Complete Colorado: Ari Armstrong’s June 10 Complete Colorado column, “Government funding of news media inherently corruptive,” makes a fundamental error by conflating (that’s lawyer-speak for confusing) two very different issues: (1) Should federal taxpayer monies be used to subsidize public media, e.g., NPR, PBS and their member organizations — all of which are private, non-profit, and non-governmental organizations, and (2) may the President, or any other government official, restrict how a private, non-profit corporation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) or public media stations (again, private, non-governmental actors) use monies that Congress has authorized to provide them, based on the content of their speech.

These completely distinct issues can be restated more simply as, (1) should taxpayer funds be used to support public media, and (2) if such funds are provided, may the government “punish” or retaliate against private speakers (NPR and PBS) because it does not like what they have said?

The first question appears to be the real focus of Armstrong’s column. He espouses his belief that all taxpayer funding of journalism, regardless of how insulated the grantees are from political interference in editorial content, is inherently corrupting. Of course, he argues, no one is going to be overly critical of those who figuratively sign their paycheck.  Thus, public funding for news coverage inevitably makes the reporters and editors act as “lapdogs” when they should be “watchdogs.”  This is ironic, to say the least, since the very impetus for President Trump’s assault on public media is his claim that those journalists are “biased” and unfair when they “unreasonably” criticize the administration’s policies or its personnel. Such is the work of watchdogs, not lapdogs.

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