NPR Funding In Danger

The House voted 228-192 to block public radio stations from spending federal funds on programming as reported by Wall Street Journal.

The bill passed by the House would ban NPR's local affiliates from spending any federal money on radio programming, limiting them to using taxpayer dollars only for administrative costs. The proposal, advanced by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R., Colo.), doesn't cut government expenditures, since public radio is funded through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The long-running tensions burst into the open last week when a secretly recorded video tape showed NPR fund-raiser Ron Schiller describing the tea party as "xenophobic" and suggesting NPR may be better off without government funding. The tape was heavily edited, a review of the unaltered footage shows. The sound bites still prompted the resignations of Mr. Schiller and NPR President Vivian Schiller, who aren't related.

This would definitely take its toll on PBS in general, because the television and radio stations work together in many aspects like providing news and informations to the public.

The Berkshire Eagle reports:

If federal funding for PBS were cut, according to the general managers of the two PBS stations that can be seen in the Berkshires, some local employees would lose their jobs, program offerings would pale, and the public broadcasting system that evolves afterward will be a very different operation.

Congress should not do this. Let's see what Barack Obama does about this.