Public Radio
Why is that a thing?
For me, radio is all about Rock. Preferably the Rock I grew up with, played as loudly as possible. Always has been, it’s how I drive.
Think AC/DC:
And I’m lucky, because in a tiny little town just to the South of my home, there’s a radio station that plays just the kind of music I like.
Because I only really listen to radio in my car, and because I prefer music while driving, I’ve never spent any time listening to National Public Radio. It’s just not my thing.
But NPR sure has been in the news recently.
It all began when one of NPR’s senior editors wrote an essay, published in The Free Press, exploring his thoughts about why NPR’s audience has been shrinking, and why the public’s trust in its reporting is in decline.1
This resulted in others within NPR’s orbit writing their own thoughts about what is wrong with NPR. Some reaching much different conclusions than the writer who started it all off.2 Things that may have stayed in house under normal circumstances were suddenly published, for all to see.
To make matters even worse, instead of considering the possible merits of the criticism it was receiving, NPR’s official reaction was to simply suspend the editor who wrote the first essay.3
It’s all a sad story of public relations going horribly wrong.
But does a government funded outfit like NPR need good public relations? The IRS is surely despised, yet thrives. Because bureaucracy doesn’t need to respond to the will of the people. It just keeps on growing.
Undoubtedly we need a healthy press if we are to have a healthy republic. And legacy media has certainly been in a financial free fall for a long time now. Taxpayer supported reporting might seem like a good solution. But it is not. Reporting paid for by the government is reporting that government can coerce if it chooses, and that is not a free press.
We don’t need government funding of news reporting, we need better business models for news organizations. Those exist.
My own hometown newspaper came under new local ownership some years ago, and seems to be thriving. It is doing this by remaining hyper focused, covering our local schools, our local governments, and our local civic groups.4
The New York Times is profitable, and its profits are growing year over year. It’s doing this by embracing a paid digital subscription model.5 Taking a much different approach, The Guardian doesn’t use paywalls, but over a million and a half people send voluntary donations to support its work.6
Finally, right here on Substack journalism is thriving, and profitable. Indeed the essay that sparked all of this reporting about NPR was published here, in The Free Press.
Government is not the answer, profitable business models are.
As I consider all of this, I can’t forget that this past Monday was April 15. The day the government expects its cash. Tax time.
And those taxes are what finance a great deal of NPR’s operations.7
The population of the United States is over 333 million. 23.5 million people listen to NPR in any given week.8
Is it in any way reasonable for our federal government to require that the 309 million people who don’t listen to NPR, pay for NPR? To require 309 million people to subsidize the radio listening habits of 23.5 million others?
I can’t help but realize that taxpayers aren’t subsidizing my listening to AC/DC.
The very idea of government subsidized press is anathema to the principle of a free press. A free press without which our society can not function.
https://slate.com/business/2024/04/npr-diversity-public-broadcasting-radio.html
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1244962042/npr-editor-uri-berliner-suspended-essay
https://chronline.com/
https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2022/news-alone-is-no-longer-the-driver-of-new-york-times-subscription-growth/
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/dec/09/what-do-you-get-when-you-support-the-guardian-supporter-subscribe-contribute
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3950550-the-truth-about-nprs-funding-and-its-possible-future/
https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/public-broadcasting/
I’ve never listened to NPR so I can’t really give an educated opinion as to its content. What I do know is if the government decides to use funding as a way to control or censor the content or the way in which it is reported, the populace would cry censorship and probably be correct. Yet, if NPR was privately funded through advertising, and the advertisers used their money to control the content, no one would say anything. IMHO, we lose sight of the bigger picture of censorship. It isn’t just the stifling of speech, spoken or written, but control of how the speech is presented. Whether taxes should pay for something that serves so few of the population is a debate for another day.