I take the occasional bit of flak for not reflexively bagging on Minnesota Public Radio.

Oh, I do think it’s a travesty that the taxpayer is supporting an organization that can easily support itself.  Perhaps in the style to which it is accustomed – the MPR headquarters and broadcast center at the Taj Ma Kling, in downtown Saint Paul, would put most TV stations to shame – but then, most of us are having to pinch pennies these days.

But I think MPR – at least, the News side of it – does a decent job of balancing its coverage of the news.

But National Public Radio?  From Nina Totenberg’s Pauline-Kael-like sense of ideological entitlement to “On The Media’s” preening media elitism to “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me”‘s endless George W. Bush jokes (although they at least did have P.J. O’Rourke as a panelist a few times) to the firing of Juan Williams for going trayf on Fox News, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Board’s institutional Victorian Vapours that George W. Bush would try to appoint conservatives to their club, there is no sentient, honest person in America who doesn’t know that NPR is a center-left reservation.

Still – they have to try to keep up appearances.

Which, as an MPR News staffer noted on Twitter the other day, gets just a little more difficult when the likes of MoveOn.org leap to your defense.

When House Republicans put the money for public broadcasting on their list of budget cuts two weeks ago, there was barely a peep from either the right or the left. But that changed when MoveOn, a liberal organization that’s a favorite bogeyman for and target of conservatives, jumped into the fray.

MoveOn turned the entry page for its Web site into a petition opposing the proposed cuts and e-mailed its members imploring them to sign the petition.

Public broadcasting executives appreciate the support—to a point. But several who spoke with Adweek wish MoveOn would have stayed quiet. They’re concerned that the group’s support will help opponents paint public broadcasting as a tool of the left wing, rather than a thoughtful, educational and often high-brow approach to news and culture.

“We’re embarrassed,” one exec said.

Well, to be fair, MoveOn’s support didn’t tell anyone anything they didn’t already believe.

As if on cue, Brent Bozell, the founder and president of the Media Research Center, a conservative press watchdog, seemed to confirm public broadcasters’ worst fears. Bozell entered the debate by tweeting: “Earth to media reporters: If PBS and NPR subsidies are being promoted by MoveOn.org, doesn’t that hint at WHOSE media these are?”

Paula Kreger, president and CEO of PBS, disagrees with that sentiment.

“When you look at the breadth of people talking about us right now, they aren’t all left- or right-wing crazy people,” Kreger told Adweek. “MoveOn is out there, but so are others. It’s a stretch to point to them and say, ‘See, they’re all one.’ It’s a polarizing time, and there are some people who look for these opportunities.”

Ms. Kreger:  here in Minnesota, now that we have a Republican majority in the state House and Senate, the Teachers Union is suddenly – as in, with apparent panic – “reaching out” to teachers who happen to be Republicans and/or conservatives – a minority that the union had wasted no time acknowledging, much less listening to, in the previous forty-odd years.  Conservatives – teachers among ’em – got a good chuckle; after decades of what could loosely be called “repression”, suddenly the Union wants conservatives at the table.

Your statement reminds me of this.

But I have a question;  is there actually a conservative group, along the lines of a “MoveOn”, also jumping in to defend NPR’s federal funding?

No?

Why do you suppose that might be?

I’m open to theories.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Media, PC / "Woke" Culture, Talk Radio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.