Journalism is dead. When Bill O'Reilly said as much years ago I thought he was exaggerating. It is certainly no exaggeration now, if it is lamestream, 'woke'-captured, Democrat shill outlets such as National Public Radio (NPR). Here:
But we can thank Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at NPR, for revealing the main reason for journalism’s dire situation: Americans these days just don’t trust the news.
Berliner’s first-person account of the past near-decade at NPR – from Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign through the present – reveals a litany of reasons for this loss of faith. Berliner argues that NPR’s increasingly leftward tilt, lack of transparency, ideological groupthink and prioritization of diversity of identity and physical appearance above other values have led the organization astray.
That was a year ago. Things are worse now. If you like NPR programming, write them a check! Just don't demand that they receive taxpayer support. We are in fiscal crisis, and budgetary cuts must be made. If such inessentials as NPR and PBS cannot be defunded, what programs can be defunded?
Some think that a refusal of sponsorship amounts to censorship. But that is foolishness pure and simple and duly refuted here.
So one reason to defund NPR is that we cannot afford it. But there is a much better reason.
Even if we could afford it, NPR in its present configuration should not receive Federal support. And this for the simple reason that it is plainly a propaganda arm of the Left.* If you deny the increasingly leftward tilt of NPR, even unto 'wokery,' then you are delusional and not worth talking to. So I'll charitably assume that you are sane and admit the bias. The next question I will put to you is whether you think it is morally right that tax dollars be used to push points of view and policies that half if not most of us in this land find deeply objectionable on moral grounds such as the policy of allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting events. I say that it it is not morally right that the government take our money by force and then use it for a purpose that is not only inessential and unconnected to the necessary functions of government, but also violates our beliefs.
So that is my second reason for defunding NPR.
Perhaps, if NPR were balanced like C-SPAN, it could be tolerated in times of plenty. But we are not in times of plenty and it is not balanced.
Note that a reasonable liberal could accept my two reasons. But contemporary liberals are not particularly liberal in the classical sense, and the Democrat Party has been hijacked by the Left. I am not arguing that the federal government must not engage in any projects other than those that are strictly essential such as those connected with the protection of life, liberty, and property (the Lockean triad). I am arguing that present fiscal facts and facts pertaining to NPR content dictate that defunding NPR is something that ought to be done.
Finally, you may enjoy watching the current NPR boss squirm and back track in the teeth of Congressional grilling.
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*I stand not only for the separation of church and state, but also for the separation of leftism and state. Leftocracy is as antithetical to the founding principles of our constitutionally-based republic as is theocracy.