Ask Yourself: What Are We Losing While We Toss Money at NPR and PBS?

March 31st, 2020 11:44 AM

MRC founder and president Brent Bozell took to Twitter on Monday to underline how non-essential PBS/NPR stations are taking $75 million from the emergency $2 trillion "stimulus" bill to deal with the economic ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic.

This is what America did NOT get because of PBS/NPR:

-- 300,000 Covid-19 test kits

-- 4,166 ventilators

-- 21,428 hospital beds

-- 192,307,692 masks

-- 357,483,318 pairs of medical gloves

-- 12,500,000 bottles of hand sanitizers

Speaker Pelosi's original "stimulus" proposal would have granted $300 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, so it was reduced by 75 percent. 

Lobbyists for the public broadcasters claim this money will go to "local news and information," "distributing emergency alerts," and "partnering with local and state educational authorities to provide remote learning services for millions of pre-K to 12th grade students." But they use the same talking points about their everyday funding. 

To many conservative Americans, NPR and PBS stations are better known for partisan information and misinformation, like these recent items from NewsBusters: 

-- PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor hounded the president for using the term "Chinese virus"

-- PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor shamed the president for questioning what governors are requesting

-- PBS doing an hour-long documentary trashing the National Rifle Association, like that's relevant right now

-- NPR putting on a Biden-donating public-health expert to trash the president's virus efforts

-- NPR fondly recalling the 12th anniversary of Barack Obama's "race speech," as if that's preciously newsworthy

-- PBS pundit David Brooks trashing Trump: "this is what happens when you elect a sociopath as president"

-- PBS talk show host Christiane Amanpour finding the environmental "silver lining" in a deadly virus

If you sensed that the Democrats inserted PBS/NPR money into the bill to get more of what these links describe, you're not wrong!