White House Reaffirms Commitment To Funding NPR, Public Broadcasting

WASHINGTON -- Despite an embarrassing and potentially costly two days for National Public Radio, the Obama administration on Wednesday reaffirmed its commitment to budgeting more than $450 million for public broadcasting.

Speaking hours after NPR President Vivian Schiller resigned over an undercover video that showed an NPR fundraiser willfully negotiating with a financier claiming ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissed heightened talk of cutting the network’s federal subsidies.

“We do not support calls to eliminate funding for National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as is evidenced by our budget,” Carney said. “In an era where tough choices have to be made, including the ones this president laid out in his proposed 2012 budget, there remains a need to support public broadcasting and NPR.”

It wasn’t the most full-throated endorsement -- at one point, Carney suggested that NPR’s White House correspondent, Mara Liasson, come up to the podium to help with her organization’s defense.

Still, for NPR defenders, the administration’s continued support is welcome news. Just a day before she resigned, Schiller took to the National Press Club to argue that some level of government funding was critical for NPR's ability to continue broadcasting in some of the country’s more rural locales.

The $451 million that Obama allocated in his 2012 budget is, of course, for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting and not just NPR alone. And while Republicans in Congress have primarily singled out NPR as an example of federal waste, their legislative sites are actually set on knocking out both organizations.

Comments

[gplamb]

08:33 AM on 03/10/2011

I will be the first to admit I am a fan of my local NPR stations. Interesting news, stories and programming that you don't find on other outlets.

Where else could I get programming from:
BBC - state sponsored, British Broadcasting
CBC - state sponsored, Canadian Broadcasting

I support NPR, I just don't think it merits tax payer funding like our friends up north or across the pond.

[dblshell]

11:13 PM on 03/10/2011

Funny.

Is it only me, or does anyone else have their radio buttons pre-programmed to NPR stations?

Just asking...

[robertdaniel]

08:16 AM on 03/10/2011

Next Republican objective: Repeal the minimum wage.

[hoho5973]

08:10 AM on 03/10/2011

Of course they do! Why would they want to defund their state-run media?

[Meesterclean]

07:56 AM on 03/10/2011

I'm sorry, but it is very hard for me to listen to NPR right now. Every time I turn it on, it seems all it is doing is Military Industrial Complex propaganda. All I hear is mis and dis information and reasons to be scared. They do not follow up stories about corruption that are in the public's interest. Anyone who really keeps up on the stories understands that they regularly bring out "officials" who claim to know everything that we should know who quickly rattle off lie after lie. It may be best to clear this organization from all government funding as was the opinion of the man who recently resigned.

[Bobio]

07:55 AM on 03/10/2011

We need NPR.

[janedorothy4]

07:34 AM on 03/10/2011

Why should NPR or any station get taxpayer money. Let them support themselves without taxpayer help like the rest of us especially when they use our money to spread hate.

[Meesterclean]

07:59 AM on 03/10/2011

BBC and Al Jazeera do a pretty good job and they are state sponsored. The founding fathers actively subsidized the news because they understood that accurate information was essential to a democracy and that news should not be controlled by a few corporate masters guided only by the free market.

[BMcCue7]

08:47 AM on 03/10/2011

The idea that they "spread hate" is patently ridiculous.

[truly moderate]

06:41 AM on 03/10/2011

I dont think NPR should be defunded.........on the condition they get their act together.

Non partisian radio or bust! No spin, just report the darn world events!

[mike dougles]

07:10 AM on 03/10/2011

It would be so funny to have some right wingers on NPR. But they cant even stand Juan Williams.

[truly moderate]

07:48 AM on 03/10/2011

Ehhhh, Juan is realtively moderate. His association with Fox is kind of like Alan Colmes, to help balance the big C over there.

[BMcCue7]

08:54 AM on 03/10/2011

You can hear rightwingers on NPR.

Right off the top of my head: there's KCRW's show "Left Right and Center" that features Tony Blankley every week. He's a real rightwinger, and he always gets to have his say.

There's "Intelligence Squared" that features Oxford-style debates on various issues. All sides of each issue are considered and debated. When there is an issue that concerns the Right, they have someone there to advocate for that position.

There's NPR's "Talk Of The Nation," a call-in show that puts an issue out there (without spin of any kind) and takes callers from all sides. When a rightwinger calls, he is not cut off or marginalized in any way.

I'm sure there's plenty more examples of rightwinger's voices and ideas that are broadcast over NPR stations. They really do bend over backwards to try to present all sides of the issues.

[Aquinnah1]

04:56 AM on 03/10/2011

Okay, so the bigwigs at public broadcasting definitely have a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease, but let's leave Elmo out of the funding debate.
http://eightfits.blogspot.com/2011/03/who-knew-little-furball-was-lobbyist.html

[mike dougles]

07:12 AM on 03/10/2011

Elmo will be fine with public funding, the sesame street make millions on marketing. It is kind of funny PBS gives them the tv time and then they make millions of selling Elmo and the rest.
Then tell us they need more money.

[Matt Schafer]

03:21 AM on 03/10/2011

“We do not support calls to eliminate funding for National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as is evidenced by our budget,” Carney said.

--

I have to say, it is good to see that the White House is standing behind the CPB. There is absolutely no reason to defund what amount to less than one one hundreth of the federal budget-when that little amount of money makes such quality content.

Read More: http://bit.ly/fY66ou

[vigwig]

02:49 AM on 03/10/2011

The attempted "Sting" by the right wing hacks posing as "Muslim Brotherhood" trying to take down NPR w/ a fake payoff is disgusting, underhanded behavior. They were turned down by the NPR fundraiser. There was no "willful negotiating" with them, they turned them down flat. Get your facts straight.

That said w/o independent news broadcasting we would get NO real news, period.

[FatFeline]

01:51 AM on 03/10/2011

Oh dear. Obama is shooting his mouth off again. It is too bad that he can not be a bit more "firm" with the goings on in Libya.

[db08]

06:58 AM on 03/10/2011

You really do not like the POTUS.

[aceempress]

11:59 PM on 03/09/2011

But I like me some anti corporate media. Don't defund NPR.

[Uncle Bill]

11:41 PM on 03/09/2011

"The White House supports NPR"  and the countdown to the White House abandoning NPR at the first sign of GOP criticism begins.  
I hear milk cartons in Wisconsin have Obama's picture on them with Missing printed at the top.

[lynettema]

12:12 AM on 03/10/2011

get off it. If you are a Dem we don't need this kind of rhetoric.

[Uncle Bill]

12:20 AM on 03/10/2011

Time to stop enabling and start an intervention.  If we win the next election only by becoming the other party there is no reason to be a Dem.