Conservative muckraking videographer James O’Keefe has released a third video from his recent NPR sting, which Media Matters for America notes “instantly falls apart.” On his Project Veritas website, O’Keefe says “the public will learn for the first time that George Soros’s Open Society Foundation has donated to NPR in the past, starting as many as 15 years ago.” As Media Matters points out, that’s long been public information — because NPR has issued press releases about the grants. Plus, they’re all listed on NPR’s tax documents.
NPR issued this statement after the House voted today (March 17) to keep stations from spending federal money on dues or programming:Today, NPR expressed grave concern about the impact of the approval of H.R. 1076 on the entire public radio system – hundreds of stations, dozens of program producers and the communities that rely on them every week. The bill is a direct effort to weaken public radio that would ultimately choke local stations’ ability to serve their audiences.Many small-budget stations would be placed in a serious financial bind. They would no longer be allowed to purchase any programming with federal funds. The communities they serve would be unable to provide sufficient support to fill that gap, leaving these stations no options for maintaining service. “At a time when other news organizations are cutting back and the voices of pundits are drowning out fact-based reporting and thoughtful analysis, NPR and public radio stations are delivering in-depth news and information respectfully and with civility.
The president’s Executive Office of Management and Budget just issued this statement on the House’s decision to ban use of federal funds for NPR dues and programming:The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 1076, which would unacceptably prohibit Federal funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the use of Federal funds by public radio stations to acquire radio content. As part of the President’s commitment to cut spending, the President’s Budget proposed targeted reductions in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides a small amount of funding for NPR, and the Administration has expressed openness to other spending reductions that are reasonable. However, CPB serves an important public purpose in supporting public radio, television, and related online and mobile services. The vast majority of CPB’s funding for public radio goes to more than 700 stations across the country, many of them local stations serving communities that rely on them for access to news and public safety information. Undercutting funding for these radio stations, notably ones in rural areas where such outlets are already scarce, would result in communities losing valuable programming, and some stations could be forced to shut down altogether.
Here are statements that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting just released on today’s (March 17) House vote to prohibit federal funding for NPR dues and programming:From CPB:Today, the House passed a bill that would significantly restrict public broadcasting stations’ ability to acquire programming that they feel best serves the needs of their communities.Every day, these stations serve the informational and educational needs of the public with programming that contributes to the health and well-being of the country in a way that would not be possible without federal support. The American people overwhelmingly agree that public broadcasting is a service worthy of the federal investment. At a time when international events, such as the recent uprisings in Libya and the earthquake in Japan, have a direct and immediate impact on this country, public media serves as a trusted source for informative, in-depth coverage of international, national and local news. Rather than penalize public broadcasting, the debate should focus on strengthening and supporting this valuable national asset.From the Public Media Association, the new entity created by the Association of Public Television Stations and NPR:This legislation, which would destroy a public radio system that has served the American people well for 40 years, has been passed by the House without the benefit of a single hearing on the subject. While it is portrayed as a deficit-reduction measure, the legislation has been preliminarily scored by the Congressional Budget Office as saving not a single penny.
H.R. 1076, to prohibit federal funding for station dues or NPR programming, has passed the House by a vote of 228-192.“This bill is insidious,” pubcasting champion Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) told Current Wednesday (March 16). “This is a fascinating metaphor for what is going on with new Republican majority. This isn’t about cutting budgets, it’s very much ideologically driven and pretty diametrically at variance with where most of the American public is.”
Debate is now set to begin later today on H.R. 1076, which would prohibit federal funding to NPR.During morning discussions, some of which focused on a procedural rule associated with the bill, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) reported that he offered an amendment that would “prohibit federal funds — taxpayer dollars — from being used for advertising on the partisan, political platform of Fox News.” According to a Rand Study, he said, the Department of Defense spent $6 million in advertising in 2007; he called for the Government Accountability Office to study “how and where this money is being spent.”His effort to amend the bill was defeated in the House Rules Committee during an emergency meeting Wednesday (March 16). Some discussion this morning focused on the speed that brought the bill to the floor. Last July, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised that a Republican House majority in the 112th Congress would ensure that all bills will be posted online 72 hours before a vote. Several Democrats noted that H.R. 1076 was posted at 1:42 p.m. Tuesday, which would make it eligible for a vote at 1:42 p.m. on Friday.
In what the New York Times is editorializing as “the latest example of House Republicans pursuing a longstanding ideological goal in the false name of fiscal prudence,” the House today (March 17) votes on H.R. 1076, sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), which would prohibit federal funds to be spent on NPR dues or programming.According to today’s Majority Whip schedule, debate on the bill will begin at 9 a.m., with a vote expected at 10:15 a.m. C-SPAN has live coverage.The bill would eliminate the Radio Program fund, which makes possible initiatives including Radio Bilingüe’s national program service and Native Voice One, the Native American radio service. Production grants to independent producers also would be affected.The Station Resource Group told its members that it believes the bill, if passed, would “eviscerate public radio’s capacity to address program innovation, minority programming concerns, and program collaboration among station, producing, and distribution organizations.””The public radio system will be a significantly weaker service five years from now if H.R. 1076 were to become law — that that will have a negative impact of every public broadcasting organization.”
The House bipartisan Public Broadcasting Caucus, formed in April 2001 to educate lawmakers and defend pubcasting from funding attacks, has disbanded — at least for now. It is not registered as a Congressional Member Organization for the current House session, according to this month’s list from the Committee on House Administration, which is required. Co-Chairman Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), a founding member, tells Current he is “just letting it go” as he focuses on the current fight for federal support. “The whole purpose of the caucus was to provide a neutral forum to talk about public broadcasting issues and give people a way to support it,” he said. But given the bitterly partisan funding wars over public broadcasting, “some members feel it’s too awkward for them” to belong, Blumenauer said.
