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Who should pay for public radio?
How do you think public media should be funded? Commentator Tucker Carlson says cut federal funding and let the listeners pitch in.
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One of the on-again off-again debates in Washington is who ought to pay for public broadcasting: The government, which helps support hundreds of public radio stations across the country, or us, listeners, who give millions of dollars every year that help shows like this one get on the air.
Commentator Tucker Carlson says listeners could -- and should -- pay more.
Tucker Carlson: I love public radio. I listen to it every day. But sometimes, as I drive to my white-collar job in my expensive foreign car, surrounded by fellow public radio listeners driving to their white-collar jobs in their expensive foreign cars, I feel a little guilty. All of us are pretty affluent, I think to myself. Do we really need a federal subsidy?
I live in Washington, D.C., but the scene would be familiar to anyone who lives in Winnetka, Ill., the North Shore of Boston or the westside of L.A.: In general, the richer the zip code, the more people tune into public radio. Public radio listeners tend to have a household income more than $30,000 above the national average. They're also whiter, better educated and more than twice as likely as ordinary Americans to work in top management. Not the profile of your average welfare recipient.
Yet that's in effect what we are. Public radio receives more than $100 million a year in tax dollars. Teenaged shift workers at McDonald's, every harried single moms emptying wastebaskets at a law firm, lettuce pickers in California are laboring so that you and I -- you in your Prius, me in my Saab -- can listen to a certain sort of educated news and opinion as we cruise in air conditioned comfort to the office each day. Has there ever been a more unfair tax?
Every few years somebody in Congress tries to kill it. Public radio executives never quite defend their subsidy -- that would be impossible to do with a straight face -- but instead they respond by pointing out that lots of people really, really like public radio. That's true. Of course you could say the same thing about the Rush Limbaugh Show. And that's the point: When people like something, they'll pay for it. Public radio listeners could certainly pay the whole tab for public radio. They just don't want to. Maybe, just to be decent, we should start.
Tucker Carlson is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller and a member of Maine Public Broadcasting.
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Quick, tell me the last time you heard an on-air fundraising pledge drive for CBC (Canadian) ABC (Australian) or BBC broadcasting stations?
We love to brag about this being the greatest country on earth but we increasingly don't act like it: we don't like paying taxes to run it, we don't trust our courts (military commissions, anyone?) or our judges (recusal? Ha!) or our media (ever heard anyone call it "Faux" news?)
Had radio or television existed back when Benjamin Franklin lived, I have no doubt he would have pushed for a constitutional mandate for public broadcasting in the same way he advocated for a national postal system. Some things need to be publicly supported no matter where you live.
Every other leading nation in the world provides a public radio service, hell, we even provide Voice of America to all of our Allies and Foes around the globe.
People of all incomes benefit from public radio, and it is shameful that they have to fundraise as much as they do now. They should focus on the news, and not putting their hands out. The BBC or CBC is not put in such as position.
More important public radio and television are under constant attack from corporate interests, we have all seen the slow degridation of NPR in terms of corporate influence into stories and editorial decisions. This is happening on our watch, people! This is on us.
Mr. Carlson's over simplification of the issue is insulting, especially considering the fact that his father captained the public radio ship for some time.
The issue has always been and will always be, independence, free from the pressures to raise capitol, rather than public awareness.
The comparison to Rush Limbaugh makes me think Mr Carlson is a bit out of touch with reality. Limbaugh is flagrant entertainer, even most of his listeners know this, he is not the news.
If I wanted news and reporting that is not publicly funded, I would turn on Fox News or MSNBC but, we all know whats wrong with being informed by a "news" corporation with profits taking a higher priority than its standards of journalism.
I was excited to hear Mr Carlson's opinion on Marketplace, one of the many good things about public radio is the scope of opinions it embraces, but I was truly disappointed to hear he is still the person I remember from FoxNews, more of a talking point than a journalist.
Personally, I don't understand what the argument is here. Public radio is just that, the ability to neutralize media to provide the most objective news and information and make that available to the masses. By the GOP's own admission, the Buffet tax would raise $46.7billion in tax revenue, if it had been implemented.
(http://www.gop.com/images/research/the_buffett_tax_politics_not_math.pdf)
So Tucker, answer me this, why are you wasting my and other Public Radio listeners time by talking about the $100million which funds the last great true voice of the media?
Why would you want to remove the last great equalizer in our society today?
> Why would you want to remove the last great equalizer in our society today?
Who would?---well, someone who believes that some people are better than others. Now, it's better that people think that this were so on the basis of wealth, compared to race or Party membership gender or faith/lack-of...but still obnoxious, making success at a particular market game the basis of determining personal worth. Such people favour the Most Holy Market and at heart hate any power vested in democracy because the Market [cue angelic choir] weights its decisions by how much money one has, leaving most decisions in the hands of those proven Worthy, whereas democracy gives all kinds of losers and moochers and looters actual power, which they don't deserve. Why _shouldn't_ Wm Gates III have three hundred thousand as many votes as the average middle-class person?
Tucker Carlson surmises that the NPR audience (and contributors) consists of people like him—and he seems to think that we “white collar workers” drive “expensive foreign cars,” like late-model Saabs and Priuses to work, and because “we” are THE NPR demographic, we can afford to support NPR to the level required to keep it on the air. “All of us are pretty affluent”? Yes, compared to those moms emptying trash at the law firm and the lettuce farmers, we probably are affluent. But we aren’t apparently anywhere nearly as affluent as Tucker Carlson. Is he being ironic? I’d like to think that he’s trying to get a reaction, trying to make the point that it really would be a good idea for those people earning over $250K/year to pay more taxes in order to pay for things like subsidies to NPR (along with health care, fire and police protection, education for the workers of the future, stuff like that). But he didn’t sound ironic, so I can only think he’s clueless about us—the other white collar workers (university instructors, writers, journalists, teachers and others). Some of us can’t begin to afford a new Prius (even if our environmental sensibilities would dictate it) and can only give to our public radio stations at the “anything you can give” level. What would our local public radio affiliate do if it had to rely on people like me—the real middle class?
I would relish hearing a conservative say, "I think public radio is great, so the government should continue to contribute a small amount of money to support it."
This is standard concern trolling. It usually takes the form of "X is great. I love X as much as you, if not more! It pains me so much to say that X is killing our democracy and can't continue in its current form. Hey, I wish X could keep doing it's thing, but we're going to have to have a tough conversation about how to change X if we don't want to see [disproportionately bad result].
I'm sort of failing at my own advice, but not engaging this argument is the best response to it.
Holy cats! I make less than $35k, drive a 19 year old Volvo, take public transportation to work, and have been a faithful listener to NPR/public radio for over 35 years. Clearly not the same demographic as Mr. Carlson. And I'm not complaining. But that's not the point. The point is: in a democracy it is our responsibility to ensure that our citizens are educated and well-informed. Public libraries, public schools, and public broadcasting fulfill that promise. I'm happy to pay taxes to support those institutions, and am proud to be a sustaining member of both my local public radio and television station. It's an investment in my democracy. I suspect that most public broadcast listeners and viewers are familiar with the concept of the "commonwealth." You, Mr. Carlson, apparently are not.
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