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END NPR's taxpayer funded gravy train

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-end-nprs-taxpayer-funded-gravy-train

"This is NPR." That tagline has long been used for National Public Radio, but what it is remains remarkably in doubt. NPR remains something of a curiosity. It is a state-subsidized media outlet in a country that rejects state media. It is a site that routinely pitches for its sponsors while insisting that it does not have commercials. That confusion may be on the way to a final resolution following the election. NPR is about to have a reckoning with precisely what it is and what it represents.

While I once appeared regularly on NPR, I grew more critical of the outlet as it became overtly political in its coverage and intolerant of opposing views.
Even after a respected editor, Uri Berliner, wrote a scathing account of the political bias at NPR, the outlet has doubled down on its one-sided coverage and commentary. Indeed, while tacking aggressively to the left and openly supporting narratives (including some false stories) from Democratic sources, NPR has dismissed the criticism. When many of us called on NPR to pick a more politically neutral CEO, it instead chose Katherine Maher, who was previously criticized for her strident political views.

Some have long questioned the federal government's subsidization of a media organization. NPR itself continues to maintain that "federal funding is essential" to its work. However, this country has long rejected state media models as undermining democratic values.


Let me count the ways:

1. NPR was obsolete even when the far left had a monopoly on all news and opinion.

2. Today, you can get the news from HUNDREDS of sources, all capitalist and all available online. And you can get all points of view from these diverse sources. (Or you can just go to Fox News where you get all points of view and they get equal time.)

3. NPR is welfare to the rich. It's funding needs to be removed. It is about as useful as the Department Of Education.
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bookerdana · M
I listen to an NPR good music station,WFUV

CPB makes up about 0.012 percent of the federal budget, coming out to $1.35 per taxpayer. Last year CPB received $445 million in federal funding of the $4 trillion federal budget. CPB provides aid to nearly 1,500 local public television and radio stations throughout the country. Less than two percent of NPR’s budget comes from CPB, however CPB assists local stations in paying their dues as NPR affiliates.

The cuts will impact music stations like WFUV, an NPR music station. “People tend not to think of us as such (an NPR station), but there are music stations within the public radio system too that are also NPR affiliates and carry some of that programming and also work with NPR in a lot of different .WFUV receives $440,000 each year of direct support from CPB, which amounts to about seven percent of the station’s budget, a fairly typical number for larger stations like FUV, according to Singleton...
Reason10 · 70-79, M
@bookerdana I listen to an NPR good music station,WFUV

This shows why I'm starting to think most of the poster here are BABIES, or at least they weren't born before the turn of the century. Let me count the ways:

1. I first listened to NPR in the late Seventies. Back then, the ONLY sources of music were record stores or the radio. This was before MTV.

2. Classical music was not to be found ANYWHERE on the radio dial, because stations made money by selling ads, and there was no way of selling ad space to an up and coming discoteque by airing The Planets by Holst or Sibelius or the Opera Carmen. NPR was a government funded source of a music style most of the public didn't care about.

3. In Manhattan, (late ish Seventies) there was WRVR, the most awesome JAZZ station of all time. And it was modern Jazz, no that faggy sounding smooth jazz. In the early 80s, WRVR switched to Country, and a New Jersey NPR station started playing Jazz to fill the gap.

4. Today, NPR is obsolete. I say this because technology has taken away the record companies' monopoly on popular music. (All through the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, record companies decided who would be on the radio and who would have a hit, based on the fact that recording time was so expensive. Toward the mid 90s, that advantage disappeared as computer based recording SLASHED all recording costs. Today, you can download Cakewalk Bandlab, (which is more state of the art than what the Beatles,. The BeeGees or Hall And Oates had, and that software is FREE. So the music market is flooded. That doesn't even count what some refer to as illegal downloading sites (Limewire, Pirate Bay, etc) It's FREE on Youtube and it's legal.

5. Guess what else is flooded? Right now, MUSIC is FREE. Youtube has replaced record stores. Not only is watching music on Youtube (which also includes Jazz, Mozart, Sibelius, punk rock, Disco FREE, there is FREE software online where you can download a Youtube video and convert it to MP3 FOR FREE.

6. If that wasn't enough, ANY kind of music or any other kind of entertainment you might want is available in your car through XM Satellite Radio. You can listen to all the Classical, Jazz, Pop, Latin, Caribbean music to your heart's content. NPR is a dinosaur, music wise.

7. That leaves NPR as just another far left fake news source, and there are PLENTY of alternatives in the free market (CNN, PMSNBC, ABC,CBS, THE VIEW, etc) all the communism you could possibly want. NPR is a waste of money.
bookerdana · M
@Reason10 Yeah you keep listening to that Corporate Rock,man
Reason10 · 70-79, M
@bookerdana The first and ONLY time the term Corporate Rock came up was in the mid-Eighties. It was used by critics to describe Journey. (Apparently Neal Schon's group was getting too much AM radio play to be taken seriously as a heavy rock band.)

The popular music business today is too scattered for any labels to apply. The market is just FLOODED with all kinds of new music.

The new music is not bad. There's just too much of it.
bookerdana · M
@Reason10 Nope,its most stations in the U.S. ,bought by billionaires to cut costs..now they have a playlist of 50records
Reason10 · 70-79, M
@bookerdana Nope,its most stations in the U.S. ,bought by billionaires to cut costs..now they have a playlist of 50records

I'd ask for a link, but getting one from this crowd is like asking kindergarteners to discuss quantum physics.
Radio stations aren't cheap, especially the satellite radio stations.

I DO think it's hilarious that the goose steppers here are trying to support a radio company owned by a government that is TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN DEBT.
bookerdana · M
@Reason10 I'm not the crowd so keep pushing yer culture war cant
CPB makes up about 0.012 percent of the federal budget, coming out to $1.35 per taxpayer. Last year CPB received $445 million in federal funding of the $4 trillion federal budget........what a night mare
Reason10 · 70-79, M
@bookerdana I'm not the crowd so keep pushing yer culture war cant

Actually, NPR is.

So is CNN, MSLSD, ABC, CBS and these farting cows.

bookerdana · M
@Reason10 Oh The View cue..impressive and original🙄
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