February 09, 2025
How the Government Funds PUblic Media
Timothy Birdnow
The move is afoot (not a hand) to defund PBS/NPR and there is resistance to it from the usual places, including old line conservatives who fear it will only make them mad. The claim is they receive 2% of their funding from the government. Is that so?
The fact is they only give 2% DIRECTLY to NPR/PBS but they fund them through the backdoor.
Here is an article that explains how it actually works.
From the article:
The First Amendment states in part:
Yet how is it that they fund a media outlet in direct competition with private media and not think that essentially violates abridging the freedom of the press?By it's very nature it is NOT a free press. This is picking winners and losers. Government money always comes with strings.
Oh wait; they have USAID to fund the rest of the liberal media!
The move is afoot (not a hand) to defund PBS/NPR and there is resistance to it from the usual places, including old line conservatives who fear it will only make them mad. The claim is they receive 2% of their funding from the government. Is that so?
The fact is they only give 2% DIRECTLY to NPR/PBS but they fund them through the backdoor.
Here is an article that explains how it actually works.
From the article:
"Washington plays a critical role in public radio’s finances,” Farhi explains in the Washington Post. "Congress passes millions of tax dollars through the federally chartered Corporation for Public Broadcasting to NPR’s member stations, which in turn use some of those funds to buy programs from NPR.”
Through this complicated, bureaucratic payment system, NPR receives station fees that typically account for 40 percent of its annual budget (perhaps a bit less in recent years). Considering that NPR has an operating budget of about $300 million, we’re talking about more than $100 million a year.
Again, this may not make a massive dent in the federal deficit, but few would deny there’s something unseemly about taxpayers ponying up their hard-earned dollars so NPR can pay hosts $500,000 salaries.
Through this complicated, bureaucratic payment system, NPR receives station fees that typically account for 40 percent of its annual budget (perhaps a bit less in recent years). Considering that NPR has an operating budget of about $300 million, we’re talking about more than $100 million a year.
Again, this may not make a massive dent in the federal deficit, but few would deny there’s something unseemly about taxpayers ponying up their hard-earned dollars so NPR can pay hosts $500,000 salaries.
The First Amendment states in part:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
Yet how is it that they fund a media outlet in direct competition with private media and not think that essentially violates abridging the freedom of the press?By it's very nature it is NOT a free press. This is picking winners and losers. Government money always comes with strings.
Oh wait; they have USAID to fund the rest of the liberal media!
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:47 AM
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