NPR exec caught on tape: The last straw for federal funding?

Just as NPR is justifying its worthiness for federal funding, NPR executive Ron Schiller is caught on tape saying the network would be better without it.

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last updated 8 January 2015

The video: James O'Keefe, the right-wing prankster who tricked the community organizer ACORN into advising an extravagantly dressed "pimp," has struck again, this time targeting National Public Radio. O'Keefe's Project Veritas caught Ron Schiller, the network's senior vice president of development, telling two undercover activists posing as members of a Muslim education fund that Tea Partiers were "really xenophobic... seriously racist" people. (Listen to the audio below.) Schiller added that NPR could survive without government funding, saying that "in the long run," the network would be better off without it. Schiller has since left NPR to take a job at the Aspen Institute, but NPR spokesperson Dana Davis Rehm said the network was "appalled" by his comments, which were "contrary to what NPR stands for."

The reaction: Just yesterday, NPR head Vivian Schiller — no relation — was defending federal funding for the network, notes Moe Lane at RedState. This "comprehensive stomp-on-your-own-message" gaffe undid that in one fell swoop. "I'm almost impressed at [NPR's] own urge for self-destruction." The only thing to do now is to take Schiller's advice, says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, and strip NPR of its apparently superfluous federal subsidies. That way, "the gun-toting taxpayers won't be forced to pay for [NPR's] activities a moment longer." It's worth noting, though, that Schiller is a "professional fundraiser, not a journalist," says Dave Weigel at Slate. He's simply telling these potential donors what he thinks they want to hear, to elicit funds from them. In that context, his pandering is "actually sort of masterful." Decide for yourself: