I have been watching PBS all day. Loosing PBS and NPR would be a loss I couldn't accept.

Federal funding, via a competitive grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, accounts for roughly 2% of the total NPR/PBS budget. The only stations in any danger of disappearing are in severely rural areas like Wyoming and Montana.

The amount is less the point than what the GOP wants to cut. They are trying to eliminate any view that is either unbiased or viewing from the left. Right wing loonies, like Faux News, are sacred to them but dissent is something conservatives despise. Freedom is the real issue here, not a % of money. that is secondary/tertiary.

I agree that freedom is the issue. But, the GOP move against NPR/PBS is largely an empty gesture. Fight against it, yes. I've already written my entire congressional delegation to vote against the cuts. But, it is important to look at the long view.

1: pass or fail, this is just another example of the patheticness of the GOP leadership
2: if it passes, this becomes one hell of a rallying point. The GOP is suddenly guilty of censorship, the same thing they accuse the left of whenever any of us dare to criticize Fox News.
3: The GOP is attacking the networks that contain the last of the best parts of traditional journalism. They will find themselves up against a much more formidable foe than they seem to realize.

mike huckabee doesnt care about muppets.

This is all posturing and distractions. Anyone who talks about defunding the CPB for budgetary reasons isn't taking the budget debate seriously. The CPB represents about 1% if 1% of the Federal budget (less than .5billion out of nearly 4000billion in expenditures). Defunding the CPB is like someone who makes $40,000/year cutting $5 out of their budget because they'll have $60,000 in expenses this year. It's laughable and the amount of coverage it gets relative to its utility is insulting to every taxpayer. You can't talk about balancing the budgets without addressing the following: reductions in Defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security; increases in tax revenue. If those aren't on the table, everything else is sound and fury.

I rather enjoyed Alan Simpson's take (on NPR) today and this Slate article on the subject.

There may have been a time in this country when public broadcasting served a purpose, but in these days of cable and satellite providers with hundreds of channels, public broadcasting is just about has needed as buggy whips.

Given NPR's decidedly left lean, there is certainly no justification for tax dollar support of a broadcast organization with a clear, if thinly veiled political agenda. The fact that an organization like Moveon.org was the first to jumps to NPR's defense tells you everything you need to know about where the organization stands politically. I also have to wonder just how serious the 400,000 signers of moveon.org's petition are with regard to their concern over the issue, because if it is truly such a big thing, just a $10.00 contribution from each signer would have offset the loss of taxpayer funding.

Then there is the Barney factor. NPR programing such as Barney and Sesame Street are multi-billion dollar cash cows, which should be generating enough money to make NPR financially independent for decades into the future.

Truth be told, without taxpayer funding public broadcasting will be able to go commercial and operate as a for profit organization where it will sink or swim based on the quality of its product, and that really is the American way.

Left leaning? Just because they don't toe the Fox line doesn't make them "left leaning." Can you offer any proof, or are you just parroting right wing talking points?

And public broadcasting does serve a need. PBS alone garners 100,000,000 viewers (according to ratings). THAT's why Fox has headed this attack on PBS/NPR: Fox can't compete.

If you look around the internet for stories about NPR, you'll find tons of people saying they are "left leaning" and you'll see tons of people saying they are "right-wing".

Fact is they do a pretty noble job of staying right down the middle if you ask me. The Republicans got their panties in a twist because of the Juan Williams thing.

And just to reiterate from my story...Williams went on to sign a $2 million dollar deal with Fox News so it's not like he's on the street with a cup full of pencils.

Okay, since you asked. Given that you are judged by the company you keep, let's take a look at who puts their money into supporting NPR. Right at the top of the list is the Soros Foundation. Now, unless you live under a rock you know that George Soros is as far to the left as it could be conceived to be possible, consequently he would NEVER support any organization that doesn't march in lock step with his political views.

Beyond Soros we have the following, just to mention a few:
The Ford Foundation
The Anne E. Casey Foundation
The James L. Knight Foundation
The John and Catherine MacArthur Foundation
The Arthur Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The one thing all of these organizations have in common beyond being extremely left-wing, is that you'll never see any of their names on a Republican's list of political donors. :-)

So to address your concerns, birds of a feather flock together.

