Jim DeMint vows to cut NPR funding over Juan Williams' firing (Williams calls for defunding NPR too)

[Turborama]

Source: USA Today

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., plans to introduce legislation to strip federal funds from National Public Radio over its firing of news analyst Juan Williams. He said he also plans to seek an end to taxpayer subsidies for public television.

"Once again we find the only free speech liberals support is the speech with which they agree," DeMint said. "The incident with Mr. Williams shows that NPR is not concerned about providing the listening public with an honest debate of today's issues, but rather with promoting a one-sided liberal agenda."

NPR fired Williams this week for comments he made on Fox News, expressing unease about seeing Muslims on airplanes. Williams also warned against casting all Muslims as extremists. In a statement announcing his firing, NPR officials said Williams' remarks were "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst."

=snip=

DeMint said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, has received nearly $4 billion in federal money since 2001 and is slated to receive $430 million in the 2011 fiscal year.

Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2010/10/demint-npr-juan-williams/1

---

I watched that segment and don't remember him warning "against casting all Muslims as extremists".

This is what he said:

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. ...You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. ... But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

This is a totally predictable response but what a lame excuse. Defund NPR because a Faux news commentator was fired for breaking http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9361586">his employer's ethics codes?

Pathetic!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9369165">CNN Special Comment: NPR Right To Fire Juan Williams

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Fired analyst Juan Williams suggests cutting federal funds for NPR

News analyst Juan Williams, who was fired by NPR News for comments he made about Muslims, suggests NPR should lose its federal funding.

USA Today

"If they want to compete in the marketplace, they should compete in the marketplace," Williams says today on Fox and Friends, according to the Daily Caller. "They don't need public funds. I think that they should go out there. They think their product is so great, go out and sell the product."

Williams, who has signed a $2 million contract as an analyst for Fox News in the wake of the controversy, also blasted NPR management, saying "it has no use for diversity of opinion, ideas" and notes that he was the only black male on the air at NPR.

"This is evidence of one-party rule and one-sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing," Williams writes in a column for FoxNews.com. "It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130746229&ps=cprs">NPR receives about 2% of its annual income directly from federal sources such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts, but its member stations rely more heavily on such sources, according to NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik.

Full article: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/10/fired-analyst-juan-williams-suggests-cutting-federal-funds-for-npr/1

[JuniperLea]

1. I thought I just read that NPR doesn't get government funding...

That it was all publicly funded. Looking for the thread from earlier...

[Turborama]

5. Apparently it amounts to 2% of their funding

Details: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130746229&ps=cprs

The greater worry is if they defund its member stations who rely more heavily on assistance.

[bc3000]

6. According to wikipedia, they indirectly receive a small amount

"NPR receives no direct funding from the federal government. The amount of funding NPR receives from groups like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which does receive federal funding, is less than two percent."

According to another part of the entry, that money is not distributed equally among member stations, but it directed towards stations in rural and minority areas:

"Public funding accounts for 16% of the average member station's revenue, with 10% of this coming in the form of grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a federally funded organization. Member stations that serve rural and "minority" communities receive significantly more funding from the CPB; in some cases up to 70%."

So, all told, 10% of 16% total (or 1.6%).

[Recursion]

15. NPR itself gets very little government funding

And that little comes from CPB.

Many of the member stations, who fund NPR, get government funding, though.

(NPR produces and distributes All Things Considered, Car Talk, and a couple of other shows; most of the rest of the day on "an NPR station" is programming that was produced by a member station or PRI and then sold to the station playing it.)

Conservatives always threaten to cut NPR's funding, and then at some point realize they can't because it's not there, and move on to the next news cycle's poutrage.

[jaxx]

2. DeMentia gets all worked up.

What else do we expect from a real rethug? Faux rage rules the rightwing.

