Consider this scenario… in the monotone voice of Ira Glass, “Tonight on This American Life, we examine how crypto-fascist Donald Trump threatens the federal funds required to produce my obtuse radio show.”
Undercutting the entirely snarky comments from above, in all seriousness though, President Trump’s apparent plan to cut cultural programs and privatize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) makes sense from a fiscal conservative standpoint.
On a standpoint that holds the taxpayer-funded broadcast organization’s bias accountable, the move also makes perfect sense.
Simply put, the cutting and, even privatizing, programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will assist is getting the government out of the news media and will help bring some economic reality to the “non-profit” CPB. In further examination for clarity, the financial support for the “corporation” is heavily dependent on member stations fundraising while still taking in millions, annually, from federal, state, and local government grants to feed the smug-NPR-class their bias coverage.
Regardless, though, Trump’s plan couldn’t have come at a better time…
Many of my main reasons for supporting the privatization of public broadcasting is mainly seen that the programs coming from CPB, the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio, has operated as a propaganda machine for the dominant political party for nearly a decade.
One columnist, in a 2011 op-ed for Fox News, even pointed to how NPR executives admitted that several of their personalities and journalists are liberal. Even the executives at the time are considered liberal, citing the columnist named Mike Gonzalez (of the Heritage Foundation). Of whom, Gonzalez recollected an incident where NPR’s chief fundraising officer at the time was caught disparaging Jews and Tea Party groups.
Nevertheless, when you examine the personalities and journalists, like Ira Glass, they have an outright bias against the right.
In fact, our friend Mr. Glass said on his show that, “Journalism, in general, reporters tend to be Democrats and tend to be more liberal than the public as a whole, sure. But that doesn’t change what is going out over the air. And I feel like, well, let’s measure the product,” of what goes over the air or in print. Sadly, though, views do change editorial slants and create biases (And dare I say that this is the case for conservative media).
Furthermore, the fact that the media content that NPR and PBS produces is more liberal in editorial policy, these lends credibility to any dropping of the program from the federal ledger.
Annually, CPB is appropriated over $440 million. Though many on the left are making this claim to discredit the plan due being a “miniscule” part of the budget, the simple fact of fiscal conservatives and good ‘ole financial can yield that even the slightest of savings can have a long-term benefit.
The solution is to merely let the CPB be swooped up into the market place. If we are being honest, in addition, with the popularity of the programing from CPB, especially among millennials, the newly privatized CPB will do just fine without the federal teat. In fact, it could do so well that CNN will be faced with a challenge, ergo giving personalities and journalists in conservative media more firepower.