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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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Tucker, Tucker, Tucker (oh, how I would love to make a rhyme using your name!);
what your commentary fails to appreciate is that public radio is a "public service" that WE subsidize because WE recognize that it benefits US as a whole to have an alternate voice in the news media; one not driven exclusively (or ideally at all) by the profit-motive. (Now we could discuss how public radio has been effectively brought to heal by plutocratic forces and now functions merely to parrot the mainstream neoliberal line of reasoning, but let us leave that for another time). Instead I will simply highlight, by way of reiteration, that the ideal of collectively-funded projects like public radio is to create/maintain a platform from which a perspective that is not strictly driven by specific moneyed interests can thrive.
You are living a sheltered life, my friend. Living in St. Louis, I thought everyone received the extensive programing of NPR. However just travel across our nation or just Missouri, and one discovers how little complete listing of NPR is heard. Friends in St. Joseph, Mo receive at best one-fourth of what I listen to. NPR programs are very limited due to Funding. Mr Tucker's comments illustrate the limited view of America by living in the Washington Beltway. Get out of town Mr. Tucker and drive across the USA and discover what America hears and the 90% classic music, dotted by NPR programs.
I believe that there are more than enough comments here, however I'd like to say; I was amazed yesterday to find that I'm a minority among NPR listeners. I'm 24 years old, I make $24,000 a year and drive an '07 Corolla with a year and a half of payments still left. I've also been saving up for my dream trip, taking a couple of weeks to drive from the east coast to the west. I don't have any degrees other than a high school education and what I could afford in partial community college classes, but I'm pretty sure I don't qualify as "white collar". Do I believe that more financially endowed listeners should proportionately donate to help sustain and improve public radio? Sure. But to assume that all or even the majority of NPR listeners are wealthy, well-to-do elites is nothing short of naive and even offensive.
I feel your pain. But this is a more general issue in the world of fundraising. I handle this by requesting to be excluded from mailing or email promotion lists from my local PBS station, and they respect my request. But I have to renew it each time I donate. A small price to pay for public radio, in my opinion.
The cornucopia of shows and options is indeed confusing. The tiny "donate" buttons are frustrating. But not nearly as dreadful as our labyrinthine health care "system" - so I suppose one could say that public radio is a PART of the same broken system, since it is in the United States, after all. But as long as they are the only people offering a good news product, I will buy it.
Public funding in toto would be a great way to get around this issue. When the cow jumps over the moon and Dante's last circle freezes over...
The sad truth is that Mr. Carlson and his ilk think nothing of spending a billion or two on a fighter plane to supposedly defend freedom, but when it comes to truly defending the democracy by spending a mere hundred million to provide the seeds of unbiased information citizens need to make informed decisions, somehow it's a horrible, oppressive tax on the poor.
Mr. Carlson seems to have no compassion for that McDonald's teenager, harried law-firm mother or California lettuce picker. Without informative public radio programs like Marketplace, they could well fall prey to the delusion that by driving a defunct, obsolete orphan of a car, they might, in fact, be "Elites".
I had to laugh sardonically at Tucker Carlson's April 17 editorial about paying for public radio. It's the first time I've heard him express sympathy for welfare recipients and low-wage service workers - how refreshing! But in fact, such service workers are not paying much income tax at all - yet they may benefit a lot from public radio information.
For sure, listeners to big public radio stations in rich cities can pay their own way for public radio. However, the purpose of the federal subsidy (at $100 million, it's a drop in the federal bucket) is to support small radio stations and programming in parts of the country that do not have such wealthy listeners. If Carlson thinks the well-to-do should pay their fair share, I'll look for his next commentary enthusiastically supporting the Buffett amendment!
Tucker Carlson is so thoroughly disingenuous, he makes Rush Limbaugh look like a straight shooter. Tucker loves Public Radio? "Know thine enemy" is the reason, and without NPR Tucker would have nothing to complain about - it's where he gets all his ideas. Now he wants us to believe he's upset that the kitchen help are supporting NPR. Really? Tucker "50% of workers pay no income tax at all" Carlson? From what part of their anatomy are they pulling this tax? They're either moochers, or they subsidize the rich, Tucker, now which is it?
Dear Tucker Carlson,
I heard your opinion about public radio on Marketplace today. I am so glad that you and your friends are so privileged that you think we as a country should stop supporting public radio and TV. What is wrong with everybody paying 1/3 of one tenth of a cent (or something like that) for something that is so valuable to more people than you think. There is no income test for children to watch Sesame Street. Sesame Street does not turn children into little "consumers" like other childrens' programming does. I discovered public radio in 1975 when Terry Gross had the whole afternoon on WHYY back when it was WUHY. Even though I am able to be a basic member of WVIA now, for years I was not been able to support NPR because of personal poverty. I can't tell you how much I've learned from the many different stations I've been privileged to hear and see. In 1992, before I had cable, I saw and heard the "Ring Cycle" on TV and simulcast on radio. This was absolutely amazing to me. This is only one example. I could go on and on. I am a college educated "white guy" in case you need to know. I think that conservatives don't like Public Radio because "it" has a memory that is sometimes inconvenient, like the "individual mandate" was a Republican idea.
BTW, you are responsible for me finding MSNBC because you used to have a show there. I saw you and Jim Carville at a fund raiser for a private school in the DC area. I remember the fact that you and Carville were funny and "nice" to each other despite your political differences. I was the accordion player in the band back then.
Please think again before you dismiss the "poor" listeners of public media. In PA, Corbetts' cuts in public radio and TV have recently affected me negatively.
Thank you,
Mark Hamza
Tucker tried the usual right wing tactic of trying to create resentment by making government funding of public radio news out to be an elitist subsidy. I first started listening when I lived in Kansas. I don't think there are enough contributors there to keep a station going with out government help. But then eliminating public radio has been high on the right wing's agenda for some time. Tucker gave himself away to anyone paying attention when he likened public radio news to Rush "ditto head". Will we ever hear Tucker railing against tax subsidies for oil companies, millionaires, or hedge fund managers? I'm not holding my breath!
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