Congressional Democrats howled during the debate over taxpayers footing the bill for PBS and NPR. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries lamented that people were going to die.
“This reckless Republican rescissions package is going to undermine the ability of people in rural America to receive advance warning when disaster strikes,” he said.
But as Texas Republican Chip Roy explained, NPR wasn't saving many lives to begin with.
“It took NPR, through Texas Public Radio, 19 hours – 19 hours – to post anything about the flooding on its social media pages after the floods hit in Texas. They were running ads saying people should call Congress to fund them.”
Private media sources far outpaced the federally funded ones in releasing the life-saving information, Roy said.
But cutting tax funding for NPR and PBS is not only about emergencies, he added.
“We’re going to save money for the American people and end the absurdity of this leftist propaganda being put out under public radio.”
Nick Fondacaro of Media Research Center – which found the 19 hour gap in coverage – says the nation’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) will find other, and likely more efficient, outlets to warn of impending peril than PBS and NPR.
“The removal of the federal spending has nothing to do with their contracts with the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System,” Fondacaro said.
He says the public broadcasting duo has gone back and forth between saying that taxpayer money was only a small part of their budgets and that you're killing Big Bird if you pull it. Fondacaro says now it's put up or shut up.
“If what they're saying, that this is a small part of their budget (is true), there's really nothing to worry about. And if they do provide the value that they claim they do, they'll be able to support themselves in the market and be able to compete."
