Time to defund public broadcasting?

There has been much talk in Washington about defunding public broadcasting and today, National Public Radio had its own shakeup with the removal of its CEO Vivian Schiller.

The discussion to strip away funding to NPR and PBS came to light last year after liberal news contributor Juan Williams appeared on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor and made a comment about how he fells "uncomfortable" when he is in an airport and sees people in Muslim garb.

Williams, who at the time was serving as a contributor for NPR ended up getting terminated altogether by public radio network and in the days following was subjected to numerous attacks by its CEO Vivian Schiller.

The recent event to involve Ms. Schiller occurred after an undercover sting, conducted by Republican filmmaker James O'Keefe, in which an NPR executive was videotaped making statements such as the Tea Party being "racist". You may recall that Mr. O'Keefe was responsible for conducting similar stings on ACORN, which ultimately culminated into the Federal Government stripping away its public funding after controversial video tapes were uncovered in 2009.

However, the double standard of the news media seems to apply to public works as well. NPR is primarily known as a left-leaning organization and it is interesting that they would criticize Tea Party members, yet refuse to call out the same hate and rhetoric of union protesters in Wisconsin.

Hotsheet estimates that NPR receives roughly 10% of its income from tax payers. PBS on the other hand actually receives around 50% to 60% of its television revenues from private donations and grants.

Yet is it fair and honest that public radio or a public network should take tax payer money and only report the one side of the political spectrum?

Since the termination of Juan Williams, Republican Lawmakers in Washington have proposed taking away all public funding, whether it is NPR or PBS. If you ask me, I think there are far more important programs to defund, like benefits to illegal aliens and outrageous pensions to federal and state workers and all of the nonsense that tax payers have to pay for, instead of putting Sesame Street on the chopping block.

There is no question that it seems rational to apply reform to our country's public broadcasting, but it would require striking a balance between viewers and listeners of those works and obtaining news, without the controversy.