Legal Commentary

The Real First Amendment Threat Regarding NPR

By Big Tent Democrat

Reason magazine:

These standoffs never end with public broadcasting getting defunded. The point of the exercise isn't to cut NPR loose; it's to use the threat of cutting NPR loose to whip the network into line.

(Emphasis supplied.) In case anyone actually cares about the First Amendment, this is what it is supposed to prohibit. It's not about determining what is on Fox or what it is on NPR. It is about preventing the government from determining what is on Fox and NPR. And that's why I join the Extreme Right in seeking the removal of government funds from NPR. NPR will be the better for it:

NPR can certainly survive without the [government] subsidies. It gets very little direct money from the CPB—less than 2 percent of its budget. [T]he network has been picking up other sources of support, just this month receiving a $1.8 million grant from George Soros' Open Society Foundations—already more than half the amount it got directly this year from the feds. As for the affiliates, nothing quite boosts a public radio station's pledge week like the possibility that those Republican meanies might pump CS gas into the Morning Edition compound and set the place on fire.

Precisely. Members of NPR can have a stronger say in what NPR's mission is. Not the government hacks. This could be a great thing for NPR.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 22, 2010 (boomark / email).