This is why I HATE NPR

[unrepentant progress]

1. It all goes back to the deal with the devil they made in 1983 to keep the network alive

NPR was hated by Nixon and most of Washington from its inception. They really were anti-war. By 1983 though Frank Mankiewicz brought NPR to the brink of bankruptcy after attempting a disastrous aggressive expansion plan. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting loaned NPR $7 million but with the stipulation that the network undergo a dramatic reorganization. NPR would no longer be funded directly, and the money given to the member stations instead, who would then pay subscription fees. This resulted in the member stations having much more control over NPR than before. As we all know, the member stations' boards tend to be dominated by wealthy right wingers. And so NPR began its rightward drift. Through the 1980s it was still pretty good, but the drift accelerated in the 1990s, and by the time the 21st century rolled around NPR was well used to being a right wing punching bag whose only recourse was to make its programming ever more tame, and its news ever more propagandistic. There are many other problems with public radio in this country, of course.