Public radio: Verge of distinction?

It’s quite possible that I won’t be able to continue part of that morning ritual much longer.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is the author of a current bill that would eliminate funding for the Cooperation for Public Broadcasting starting in the fiscal year 2013.

That funding, to be more specific, is $430 million out of a $3.8 trillion budget this year.

The CPB is a not-for-profit corporation that directs federal dollars to PBS and NPR member stations as well as other public outlets and program producers.

NPR only receives a few million dollars directly in federal funds and gets a bit more from the fees stations pay to air its popular programs.

Before I go any further, I feel like I must acknowledge that people often attack NPR for leaning to the left.

While that may be a fair comment, it’s also part of the price you pay when you don’t air daytime circus acts like Sean Hannity.

Oddly enough, Pew Research Center for People and the Press released information Aug. 16 that ranked NPR higher than Fox News in terms of viewer trust.

NPR was viewed positively by 52 percent of a test audience made up of 1,001 adults across the country.

Fox News tied with USA Today at the bottom of that list with only 40 percent of viewers giving Rupert Murdoch’s flagship station a positive rating.

Lamborn and others who have tried to attack public broadcasting in the past, such as speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995, have been accused of targeting liberal media outlets.

To be fair, I don’t think that’s what is motivating this Colorado senator.

When asked why public broadcasting drew his attention, Lamborn said he wasn’t sure.

“It just seemed like an area of our fiscal budget that was self-contained, easy to understand,” he said.

I think he’s right in the sense that NPR would be a neat, well-packaged area of the budget to trim.

However, I think it’s important to consider what the country would be gaining versus what it could stand to lose.

NPR is a profitable organization.

However, not all of its member stations are, and it’s those member stations in rural areas that would ultimately shut down without federal subsidies.

Asked to quantify how bad the damage could be to the public radio system, Stacey Karp, a spokeswoman for the Coalition of Public Media Organizations, said, “We believe the fiscal solvency of up to 100 public radio stations will be put in serious jeopardy immediately if federal funding for CPB is eliminated.”

Lamborn said in a time of widespread Internet access and multiple cable networks, government subsidizing of broadcasting is no longer needed.

I disagree.

I think the government owes its people some kind of content quality.

Maybe “owes” sounds a little entitled.

How about, maybe the government, as an ideal, would benefit from having a well-informed electorate.

After trampling the seal of good broadcasting and selling its airwaves to news organizations that only answer to advertisers, I’d say it’s the least they could do.

Classical music may not be your thing, but NPR is one of last things standing between you and an endless sea of entertainment on par with that of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”

“I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.” – Newton Minnow, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.