Outcry over Juan Williams’ firing from NPR underscores why we don’t need more government subsidies for journalism

If you think government should subsidize journalism, check out the outcry over NPR’s firing of Juan Williams.

I’m not going to weigh in on whether Williams’ remarks should have been a firing offense. You can argue that in a circle with valid points on either side and I don’t care to. My point is simply that the hiring and firing of journalists and the standards of a news organization should not be a subject for Congress to waste a single minute on. Our founders wisely set journalism outside the government. Yet House Minority Leader (and perhaps the next House Speaker) John Boehner and other Republicans are calling for legislation to cut off NPR’s federal funding.

I have criticized proposals for government subsidies for journalism in several blog posts, primarily responding to proposals from Len Downie and Michael Schudson in The Reconstruction of American Journalism and Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols in their book The Death and Life of American Journalism. They respond to concerns about government involvement in journalism by noting that NPR and the Public Broadcasting System have remained free of political influence and by discussing European nations where robust news media operate with heavy government subsidies.

Even with today’s low level of taxpayer funding (NPR reports that it gets about 2 percent of its funding from federal tax dollars, but some of its member stations rely more heavily on federal money), one controversial firing sets of calls to cut the $450 million in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports NPR and PBS. Imagine the potential for political meddling in our polarized nation if the federal dole for the media were $35 billion, as McChesney and Nichols propose.

I don’t really think that NPR’s congressional critics will succeed in cutting all federal funding for public broadcasting, but this week’s uproar underscores that this isn’t a good time to pursue the increased spending for public broadcasting favored by Downie, Schudson, McChesney and Nichols, even if the proposals had some merit.

For better or worse, we live in a time of political polarization, and both extremes have powerful motives to manipulate the media, which they do to a disturbing extent. I can’t fathom how increased government subsidies for journalism wouldn’t result in more and scarier government interference.