The World Without NPR

Shout Bits ^ | 3/21/11 | Shout Bits

[Shout Bits]

links and citations are on the original blog page

[Tribune7]

Direct link

You should just excerpt your stuff.

[umgud]

We’ve survived just fine without Err America. We can live without NPR too.

[OrioleFan]

Statists and dictators have always had government propaganda outlets, and NPR serves this role comparatively benignly.

I would say it's blatently obvious they are a propaganda outlet. Anyone with half a brain can see their bias.

[Cicero]

I imagine that NPR will continue much as it is. They’ll just have to raise more money from their listeners and from progressive donors like Soros. The advantage to that change is that WE will no longer be forced to pay for it. And it will drain a few dollars out of the left’s vast coffers that would otherwise be spent on other leftist goals.

[Shout Bits]

I used to excerpt my articles, but I got some rather hateful flame from people who thought I was a ‘blog pimp.’ Lately, I have been posting the whole article, but delayed.

I write Shout Bits for free to advocate for free markets and less government. To do this, I want people to read it, which seems obvious to me. If that is ‘blog pimping,’ I don't see what is wrong with it.

I am sorry, but I am going to have to file this under ‘you can't please everyone.’

If anyone wants Shout Bits on the day it is published, feel free to subscribe either by RSS or email.

[traderrob6]

$4MM to $90MM my a$$. More like $450,000,000.

Do your homework.

[Cicero]

That is assuming that the funding is actually cut. That hasn’t happened yet, and won’t, unless Boehner couples this with some bill that Obama has to sign.

[La Lydia]

My problem with this whole debate, logically, is that the NPR defenders argue that “no federal funding” = “no NPR.” I don’t think that is the case. I think they would quickly make up the difference with corporate and foundation funding. Nothing would change.

[FlingWingFlyer]

If NPR went of the air tomorrow, I wouldn’t know about it unless I read it here on FR.

[Cicero]

Don’t take it personally. Someone is always complaining about something, the point in this case being that FR shouldn’t be used to fund people’s blogs.

No, I know, you were just explaining it.

[ottbmare]

The error is in thinking that NPR is going to go away. Believe me, it will be funded; it just won’t be funded by federal tax dollars. Well-meaning, guilt-afflicted liberals, classical music devotees, and large left-wing organizations will continue to fund it. I have no fear that Mozart is going away.

[JoeProBono]

?

[Tribune7]

You have a good blog.

Illegitimi non carborundum

[headstamp 2]

“Sen. Harry Reid offered a typically pathetic defense of NPR by citing critical investigative reporting on dog racing.”

Between this and the cowboy poetry, Reid needs to retire and visit a rubber room.

[dead]

Very nicely written - clear, concise and well-argued.

I clicked on your blog when I was done, just to give you a hit.

I don't really get the bizarre mouth-foaming anti-blog faction here anyway.

[Huskrrrr]

Buh-bye!

[Tribune7]

Someone is always complaining about something, the point in this case being that FR shouldn’t be used to fund people’s blogs.

What are you talking about? FR is used to "fund" people's blogs

[Shout Bits]

$450MM is several times NPR’s total revenues. As my article states, nobody knows how much government money NPR takes in because it comes from so many different sources such as CPB, grants, and money from NGOs that launder government money.

I did my homework.

[Jim W N]

I sure hope the classic-music portion of NPR continues with private funding. The problem of going commercial is almost certainly these stations will become bland, pop-culture shows like we already have: mostly yaking, contests, and little snippets of classical pieces because anything longer will lose the paying audience.

Bland radio as well as TV is attributable to the FCC. Government defunding of NPR doesn't solve the problem but defunding the FCC does. Until the FCC is dissolved, the government will continue to interfere with communications free-market supply and demand which would bring us robust, innovative and delightful shows (the golden age of radio before the FCC forced their pablum on America).