TIMELINE: Can PBS, NPR Get Matt Back to his NYPress Days?
Or at least can you stop writing pre-answered questions like: Can taxpayer-supported media exist in a heavily partisan political climate?
Can taxpayer-supported media exist in a heavily partisan political climate?
Matt, new Substacker here, and gotta say, you sure can derail my think piece on Søren Kierkegaard and Johnny Rotten with these “c’mon-man” headlines. “Taxpayer-supported media” is your topic for the day.
Seriously, dude, if you’ve ever seen the House of Commons yell and spit and throw things at each other, you might agree with me that they exist within a “heavily partisan political climate”. Just like their BBC. And their BBC 1, 2, 3, 4, Global, International, Sports, Knitting, and whatever else the poor taxpayers shell out to get news and information. And you and I both know ya have. And we know you ain’t writing about them acting all common.
So, if I Google NPR or PBS, there’s more hearings, right? And I suspect your article says that you loved Sesame Street, sure, but then Nina Totenberg or whoever, got too lefty for you. Then dates follow slowly answering your disingenuous question.
Also guessing that the CPB budget won’t get mentioned and that the “millions of dollars” that comes from their endowment will be described as “wasted tax-payer dollars”; and you won’t mention Wall Street Week in review, Business Nightly, or all the other programs staffed by Republicans—just as members of Congress haven’t, and probably won’t—either.
And they’ll act just as common.
Matt, man, I’m not Googling it. I’ve been busy…. Ok, damn. I peeked. it was two days ago. Whatever. You have worker bees. Did you even ask them to look up CPB or BBC? I’m not sure if the BBC gets it from the colonies, or just the local pub denizens, but pretty sure you’ve been to the middle east, and they know how to “heavily” their political climates out there, don’t they?!
Imagine the Pakistani National Assembly arguing about the BBC extorting however many rupees from hard-working souls in Islamabad, instead of, well, perpetuating their partisan political climate.
Which is what you seem to keep doing Matt. You know writing the sentence like this:
Will Republicans can taxpayer-supported media?
Probably doesn’t foster as much intrigue and “who me” deniability on your part. And in our current one-party system, stamping out every last outlet of information they can—even VOA and armed forces radio, I’d guess—I can only imagine, you Matt, the once-hopeful, singular, rising voice for journalistic freedom and integrity, I write with sincerity, my man…. will have a hard time defending them. And the one-word answer to your question is “Yes.” Not a substack article. Anyway, seems like you liked NPR and Sesame Street at some point. So you sat there and rationalized, starting from where? from the inception of PBS. Aha. Hence, the HEADLINE. Timeline: NPR/PBS funding debate. HA! In your head, maybe. Stockholm Syndrome must be a bitch. I’m guessing you slowly add date after date to the history of public media in the US* and line it up to knock us out of the park by the 2020s. I bet the Grover-hating hotheads they pushed onto the floor, I forget, James Comer? Jim Jordan maybe? (oh, real wizened, republic-building types) used bombast so inexplicably stupid that it seems logical to axe Elmo.
Pretty sure the CPB has it covered anyway, Matt. And if not, something will give. Adult literacy rates will plummet, Nickelodeon will beg their parent company (because parents will complain about how noneducational their programing is), and new PBS-lite shows pop-on. Some senator’s kid can’t read? instant appropriations. Something.
In fact, I don’t think you’ll like this (the cool old Matt Taibbi might’ve): I was listening, apparently in 2003**, to NPR, I guess, fund-raising time, and Ray Kroc’s wife announced a huge gift to NPR, and they didn’t want to scare away individual donors, so, they announced, then buried the story a bit. Probably a big FU to the movement towards incivility, savage tribalism at this point, seen by Joan Kroc (Rest in Power, girrrrl), who has plenty of analogues.
The cool, old Matt Taibbi probably might have donated once or twice to NPR, as well, knowing that it was a middle finger to Roy Blunt, Newt, whoever.
Suggested edit:
TIMELINE: I used to care about humanity, taste, quality writing, now I use cliche’s like “rubber hitting the road.”
* 0.002% of GDP per capita, to China’s 35% of GDP per capital. Got me. I Googled. Quickly. It’s not thorough.
** Looked this up too. It was about $310 mil in today’s dollars.