discovery Travel and Living [Viajar y Vivir]). As friendly as the left is with the illegal immigrant crowd, you’d think they’d heard of these last three. However, it’s no surprise that they couldn’t find these as they were unable to find any Conservatives to speak on terrorism media bias.

In their 2005 annual report for FY 2004, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting stated that they receive 43.4% of their funding from federal, state, and local taxpayers. It’s no wonder that they brag about how some of their stations have “achieved excellent financial health.” How couldn’t they with the money taken from my paycheck and yours to support them? The FY2007 operating budget approved by the CPB Board of Directors on 18 July 2006 shows that they received $400,000,000 from taxpayers. In addition, on 6 November 2003, NPR received over $225 million from the Joan Kroc estate.

In 2004, the Heritage Foundation called for Congress to "require that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting fund itself as all other television networks do." This can still be done - all that would be needed would be to repeal the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 [47 U.S.C. Section 396]. It’s time to pull the plug on the CPB - they have been flat lining for a long time now.