About 100 WGBH employees demonstrated outside its headquarters Tuesday (March 15) as managers implemented a contract rejected by its largest union, reports the Boston Globe. The union last weekend voted to reject the final contract offer from management, which calls for allowing the station to assign individual employees to work across various platforms — radio, television, and the Web — and outsource work without negotiating. “We are at an impasse,” station spokesperson Jeanne Hopkins told the paper, “and we are implementing our best and final offer. This new contract provides wage increases, for the fourth consecutive year, only for AEEF/CWA members that no other union, nonunion, or management employees will be receiving.’’
A Maine man is in jail on federal charges that he threatened to kill or harm Melissa Block and Guy Raz, hosts of NPR’s All Things Considered, the Smoking Gun website is reporting. According to an FBI affidavit, John Crosby sent more than 20 bizarre and often threatening messages to NPR through its “Contact Us” website form. NPR contacted the FBI on Jan. 17 after Crosby allegedly described Block in a message as “an annoying [expletive] who is helping to destroy me to use me as a human sacrifice. She will be raped, beaten, tortured, and murdered very soon.” A Jan.
On a party-line vote, the House Committee on Rules today (March 16) voted 6-5 to allow H.R. 1076, which would ban federal funding to be used for NPR programming, to proceed to a floor vote on Thursday. No amendments are allowed. Members will have one hour for debate, controlled by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).
A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor, 68, has announced that he plans to retire in the spring of 2013. He tells the AARP Bulletin that he must find his replacement first. “I’m pushing forward, and also I’m in denial,” he says. “It’s an interesting time of life.” Keillor created the show in 1974 in Minnesota.
Juan Williams, writing on the Fox News website, wants to see NPR defunded. What NPR exec Ron Schiller said in the recent video sting “is just an open microphone on what I’ve been hearing from NPR top executives and editors for years. They are willing to do anything in service to any liberal with money and then they will turn around and in self-righteous indignation claim that they have cleaner hands than anybody in the news business who accepts advertising or expresses a point of view.””The work of NPR’s many outstanding journalists is barely an afterthought to leadership with this mindset and obsessed with funding,” he says. “NPR has many, very good journalists. But they are caught in a game where they are trying to please a leadership that doesn’t want to hear stories that contradict the official point of view.
Peter Osnos of the progressive Century Foundation has discovered an upside in all the recent NPR turmoil. It’s “the likelihood that, for the first time, many more people among NPR and public radio’s devoted audience of over 34 million across the country will have a clearer understanding of how the system works.” Osnos, writing today (March 16), is a senior fellow at Century who focuses on media coverage of politics and policy.
Rick Moyers, writing in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, says in the wake of NPR President Vivian Schiller’s resignation, the NPR Board needs to ask itself two questions: Are we clear about our mission? And, given our mission, do we have the right board? “All nonprofit organizations need different boards at different stages of their growth and development and need clarity about their missions,” Moyers writes. “Failure to answer these questions head-on leads to organizations that are hard to govern and difficult to lead. Just ask Vivian Schiller.”
Conservative video muckracker James O’Keefe, who caught NPR execs in an undercover sting last week, is seeking nonprofit status for his Project Veritas, “but it is certain that his application is not clear-cut, tax lawyers say,” according to today’s (March 16) Chronicle of Philanthropy. The main problem: O’Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after he and three others entered the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) last year pretending to be telephone repairmen. O’Keefe later stated that he would do it again, albeit “differently,” the paper notes. Marc Owens, a Washington tax lawyer who formerly oversaw the IRS division that monitors tax-exempt groups, noted: “If he is proposing to do something that is, in fact, illegal, can the IRS believe, with any degree of credibility, what he is saying?”
Jim Seaver, host of one of radio’s longest-running shows, Opera is My Hobby, on Kansas Public Radio, died March 14 in Lawrence, Kan. He was 92.The show’s debut was Sept. 19, 1952, just four days after KANU (now Kansas Public Radio) signed on the air. Seaver produced his last show a week ago and was thinking of the program up until the day he died, KPR general manager Janet Campbell told the Lawrence Journal World. “It was more than a hobby, even though that is what he called it,” she said.
The National Center for Community Engagement is highlighting an interesting outreach project today (March 16) on its blog. Since last summer, WDET-FM’s Truck Stop has been encouraging citizens to help use anonymous text messaging to report illegal truck driving in low income and marginalized communities. The station is also partnering with a local community action group to fight blight in the city.
Craig Aaron, new managing director of the Free Press media reform organization, posted a column on Huffington Post after presenting 1.2 million signatures collected by his group, MoveOn.org and CREDO Action, on Cap Hill today (March 15). “Unfortunately,” he wrote, “there are those out there, even inside public media’s institutions, who tell organizations like MoveOn.org and Free Press to keep it down. They would rather we stayed below the radar. They seem to think they can appease their attackers by lying low or even offering up a few ‘scalps’ (to quote one insider involved in the dismissal of NPR’s Vivian Schiller). They persist in this doomed strategy even though every time they back down, the attacks and the nasty rhetoric from the other side heats up.””PBS and NPR have been kicked in the teeth for decades — now it’s time for them to start biting back,” he said.
Sesame Street actors joined members of Congress and activists in a rally on Cap Hill today (March 15) where advocacy groups presented 1.2 million signatures to save public broadcasting funding. Cast members from the iconic children’s show described how the made a personal impact on their lives — and livelihood. “It has changed all of us and has given us as artists a place to work with such pride,” said Roscoe Orman, who has portrayed Gordon Robinson since 1973.