Funding Challenges for Public Broadcasting

Reporting on the place you work is not fun. But it is an occupational hazard for media reporters — particularly for NPR’s David Folkenflik.

That’s because National Public Radio — along with Public Broadcasting Service, its TV counterpart — is quite frequently the target of attacks from critics on the right, who would like the federal government to stop funding it. Now it looks like they’ve gotten their way, and the two networks are going to lose a combined $500 million a year.

So what happens now? And how did we get here? And should the federal government be funding media organizations at all? We discuss.

And, since Folkenflik is also one of my go-to Rupert Murdoch experts, I asked him to stick around and opine about Donald Trump’s libel suit against Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal. Who has more to lose, and who is likely to blink first?

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