House targets NPR funds in divide-and-conquer move

House Republicans wanted to end funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which stakes public radio and television stations around the country, in addition to giving funds directly to NPR and PBS (two-thirds of CPB money goes to public television).

The slow grind of the budget process and resistance from the Democratically controlled Senate have thus far made a complete gutting of CPB impossible. So, the GOP has a new strategy, with Republicans in the House planning an "emergency" vote to cut only the funds that go to NPR and its affiliate stations (this includes KCRW, of which I am an employee). The bill must first go through Rep. David Dreier's Rules Committee. That vote is scheduled for today.

The James O'Keefe heavily edited sting video of Ron Schiller is the impetus for the new strategy. By stripping PBS out of the fight, Republicans hope to peel off the more powerful public broadcasting lobby in Washington. It will be interesting to see whether public television folks will continue to stand with NPR given the embarrassing foot shooting NPR execs have done in recent months.

All of which puts an even uglier spin on David Carr's recent story noting the successes of NPR in a world of shrinking news:

According to the State of the Media report, NPR’s overall audience grew 3 percent in 2010, to 27.2 million weekly listeners, up 58 percent overall since 2000. In the last year, total staff grew 8 percent, and its Web site, npr.org, drew an average of 15.7 million unique monthly visitors, up more than five million visitors. Its foreign bureaus and global footprint continue to grow while other broadcasters slink home. 

And while NPR receives a small portion of its operating budget through government money, millions of people also think that its journalism is worthy enough to pay for through contributions, a trick that the rest of news media have had trouble figuring out, to say the least. 

Trouble is, NPR has often been better at breaking news than running a news outlet. The current problems started five months ago when Juan Williams, a longtime NPR commentator, was hastily fired for remarks he made about Muslims making him fearful in airports. Then in January, Ellen Weiss, senior vice president for news, resigned after a report to the board found her management of the affair wanting.

James O'Keefe's heavily edited version of the truth

James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas crew like to edit things.

For instance, in the surreptitious video O'Keefe made of NPR fund-raiser Ron Schiller and his lunch date with fake Muslims, Schiller says he thinks NPR will be fine without federal funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In the unedited video, Schiller says something quite different. Here's what NPR's David Folkenflik reported:

Upon their release last week, O'Keefe's videos gave fresh life to the push by Congressional Republicans to strip federal funding for public broadcasting. In the shorter video, Schiller appears to be saying that NPR would do just fine without federal dollars, though some stations would go dark. On the longer tape, it's clear Schiller says it would be disastrous in the short term.

There's more. In the edited tape, Schiller says very little about his role as a fundraiser who has no influence over the NPR news department (which O'Keefe and his cohorts were really targeting). But Schiller made repeated references to his role. Again, from Folkenflik:

"There is such a big firewall between funding and reporting: Reporters will not be swayed in any way, shape or form," Schiller says on that longer tape, in one of several such remarks.
Tompkins found that meaningful, noting that Ron Schiller was a fundraiser, not an official affecting the newsroom.
"The message that he said most often — I counted six times: He told these two people that he had never met before that you cannot buy coverage," Tompkins said. "He says it over and over and over again."

Most concerning, Schiller's comments about conservatives and the tea party - the comments that led to his and NPR President Vivian Schiller's being fired - were taken completely out of context. Folkenflik:

Take the political remarks. Ron Schiller speaks of growing up as a Republican and admiring the party's fiscal conservatism. He says Republican politicians and evangelicals are becoming "fanatically" involved in people's lives.
But in the shorter tape, Schiller is also presented as saying the GOP has been "hijacked" by Tea Partyers and xenophobes.
In the longer tape, it's evident Schiller is not giving his own views but instead quoting two influential Republicans — one an ambassador, another a senior Republican donor. Schiller notably does not take issue with their conclusions — but they are not his own.
-snip-
Menz, the digital forensics consultant, said he found some of Schiller's actual remarks disturbing. But by analyzing time stamps, Menz concluded that many of Schiller's remarks in that shorter video are presented out of sequence from the questions that were posed.
"For me, in my background, it immediately puts things into question," Menz said. "You really don't know what context these were in, what was going on in the 20 minutes before and after this question was asked."