[kysrsoze]

3. If DiMwit gets this upset about Juan Cole, what's that say about Juan Cole?

:D

[ngant17]

20. I detest Juan Williams for his arrogant attacks against Cuba

He was always on the side of the extremist rightwing against Cuba. He used every half-truth and distortion available to smear Cuba. I've felt insulted that NPR would tolerate that sort of anti-socialist rant, probably they allow it because he was Hispanic. He never has said one good word about Cuba's accomplishments, he's extremely anti-socialist.

To call this guy a liberal thinker, this is nonsense. He's a rightwing conservative on foreign policy, and always has been.

[Tx4obama]

4. Outcry About Taxes Going To NPR Wrong:That’s Not How They’re Funded

See the GRAPH on the link below:
Outcry About Taxes Going To NPR Wrong:That’s Not How They’re Funded
http://www.alan.com/2010/10/22/outcry-about-taxes-going-to-npr-wrongthats-not-how-theyre-funded/

[Champion Jack]

7. I'd like to see someone defund De mint

[AlbertCat]

8. The Ladies doth protest too much, methinks.

:eyes:

[husky92]

9. I Can See This Coming!

I hope the Democrats and Pres. Obama show some spine on this one and don't show the same one they showed on ACORN! Why is it every time something like this happens the right goes to their water carriers like Fox and others and they begin the drumbeat. If they had fired a "liberal" for this would they have shown the same response or if some "liberal" had gone on Fox and said something. These people spend every waking minute trying to silence people who oppose what they deem is correct. It happens on everything. DeMint is a complete whackjob and people in his state must be just as bad. Where is the outcry from the media. All we hear is Fox, Limbaugh, Beck and others calling for cutting funds for NPR. No pushback from the media? Have we gotten to that point in this country now or do corporations running places like ABC, CBS and others not care. We know where all these huge radio conglomerates stand when Rush is on 500 or so stations and every other right winger is on station after station.

[demigoddess]

10. I doubt if he even noticed muslims on a plane or elsewhere

He is probably sitting up front in first class and not noticing anybody else.

[sharp_stick]

11. Dement is nuts

good luck getting Obama to sign that.

[stopbush]

12. Ho-hum. Another R-manufactured outrage based on the old "the best defense..." ploy.

[defendandprotect]

13. We'd probably be better off with a PBS run by LICENSES that we all paid for -- !!

Obviously, funding thru Congress has destroyed PBS and NPR during periods

when Repugs have been in power -- and that's a long time now that they've had

control ..... 'cause even when Dems where minority, Repugs still had control!!

[thereismore]

14. Dement probably assumes he will be in control of the House. Not so fast, asshole. nt

[struggle4progress]

16. The New Republic: The Man Holding Up The Senate (September 2010)

by Jonathan Cohn
September 29, 2010

... On Tuesday, word got out that the Republican senator from South Carolina intends to block all Senate business until after the November elections. How can DeMint do this? The short, simple version is that each individual senator has the ability to slow down debates to the point where the Senate basically ceases to function ...

The chamber conducts most of its business via what’s known as unanimous consent ... Among the items of business the Senate handles through unanimous consent is non-controversial legislation, such as a new law prohibiting federal prisoners from keeping cell phones while serving time. (It's called the “Cell Phone Contraband Act.”) The Senate Democratic leadership had planned this week to dispense with a backlog of such proposals before adjourning, as is customary at the end of a session. But DeMint has said no, vowing to object to any further business. That means no more laws will pass until after the election — and it will happen then only if the Senate decides to deal with the bills during the lame duck period ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130209128

[askeptic]

17. So now the Republicans are FOR worker rights vs Corporations?

This to me is the crux. Workers have no free speech rights when it comes to corporate hegemony - and NPR is just one corporation doing what others have done. I think this issue should be argued in the context of worker rights vs corporate rules. Then you'll see the R's back away as fast as they can...

[mbperrin]

18. Williams should be kissing butt to NPR for getting him a $2 million

contract. Surely that lightweight hack doesn't believe he could have gotten it any other way??!!

[mikeSchmuckabee]

19. They should outsource his job to a real hispanic

then they could get a tax break and more funding.