L’Etat Radio, C’est Moi

Unchastened by the backlash caused by the firing of Juan Williams, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller is spurning the outcries to defund public radio and charging ahead full speed with her agenda.

Richly clad in robes that she believes are of more than Oriental splendour, she does not see that she is merely clutching close the tattered rags of a threadbare ideology. Instead, she promenades before her subjects, confidently wrapped in the righteousness of her cause, until a voice from the crowd calls out, “The NPR has no clothes on!”

Sadly, Ms. Schiller doesn’t realize care that a great many in her audience have just experienced the ultimate in cognitive dissonance: the firing of an NPR news analyst who consistently represented the best of the Left on conservative shows. This has causes an epiphany not just for Mr. Williams: ” I used to think the right was the intolerant side…” but for many regular NPR stations and their listeners, and one might think that Schiller would allow the furor to die down a bit before wreaking more havoc.

But Ms. Schiller, now unrobed to the world, goes blithely on her merry way. In an ongoing attempt to “re-invent journalism” Ms. Schiller said recently:

“We have the megaphone… And I would like to see us use that megaphone to expand the wonderful reporting that’s going out to our audiences to include not just NPR and public radio news and information, but news and information from all of the new not-for-profits.” 

Perhaps Mr. Soros will buy reporters for everyone, if asked politely.

As far back as last December, she said to her audience at a 2009 FTC panel discussion:

“This is not your grandfather’s radio. We are nimble, we engage our audience, we work with partners, we are eager to bring ever more like-minded partners into the public media,”

“Like-minded partners”… I wonder whom she means by that? And whom does she expect will pay for all her grandiose plans? Why, we the chumps, of course!

A document released earlier this year pitched a slew of taxes — on consumer electronics, television broadcasters and other entities — to publicly finance media, as well as the creation of a journalism wing for AmeriCorps and other funding mechanisms and tax breaks to prop up the industry. The FTC, though, said at the time that the document did not represent an endorsement of any of those ideas. [Of course it didn’t…]

In short, despite hitting an unfortunate speedbump named Juan Williams, Ms. Schiller is charging full speed ahead with plans to left-ify public radio even more. And she can’t see that her public is perhaps not quite as adoring as it once was; she’s still under the delusion that she’s clad in those invisible robes of almost Oriental splendour.

So tread softly, friends, lest Ms. Schiller be rudely awakened by harsh reality. Let’s just set her alarm for November 3.

Stoutcat