By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
July 19, 2025
According to the political ideology that I subscribe to (libertarian), I’m supposed to be in favor of ending government funding of NPR. And from a theoretical point of view, I agree with that position.
But for me, the real world always supersedes any theory. NPR, along with its government funding, is a long standing tradition in this country, just like the national parks, the national museums, and the Post Office. So even though it goes against libertarian theory, I support a continuation of all of those things.
I like to call myself a “bad” libertarian because I am always happy and willing to disagree with libertarian theory whenever there is real world evidence against it.
Anyway, a lot of people who subscribe to libertarian (and conservative) ideology want to end government funding of NPR.
But I have a much better idea.
We should continue with government funding of NPR, but we should also ask them to please explain why their editorial board consists of 87 registered Democrats and 0 registered Republicans, and why they suspended senior editor Uri Berliner after he mentioned that information in an essay that was published by The Free Press.
On April 9, 2024, the Free Press published this opinion column by NPR senior editor Uri Berliner:
Original: https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
In that opinion column, Berliner wrote the following:
I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None.
Seven days later, on April 16, 2024, NPR published the following:
Original: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1244962042/npr-editor-uri-berliner-suspended-essay
NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism
NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had “lost America’s trust” by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.
Berliner’s five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.
Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner’s essay for the online news site The Free Press. It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network’s coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.
Instead of defunding NPR, we should ask them to please explain why their editorial board consists of 87 registered Democrats and 0 registered Republicans, and why they suspended senior editor Uri Berliner after he mentioned that information in an essay that was published by The Free Press.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: danfromsquirrelhill
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
