This episode of Public Broadcasting was brought to you by Private funding.

The story over the firing of Juan Williams from NPR has taken new importance.  Williams' firing was based on his racist comments on the O'Reilly Show in a segment that, in what should have been a red flag, was titled 'Danger From the Muslim World."

In the program he stated that he gets worried when he boards an airplane and sees people "who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims."

After his firing, he reappeared on Fox News and defended his statements diffusing any claims that what he had said was taken out of context, "I said what I meant to say."

Now, a movement led by Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin are trying to garner support to defund NPR over what they consider a violation of First Amendment rights.  However, Juan wasn't fired for expressing a controversial opinion on NPR's airwaves, he was fired for violating a company code-of-conduct in a public forum, embarrassing both himself and his employer.


The legitimacy of the bigotry of the comments is not the issue at question here.  What's troubling is the form of punishment the detractors wish to enact on NPR.  They are not calling for a fine, or for a lawsuit to be settled by the courts; they want NPR defunded.  They want to take public money away from what is supposed to be a public good.

The public discourse around the defunding revolves around the idea that NPR can support itself, and therefore the government should not be spending money to subsidize it.  One of the comments in the Daily Caller article reads "Public Broadcasting will just have to find new revenue. Private companies have been dealing with this problem for years. Now it is time for public broadcasting to do the same," a most absurd logic considering they would then CEASE TO BE PUBLIC.


I am reminded of a conversation I had with my Mom the other day on the phone.  She mentioned off-hand, "You know, I don't understand how libraries stay in business.  They can't survive solely from fines."
I replied that libraries are subsidized by the government as a public good.  Her answer,

"Huh.  What's the government get out of that?"


We've gotten so used to the government constantly screwing us over and the constant cut of all welfare programs that we've forgotten that it's the governments role to serve and provide for the citizens, not the other way around.  Why should the government subsidize NPR?  Because it's a public good, and we need some form of decent Journalism.  They're not the best they can be, but they're better than almost everything else we got.