Opinion: Why NPR Should Call for an End to Taxpayer Support

On Monday, National Public Radio's now-departed CEO Vivian Schiller made an impassioned plea for continued federal funding, saying that cutting taxpayer money would have "a profound impact" on public broadcasting.

"Modest as it is," she said at the National Press Club, "government funding is critical because it allows taxpayers to leverage a small investment into a very large one. It is seed money."

Then, on Tuesday, a secretly taped video came out showing NPR's now-former senior vice president for fundraising, Ron Schiller, saying exactly the opposite. "It is very clear," he said at a luncheon staged by conservatives pretending to be potential donors, "that we would be better off in the long-run without federal funding," noting that tax money counts for only about 10 percent of NPR's budget.

Ron Schiller made this point in what he thought was a private meeting.

But it's Ron -- not Vivian -- who has it right. And it's an argument that, if they had any sense at all, the leaders of NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service would be fervently making in public.

After all, how can anyone in public broadcasting not see that the headaches caused by taxpayer funding far outweigh the puny share this money contributes to bottom line?

Here are some of the biggest hassles:

Meddling: After NPR decided to fire Juan Williams over comments he made about Muslims, Republicans in the Senate and the House announced bills to strip taxpayer support. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., complained that NPR was only interested in "promoting a one-sided liberal agenda."

As a result of the outcry, the NPR executive who fired Williams, Ellen Weiss, was forced to resign. (And the conservative behind the sting video said he targeted NPR because of Williams' firing, which means that his termination has, in effect, now claimed three NPR executives.)

Without government funding, NPR would be free to hire and fire whomever it wanted.

Bias claims: Conservatives constantly complain about liberal bias on public broadcasting. In fact, several years ago, former Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chairman Ken Tomlinson caused a stir when he hired a consultant to study PBS programming to document that bias, which forced then PBS President Pat Mitchell to respond that PBS "does not belong to any one constituency or political party."

Vivian Schiller on Monday denied any such bias at NPR, saying such claims are "driven mostly by an attempt to find cuts to the deficit."

Without public funding, public broadcasters would be free to program their stations any way they see fit, and not have to kowtow to lawmakers complaining that they're pushing an agenda.

Uncertain funding: Public broadcasting officials might see tax money as a good, reliable source of funds, but it's subject to the whims of politics. President Ronald Reagan cut funding 20 percent soon after taking office. Republicans pushed to eliminate it altogether when they took control of Congress in 1995. President George W. Bush pushed for cuts when he was president. As a result, federal funding for public broadcasting has bounced up and down, and today it is 15 percent lower than 1992, after adjusting for inflation.

And, as Ron Schiller explained in that video, taxpayer funding makes private fundraising harder. "Our job would be a lot easier if people weren't confused about ... federal funding," he said. "A lot of Americans, a lot of philanthropists actually think we get most of our money from the federal government, even though NPR as you know gets 1 percent and the station economy as a whole gets 10 percent."

Plus, without taxpayer money, public broadcasters would be free to redirect all the time and effort they spend lobbying Congress toward soliciting more private donations.

In defending taxpayer funding, officials point to a recent Hart Research survey showing that more than two-thirds of Americans oppose eliminating taxpayer support for public broadcasting.

But public broadcasters ought to view this finding as a challenge to be overcome, not as a badge of honor.