Does government funding give the government an advantage in shaping the news?

Great, so NPR has the resources to create new story lines that the rest of the media doesn't have.

As daily newspapers continue to shed Washington bureaus and severely slash their staffs, fewer reporters than ever are serving as watchdogs of the federal government. Rare is the reporter who is assigned to cover one of the many federal departments, agencies or bureaus that are not part of the daily news cycle. . . . Networks and cable television news outlets certainly have reporters in Washington, but they concentrate on politics and the story of the day out of the White House, the Capitol and the most visible departments, such as Defense, State, Justice and Homeland Security. National Public Radio has beefed up its Washington coverage the past several years, and its reporters--many of them former newspaper writers--do have time for enterprise. Yet when it comes to departments, it sticks to the same handful as television. . . .