As for NPR's ratings, they don't really have ratings, because there is no use in tracking the ratings of a television channel that doesn't have commercials. You see, ratings are all about selling commercial time, and NPR doesn't do that. As for your belief that NPR has 100,000,000 viewers, I'd be interested in knowing where you acquired that figure? This year's Super Bowl was the highest rated television broadcast in history with 111,000,000 viewers and I'm going to have to say I'm skeptical that NPR is pulling in the same kind of numbers as the highest rated television show in history?

As for Fox News, they are and have been the highest rated cable television news broadcast in every time slot for the last ten years and that's not even questionable. Therefore, I seriously doubt that NPR is even on their radar as a potential competitor.

Just out of curiosity, would you consider yourself to be the type of person who would bring a knife to a gun fight, because that's definitely what you did when you decided to match wits with me! :-)

You missed out one of the major contributors: The Koch Brothers.

Also, you seem to not know what you are talking about. NPR is on the radio. PBS is on the TV.

As for your attack about me, you didn't prove anything. Your list? Your assertion that "You are judged by the company you keep?" All that shows me is that you aren't interested in proof.

NPR and PBS exist largely due to private donations. If someone offers them money, they take it. And the people who donate that money know that they have no control over what is done with the money. It is a charitable contribution. That is the difference between PBS/NPR and commercial TV/radio. They don't have to shill to anyone.

As for viewership, have you ever been part of a ratings survey? I have. And PBS is on there, just like all the rest. The number comes from the people who regularly watch PBS. That doesn't mean they necessarily watch it for the news. It includes the 3 channels of PBS (Regular, World, and Create). It includes students who watch documentaries. It includes children who watch Sesame Street.

As for your attack on me personally, I would suggest you take a look at the tank I brought.

The question isn't if Williams is okay financially, the question has always been did NPR act improperly in discharging Williams and the overwhelming consensus is that they did. This fact was apparently confirmed by NPR's Board of Directors after reviewing the situation resulting in the forced resignation of Williams immediate boss, Ellen Weiss and the Board's decision to withhold NPR CEO Vivian Schiller's 2010 bonus for her involvement in the incident. The entire situation was a comedy of errors and poor judgement by both Schiller and Weiss which exposed the soft underbelly of NPR's left-wing leanings. Instead of being the advocate for free speech one would expect, NPR exposed itself as a bastion of political correctness. A decision that will cost them dearly in the near future!

"Overwhelming consensus?" According to whom?

Williams made a public ass of himself and violated his contract. That is grounds for instant termination in anyone's book.

Do you even know what a logical fallacy is? So far today, you've used:

ad populum: the idea that if many people believe (or do) something, that makes it right

Missing the point

ad hominem against me

an Appeal to Ignorance

Begging the Question

and some things that are very close to Red Herrings.

And that's just with a quick glance over your statements.

Tank, that's funny...I like it!! As for the Koch Brothers, I worked for them for 8 years and they were great to work for. I've been to dinners with them and many meetings with them, but I couldn't honestly say I know what their politics are for sure, because it never came up as a subject of conversation when I was around them. As for the list of PBS/NPR contributors I provided, I qualified it as only being a "few" of the most well known left-wing charitable organizations. Point being, you'd have to be in the worst kind of denial not to recognize that these kinds of organizations and ESPECIALLY George Soros don't put their money into anything that doesn't promote their ideas, AND if we were to follow your logic, PBS/NPR wouldn't have any issue taking money from drug cartels or terrorist organizations either, which may be true, but I certainly hope that wouldn't be the case!

As for me not knowing what I'm talking about with regard to the difference between NPR and PBS, this was my statement you called into question: "Given NPR's decidedly left lean, there is certainly no justification for tax dollar support of a broadcast organization with a clear, if thinly veiled political agenda."

I was addressing NPR's left-wing leanings, so with regard to your question I stayed on topic with my reply.

As for your assertion that NPR has 100,000,000 viewers, if it's true than they certainly don't need any taxpayer's money, because that would be more viewer the combined totals for ABC, NBC, and CBS.

With regard to Fox's inability to compete with PBS, they DON'T compete with PBS, because PBS doesn't sell commercials!! Once again, the whole point of competition in Television is to SELL COMMERCIALS!!!!!

Look I get it, you like PBS! That's fine, I have no problem with that, but I do have a problem with them receiving my tax dollars! So, why don't you and the other 100, 000, 000 viewer you believe are watching PBS all write them a check for fifty cents and everything will be good!!

I don't like my tax dollars going to the Iraq war. Can I get a refund for that?