In other words, the O'Keefe gotcha video is total bullshit. Nothing that O'Keefe has "reported" can be trusted. If he worked for one of the many newsrooms he simultaneously criticizes and says he's emulating (in terms of journalism standards), he'd be fired and left in a heap of shame. This is the problem with agenda journalism - the agenda drives the ethics (and usually runs them over) and very little in the way of journalism results.

The NPR board needs to do some serious soul searching over it's terrible crisis management. And everyone should do as Eric Alterman of CUNY suggested on "To the Point" the other day: Wait a couple days before reacting to an O'Keefe-style "scoop." You'll avoid embarrassment and severely stupid decision-making. I put myself in this group - when I first blogged about the O'Keefe video, I headlined my blog post: "NPR exec tells conservative pranksters exactly what they want to hear." Obviously, he didn't, or the conservative pranksters wouldn't have had to edit the video. And I failed to add my own context: O'Keefe is shady and his reporting is as crooked as a dog's hind leg.

NPR exec tells conservative pranksters exactly what they want to hear*

Yesterday, NPR's president gave a speech about the future of public radio at the National Press Club. But no one is talking about that. Instead, it's the words of NPR fund-raising executive Ronald Schiller, that are ringing out across the interwebs today.

Here's a summary of what went down from the New York Times:

The executive, Ronald Schiller, was recorded secretly by the Republican filmmaker and mischief-maker James O’Keefe. On the videotape, Mr. Schiller tells people posing as Muslim philanthropists that the Republican party has been “hijacked” by the Tea Party and that Tea Party supporters are “seriously racist, racist people.” Mr. Schiller indicates that he is sharing his personal point of view, not NPR’s.

Dana Davis Rehm, a spokeswoman for NPR, said in a statement Tuesday, “We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for.”

The release of the video comes at a sensitive time for NPR. Republicans in Congress who view NPR as biased are trying to cut federal funding for its local stations across the country. They are likely to seize on the video as further evidence of their views and further reason to reduce funding for the stations.

Schiller, who is no relation to NPR President Vivian Schiller, was already on his way out at NPR after taking a job with the Aspen Institute. But, well, whatever.

*Update: If you want to see how conservatives are playing this story, here are two links the influential Heritage Foundation recommended in its daily email blast: "Bad Timing for NPR" and "NPR's Diversity Doublespeak". All of this comes as public radio advocates, including KCRW's Jennfer Ferro, urge the Senate to keep the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funded.

Entrapment journalizm

Simon Owens at Bloggasm attempts to dispell the silly notion that conservative political activists with cameras are doing the hard work of uncovering corruption that the lamestream media chooses to ignore. Instead, he argues, the likes of James O'Keefe and Jason Mattera are seeking attention - and YouTube hits - for their political views.

A link to Owens' column is here.

The ambush method, as described by Owens, seems to borrow from the work of the Daily Show and even the old Howard Stern radio program. Except that instead of being funny, and possibly satirical, the right-wing videos seethe with a raw, impotent anger that makes the whole enterprise humorless.

O'Keefe gets charges reduced

Anti-ACORN pimp James O'Keefe won't be facing felony charges after all for allegedly trying to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu's office phones. Justice Department prosecutors have decided to reduce the charges against O'Keefe and his three cohorts to one count each of entering real property of the United States under false pretenses, a misdemeanor. TPM

O'Keefe doesn't like being investigated

James O'Keefe, the conservative activist who embarrassed ACORN with his pimp videos and who was arrested last week for allegedly trying to tamper with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's phones, is pushing back against media reports that suggest he's got extremist views. Simon Owens at Bloggasm reports being on the receiving end when he linked to a Salon story that said he had a "race problem."

Four in the morning

1. God is dead... No, wait. The mainstream media is dead, and Andrew Breitbart is coming to collect the body (just as soon as that thing with James O'Keefe is taken care of). NPR

2. The Los Angeles Times shuffles a few editorial positions and hires former Daily News sports reporter Steve Dilbeck to blog about the Dodgers. LAO

3. The Twitter bullies are out. Nick Bilton at the New York Times is highly offended that New Yorker writer George Packer is leery of the new "information economy" that comes in the form of Tweets. NYT (Packer's original post)

4. The Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has honored five journalists: Celeste Fremon of WitnessLA, Denise Nix of the Daily Breeze, Claudia Peschiutta of KNX 1070, Dave Lopez of CBS2/KCAL9, and Andrew Blankstein of the Los Angeles Times. SPJ