\u201cThey have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don\u2019t want any other point of view. They don\u2019t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ailes was responding to the recent dismissal of Juan Williams (certainly no conservative) who was cut loose by NPR after he acknowledged during a Fox broadcast that he was frightened by Muslims wearing traditional garb on airplanes.<\/p>\n
We’ve had a long and interesting debate here on the In Box about the Williams affair; and NCPR’s manager, Ellen Rocco, has stated bluntly that the situation was handled poorly by NPR.<\/p>\n
I want to step past that case to make a broader point that is often overlooked in this discussion about the current media climate:\u00a0\u00a0 In every meaningful respect, public radio is more conservative than Fox.<\/p>\n
If you listen to a day’s worth of NPR programming — I’m going to set aside for the moment the regional programs produced by NCPR — you will find a wide range of information that aims to celebrate and honor and explore the diversity of American culture.<\/p>\n
You will find classical music produced by some of our finest orchestras.\u00a0 You’ll find jazz and country and bluegrass.<\/p>\n
You will find conversations about the best literature and the most innovative ideas.\u00a0 You will find deep exploration of our history.\u00a0 You will find a wide array of thinkers and scholars talking about the main issues of the day.<\/p>\n
A lot of those thinkers will be bluntly, unapologetically (but also intelligently) conservative.<\/p>\n
But it’s not just that we include a lot of conservative voices in our conversation.\u00a0 Broadly speaking, the approach is “conservative.”<\/p>\n
What do I mean?\u00a0 Simply the fact that NPR is trying to reflect and talk in challenging, skeptical ways about the nation as it exists, with the full complexity of our history, our tensions, and our aspirations.<\/p>\n
Conservatism has a long history of wrestling with the facts as they really are, and eschewing fuzzy-minded idealism and fantasy.<\/p>\n
But there is also a powerful faction on the right that indulges in a fictional apocalyptic vision of America, in which the good guys are “normal” Americans and the bad guys are “Nazis” or worse.<\/p>\n
In deciding to go down this path, Fox News obviously found an excellent business model, embracing what Richard Hofstadter famously called the “paranoid style in American politics.”<\/p>\n
Their programs mix a colorful blend of tabloid-excess, political propaganda, PG-13 smut, a smattering of legitimate journalism, and pure kookery.<\/p>\n
And it works, attracting millions of viewers each week, many of them hungry for populist bromides and easy scapegoats that together might explain the nation’s current economic malaise.<\/p>\n
But successful as it is, the Fox formula certainly isn’t conservative.<\/p>\n
If anything, it is the opposite of conservative — not liberal, of course, but hysterical and unrooted from any meaningful tradition of American life or culture.<\/p>\n
In the midst of his baldly unhinged attack — Nazis?\u00a0 Really? — Ailes does raise one legitimate question, and that is whether public broadcasting should continue to receive taxpayer support.<\/p>\n
That’s a fair debate to have.\u00a0\u00a0 So as we talk about the future of public radio, let me leave you with some facts.<\/p>\n
First, I can tell you from personal experience that the staff at NPR (and at local member station) reflect a broad range of political ideas, from the very liberal to the very conservative.<\/p>\n
Yes, there was a time when NPR and its stations were staffed by hippies and counter-culture types.<\/p>\n
These days, we tend to be middle-class folks with mortgages, kids in college, and the same muddled range of opinions that most Americans have.<\/p>\n
Second, the latest survey that I could find shows that NPR’s audience is evenly divided between conservative listeners (29%), people who describe themselves as middle of the road (30%) and liberals (31%).<\/p>\n
One of the “conservative” aspects of our mission is that we aim to be a forum where everyone is welcome, a sort of town hall meeting approach where the discussions will be civil and open-minded.<\/p>\n
I think those survey numbers reflect some success there.<\/p>\n
Thirdly, despite Fox’s fact-free claims to the contrary, public radio is hugely popular, attracting nearly 34 million listeners per week.<\/p>\n
Finally, a significant amount of public broadcasting’s dollars go to pay for specialized programming — most of it in public television –that would probably be unsustainable in the marketplace.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of this stuff isn’t political.\u00a0 It’s opera and programs about painting and explorations of science.<\/p>\n
Also, a big chunk of taxpayer dollars go to support stations in rural areas.\u00a0 The big urban stations would certainly survive deep public cuts, as would NPR.<\/p>\n
But dozens if not hundreds of small-town stations across the country would likely be forced to shut down, or become repeater-stations for nearby urban or suburban broadcasters.<\/p>\n
I won’t deny my bias:\u00a0 I think that would be a great loss.<\/p>\n
So what do you think?\u00a0 What do you think about the public radio you experience, as opposed to the strawman institution that Fox conjures up?<\/p>\n
As always, comments welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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