Michael Barone: Why NPR should urge Congress to end its subsidy

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

What do they put in the water cooler over at NPR? First, they fire Juan Williams in October for comments he made on Fox News Channel and Vivian Schiller, the CEO of public radio, smilingly suggests he needs to have his head examined.
This week a sting video shows NPR Foundation President Ron Schiller (no relation) saying that Tea Party activists were "seriously racist" and telling two purported Muslim program underwriters that there aren't enough "non-Zionist" news organizations.

Vivian Schiller was denied her 2010 bonus and Ron Schiller, an NPR spokesman says, is already on his way to a job elsewhere. But, with a new large Republican majority in the House of Representatives, NPR leaders could hardly have done a better job of persuading Congress to zero out public radio funding.

NPR's response to defunding threats has been incoherent. Its spokesmen point out that NPR itself receives relatively little public money. But then they saying defunding would be disastrous because more money goes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which funds public radio stations that buy NPR programming.

Let me offer what is intended as a helpful suggestion to NPR: Don't fight defunding. Instead work with Congress to get NPR and CPB off the public payroll.