19 April—La Conservatissima from down in Florida kvetched about yesterday’s disquisition that “NPR shouldn’t get our money!! They receive government money! Stop the money!!!!!!! Let that Woke jackass do some work!!!! This was your favorite station!!”

First, the woke jackass—presumably Katherine Maher—is essentially an administrator who has never worked in journalism. But she evidently does something that gets her cushy jobs. Will she be able to keep the one at NPR?

Second, while we can’t disagree that NPR shouldn’t get our money in support of its journalistic bias, one local affiliate, WSHU, licensed in Westport and owned by Sacred Heart University, broadcasts music during much of the day and night; it plays news and talk programs in the morning and evening.

WNPR, the NPR affiliate out of Hartford and New Haven, on the other hand, used to provide good music along with news and talk but dropped the music many years ago. WNPR also inflicts the most embarrassing and intrusive fund-raising breaks in the business on its faithful listeners.

WFCR, the NPR affiliate broadcasting from Amherst, until recently provided good music along with news and talk. Now it’s sunk to the musicless level of WNPR, although its fund-raising is nowhere near as obnoxious.

The saving grace among noncommercial radio stations around here is WMNR, owned by the Town of Monroe, which broadcasts nothing but music all day and night. It isn’t—is NOT—affiliated in any way with NPR. WMNR comes through loud and clear over its website when the overpriced, overhyped Bose radio in The Monitor editorial office can’t pick up a decent signal over the air.

There’s also WAMC, an NPR affiliate out of Albany that produces more of its own programming than most NPR affiliates. Also on the liberal side, but highly preferable to the same-old-same-old outside-produced claptrap. Its signal on the Bose is iffy at the best of times, much better in the Lexus. And its fund-raisers can even be entertaining.

We mustn’t forget WJMJ, owned, through St. Thomas Seminary, by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. Generally lighter music interspersed with Catholic talk and teaching. It’s Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, after all.

Many years ago, a group including a former Litchfield first selectman was unsuccessful in getting FCC authorization to start a noncommercial classical music station in town.

The Monitor’s editorial staff still favors noncommercial radio and can’t remember the last time it listened to a commercial station of any sort. Lousy music and frequent obtrusive commercials, among other turn-offs. And we won’t even sink to a discussion of conservative propaganda shout radio.

Getting back to NPR, it claims to be only marginally funded by the federal government, a few percent at most. Certainly a good part of the network’s funding comes from corporate donors, and philanthopies. (On left-wing TV, many of the donors essentially buy commercial time at the beginning and end of programs.)

Truth be told, though, NPR is as full of it as it is of itself. Put very simply, thanks to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, while NPR receives little direct federal funding, a huge part of its budget comes from federal funds it gets indirectly from local affiliates through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the CPB.

Suffice to say, the CPB, while overseen by a board of presidential appointees, is nevertheless considered a nongovernmental agency.

All things considered, then, should National Public Radio be funded with taxpayer money? The answer is easy: Corporate mismanagement and political bias aside, it’s a Hobson’s choice. It’s a necessary evil. But we must make sure that the government isn’t able to censor the news that NPR broadcasts . . .