NPR CHANGING ITS TUNE ON IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC FUNDING

After firing Juan Williams, NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller attempted to dismiss the notion that de-funding her organization would have minimal effect because taxpayer dollars account for so little of NPR's income - most of their money comes from donations and such a move would be virtually inconsequential. The line of thinking was one of, 'you can go ahead and defund us but it'll just be a waste of your time and it will have minimal impact on us.'

That particular tune appears to be changing. Now, Schiller is almost pleading that NPR not be defunded, not because of what it would do to her or NPR itself but what it would do to the little NPR's.

Via the Daily Caller:

Speaking at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington Sunday on the “Future of Journalism,” National Public Radio President and CEO Vivian Schiller said she takes calls for defunding NPR “very seriously,” while stressing how important government funding is for public broadcasting, especially for NPR’s member stations. She also recognized there’s a possibility that, with the new GOP majority in the House, those calls for defunding might be renewed.

“If defunding to public broadcasting were to occur, it would be devastating to public broadcasting. That’s a fact,” Schiller said.

After Schiller fired commentator Juan Williams several weeks ago for comments he made about Muslims on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor,” calls for defunding NPR erupted again.

“Almost all federal funding goes to member stations,” Schiller said. “Very, very little of it goes to NPR, but a lot goes to stations.”

While NPR headquarters only receives about 1 percent of funding from tax dollars, member stations receive about 9 percent of their funding from tax dollars, Schiller said. She said that the 9 percent NPR member stations receive from taxpayer dollars is essential for them to stay on the air.

“For small stations, and even for large stations, that’s a big chunk of their revenue,” she said. “It’s been a critical part of keeping those stations vibrant and, so, we take these calls for defunding very, very seriously.”

This is eerily similar to the arguments Democrats / Liberals make when you start talking about defunding local governments. What do they invariably say? They accuse the other side of being responsible for cutting police departments and education.

Perhaps the quintessentially ironic moment was that Schiller pointed to the intelligence of NPR listeners by holding up the comment section at the bottom of the "balloon boy" story as a shining example of their superior intellect.

“We have a comment section under our blog posts, just like every other news organization,” Schiller said. “If you look at most comment sections, they are usually pretty disappointing, you know, people yelling at each other, going off subject, there’s a lot of hand-wringing in the comment section.”

The comments on NPR’s blog post about the balloon boy, Schiller said, set NPR’s audience apart from everyone else. She then proceeded to read two comments as an example.

Nothing like pointing to a story that pales in insignificance to what important things are going on in the world. Then again, how could CAIR object to stories about balloon boy?

Perhaps if NPR wasn't so seemingly beholden to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the group who demanded - and received - action from NPR over Williams' comments, taxpayers wouldn't object so much.

h/t Gateway Pundit