Bill Moyers argues that stripping public radio of funding will only contribute to the final FoxNews-ification of our country’s corporate owned ‘news’ system. Because journalism is dead:
It’s also typical of the comprehensive and essential journalism that has been a hallmark of NPR since its creation in 1970. Once upon a time, in the early glory days of radio, corporate media took on the challenge of providing Americans with the kind of information critical to citizenship. No longer. Conglomerates long ago bought up the country’s commercial radio stations, closed down the news departments, and auctioned off the airtime to partisan polemicists or pre-packaged content devoid of journalism. Serious news on radio — “the news we need to keep our freedoms,” as the historian and journalist Richard Reeves once put it – has become the province of NPR (Full disclosure: We two have spent most of the last forty years toiling in the vineyards of public broadcasting, although never for NPR.)
[...] Opposing the bill to strip public radio of funding, Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas said, “My constituents turn to [public radio] because they want fact-based, not Fox-based coverage.” The attacks, he continued, are “an ideological crusade against balanced news and educational programs.”
And even Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss told an interviewer, “You know, an awful lot of conservatives listen to NPR. It provides a very valuable service. Should we maybe think about a reduction in that? Again, I think the sacrifice is going to have to be shared by NPR as well as others. But I think total elimination of funding is probably not the wisest thing to do.”
See Anthony Weiner’s remarks on the House floor after the Republican-Teaparty voted to strip NPR of federal funding (the vote was 228 to 192 — all GOP members voted for the cut, and all Dems along with 7 GOP members voted against the cut):
