Public Funding And NPR

NPR CEO is out and the question on the floor, should public funds continue for NPR?

Public broadcasting is one of the first targets to draw fire from Republican budget cutters on Capitol Hill.  Conservative commentators are quite open in saying the attack is political.

But NPR has also been spectacularly shooting itself in the foot lately.

First there was the Juan Williams meltdown. Then, yesterday, the release of a provocateur’s tape showing a top NPR fundraiser ripping into the Tea Party faithful over lunch.  NPR’s federal funding is well and truly on the line here.

Now, NPR’s CEO has been sacked.

This hour, On Point: a sting on NPR and the question before Congress: should public funding go?
- Tom Asbrook
Guests:

Keach Hagey, media reporter for Politico.

John Fund, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, where he writes the weekly “On the Trail."

Michael Massing, contributing editor for the Columbia Journalism Review and frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.

Mark Vogelzang, station manager at NPR affiliate WBFO in Buffalo.  Member of the NPR board from 2001 to 2008.

More:

Read the Congressional budget through fiscal year 2011.

Look over the list of program cuts proposed in the budget.