George Soros hid huge donations to NPR
From John Fund at the WSJ's Political Diary:
. . . At a time of trillion dollar deficits, every Democrat voted to continue funding the network even though the sum total of public radio's budget that comes from government sources amounts to only 10%. Interestingly, seven Republicans voted to support NPR, most of them from tony suburbs of Seattle, Atlanta and New York City where NPR is popular with chablis-and-brie listeners of all parties.
The NPR vote came just hours after the Daily Caller revealed how much NPR gets from key liberal donors, and how much it strives to make sure that isn't well known. In the third tape that video provocateur James O'Keefe made of conversations with top NPR executives, its director of institutional giving revealed that left-wing billionaire George Soros had made significant donations to the organization before his controversial $1.8 million gift last year, which went to support NPR reporting in state capitals.
Ms. Lilley explained to an associate of Mr. O'Keefe's, who was masquerading as a potential donor from a Muslim group, that Mr. Soros had decided he didn't want on-air publicity about his grant. "George Soros and the Open Society Institute gave us $1.8 million, and they have decided not to use on-air credits because of what's happening in Congress (with attacks on NPR)," Ms. Lilley said.
She also noted that Mr. Soros's foundation first contributed to NPR in 2000 and that some of the money went to fund a documentary critical of the death penalty as it's employed in Texas. It aired on October 12, 2000, a day after then-Texas Governor George W. Bush was questioned about the death penalty in a debate with Democratic candidate Al Gore. . . .
Labels: mediabias
posted by John Lott at 4:18 PM
2 Comments:
The problem that I see with “National People's Radio” is the absence of a "war strategy" to destroy that organization. They should be stripped of government funding of course, but then they should have the unfairness of the left's "fairness doctrine" rammed down their, ultimately communist, gullet. I think that they should be required to broadcast the 3 hours a day of the Rush Limbaugh Show, “for the sake of balance“, though since that would leave them 21 hours a day of left leaning broadcasting, I don't see how that would be enough to be called "balance". Still, 3 hours of good ol' Rush every day would send the wine and brie crowd heading for the hills, and taking their checkbooks with them. What's left of NPR might convert to Top 40 stations, with plenty of commercials. I'd love to hear that happen.
“Frank put on a top forty station,
got on the Hollywood Freeway
headed North.
Never could stand that dog.”
- Tom Waits, “Frank’s Wild Years”
I clearly remember that death-penalty piece in 2000, that it sounded much more like an advocacy piece, and was curious about its timing.
I'm honestly not enthusiastic about the death penalty, but that's not the point. I'm less enthusiastic about a publicly-funded media outlet deciding to put its resources behind one candidate or another, and further refusing to disclose its sources of funds.
Time to pull the plug on the tax money. It will survive anyway, on private donations.
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