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Fallout for NPR
In the wake of the controversial firing of senior analyst Juan Williams, are you looking for some information about NPR – its origins and funding? Calls and threats are being made from some quarters to have the Congress “de-fund” public radio and televison.
NPR – National Public Radio – was created in 1970 following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed this act into law on November 7, 1967. This law established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and created PBS – the Public Broadcasting System in addition to NPR. The local NPR station is Boston’s WBUR-90.9 FM – http://www.wbur.org/.
For a breakdown of public radio finances check the NPR wesite here: http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/publicradiofinances.html
For those who like pie-charts:
Juan Williams has always been one of those radio personalities (like Dan Rea on WBZ) who cause me to immediately change the channel when I first hear their voices. NPR was probably looking for a reason to get rid of this guy anyway. Too bad they picked such a controversial topic.
Dick and I must share the same media personality radar. The “new” Juan Williams turns me off, so I turned hiim off—but if my memory is correct I recall having a favorable opinion of Juan Williams when he appeared on the media scene years ago. Did he have some kind of mid-career attitude correction? As for Dan Rea, he lost me from the start. I recall him breaking in as a right-wing microphone jockey at WBZ Radio in the 70s. In those days, after John Kerry lost the 1972 congressional election in the FIfth District, he was an occasional host on WBZ at night, filling in for Jerry Williams maybe. He was the left and Dan Rea was the right. To his credit, Rea was a good investigative TV reporter on WBZ TV for many years.