Congress recently voted to rescind $1.1 billion of previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funds for National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service and their local affiliates. I’m not just a regular listener of Colorado Public Radio, NPR, and PBS12 and an occasional guest and donor; I’m a big fan of all three stations.
Yet I support the elimination of their public funding for one reason: it’s inequitable. Federal subsidies are unfair to taxpayers and station competitors.
Taxpayers, roughly half of whom lean right, should not have to subsidize left-leaning news coverage and analysis. I love public radio, but find the bias impossible to ignore. Sometimes hosts can barely keep the disdain they feel for President Trump, his supporters, and conservative policies from tinging their sonorous voices. Usually, though, the liberal bias is a little more subtle.
For example, a recent story on NPR about “Trump Accounts” for children in the budget reconciliation bill included listener comments. Not one was in support of the measure. I could have been one of those commenters since I oppose the accounts, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and for that matter, much of what Trump says and does. However, the segment should have included comments from supporters. I learned that in high school journalism class.
Mischaracterization of conservative and libertarian views and motivations is another problem. This may be less from intention and more from hosts and producers not actually knowing any conservatives. For example, another recent NPR segment featuring two liberal hosts described prolifers as “wanting to control women.”
As someone involved in the movement for four decades, I’ve never met anyone who wanted to control women. The prolifers I know, most of whom are strong, independent women, want simply to protect vulnerable human beings from a painful death. It’s fine to disagree, but not to misrepresent our motivation as misogyny. Of course, it’s easier to argue with a strawman than to find an actual person and ask her about her motivation.
Hosts also show a preference for liberal-preferred terms and phrases such as “undocumented,” “sex assigned at birth,” “white privilege,” “reproductive rights,” “unhoused,” and “living wage.” Hosts are not trying to gall conservative listeners. These words reflect hosts’ views or are what they think their listeners want to hear. The preference, however, can be alienating to those who hold other views especially when they are forced to subsidize broadcasts through their tax dollars.
And yes, it is true that hosts of rightwing radio and television regularly feature only conservative viewpoints, mischaracterize liberal opinions, and use conservative buzzwords. But here’s the difference: those programs are not subsidized by taxpayers. Stations have to earn their funding through advertisers and subscribers. Left-leaning Americans need not give a dime.
As a listener, I am not worried that public radio and television stations will collapse from the elimination of public funds. These funds represent only a portion of their budgets. Stations will simply have to raise more money through advertising and donations.
True, it’s a tough environment. Journalism has changed. Growing up, new news and analysis could be found in newspapers, magazines, and on broadcasts, and old news in books and on microfiche archives. Thanks to the internet, these sources now compete with websites, blogs, social media, podcasts, and online video. The operative word here is “compete.” These news and opinion sources, like their traditional counterparts — public broadcasting excepted — are 100% dependent on subscribers and advertisers without any handout from taxpayers. It’s only fair that public radio and television stations compete on equal footing.
Krista L. Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.
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