The first preset on my car’s radio is Kansas City’s National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate, KCUR. I appreciate NPR for providing the deepest and broadest radio news to be found anywhere on the radio dial.
Where else can you hear a 10-minute report on the tottering economy in Italy or a lengthy treatment of prenatal heart surgery presented, for the most part, without advertisements? Why then do so many people argue for the removal of taxpayer support for the network? Allow me to suggest two reasons.
Those who work or advocate for NPR claim that the entire taxpayer funding question is irrelevant. After all, they argue, only 1-3 percent of the network’s revenues come directly from the federal government. While technically true, this claim ignores a much larger indirect taxpayer role in funding NPR and the considerable amount of taxpayer money from non-federal sources and in an indirect fashion.
Roughly 50 percent of NPR’s budget comes from various fees paid by its 2,000 member stations. Obviously, if these stations are funded by taxes, whether federal or otherwise, then half of that tax money is passed on to headquarters. And how much of local station revenue comes from taxes? According to information on NPR’s website, 10 percent of it comes from the federally-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Another 5.8 percent is identified as tax money.
More than 60 percent of local station funding comes from gifts by foundations, businesses and individuals. Clearly these funds don’t represent taxes, yet they are tax-supported. When an individual donates $100 to NPR and deducts that gift on their taxes, whatever taxes are saved are essentially given to NPR. Given the general affluence of the overall NPR audience, it seems reasonable to assert that some 30 percent of those gifted funds represent taxpayer support.
The same may be said about the funding of churches. Certainly taxpayer support exists whenever Christians deduct their offerings. I would argue that this figure is lower than that for NPR since fewer businesses, foundations and affluent people comprise the average church’s giving base, but that support still exists.
The point here is not that churches benefit from tax deductions or even that NPR does. The point is that NPR claims that their taxpayer support is exceptionally low, while a reasonable analysis of the figures place the number much higher. My estimate is 25 percent. When confronted with this number recently on Fox News, an NPR representative dismissed my assertion as “impossible math.” In fact, she was correct; no one short of the IRS could possibly tell the exact number. Whether the figure should be closer to 20 percent or 30 percent, we find ourselves a very long way from 1-3 percent.
All of this would be of little concern were National Public Radio more representative. While not as openly partisan as some cable news outlets, NPR’s bias is a more subtle, perhaps even unconscious one. In my experience, NPR makes a reasonable attempt at balance in overtly political matters (although they have recently mentioned “Bush-era tax cuts” repeatedly without a single mention of the “Clinton-era Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy”). Where their bias shows is in matters that conservative Christians find most important. Evolution is represented as established fact. Biblical inerrancy is a quaint throwback to another time.
Biblical Skeptic Bart Ehrman appears frequently on NPR airwaves, roughly as often as he publishes a new book. NPR’s representatives would probably counter this observation with repeated appearances by Richard Land or Albert Mohler. While I applaud NPR’s inclusion of these voices, I’d again return to Ehrman, who is allowed to make outlandish claims about the Bible with nary a question.
The problem with NPR, in my opinion, is not in their finances or even in the leftward-tilt of their reporters. Their problem lies in the unrepresentative nature of their editorial staff. When largely like-minded people, educated at the same schools, reading the same magazines, staff a news organization, we shouldn’t be surprised that they fail to represent those outside their clique.
I’ll keep KCUR on my radio presets, but I would very much like to see them and their parent network represent all the people whose taxes make their programming possible.
MARK BROWNING