United Liberty
public radio
Is NPR Worth the Cost?
Tue, 01/13/2009 - 7:07am | posted by Michael Orion Powell
Throughout the country, every large town over 100,000 people seems to have a common element: a local branch of National Public Radio. In all, the partially publicly funded organization has 797 public radio stations that it syndicates to.
Public broadcasting has a place in Western society. Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia all boast creative and new publicly backed media enterprises. In the United Kingdom, the BBC provides all sorts of great programming, from adaptations of Jane Austen novels to modern day radio drama. Unlike its counterparts, however, it’s questionable whether NPR is providing much groundbreaking or innovative.
Deficit Shrinking? Ever More Reason to Cut NPR Funds
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 1:39pm | posted by Michael Orion Powell
There you will find that in 2007, Congress allotted $400 million for public broadcasting. While $400 million is not alot in the face of $1 trillion stimulus packages or $700 billion bailouts, it is a healthy sum of money. Think of how many students could get aid for their college tuition from that money or how many MRI machines could be bought for hospitals. If you don’t like that, imagine how much could be returned directly to taxpayers.
Instead, it’s going to be pay for Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me! Wow, what a critical spending priority.
Public Radio Done Right
Sun, 01/25/2009 - 10:22am | posted by Michael Orion Powell
I was a little perturbed by some of the comments to my NPR piece. Many seemed to think that I was coming from a position of “blind libertarianism,” desiring to axe National Public Radio because it was public. Apparently many of the commentators had not read the entire article.
As a follow up, I thought I would list some efforts in public radio that I believe are deserving of public funding, as they manage to appeal to the broader population of taxpayers instead of to stodgy academics. Here they are:
It’s All Politics - This 15 minute podcast exemplifies horse race political coverage, running through all the fools that made the news in the last week and lighting a fire under their ass. There’s a healthy dose of everyman humor here. I don’t feel like I need to be a resident of Lake Wobegon to get the jokes.
