Loaded liberals organize NPR's bailout (08-20-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. I want to welcome back to the program Stacy Matthews. You can read her work at RedState dot com. She also writes under the pseudonym and has for years since the advent of blogging itself under the name of sister told you Hello, Stacey, how are you, Hey, Pete. I'm doing good. I'm waiting for this news cycle to slow down, so I take a vacation. No, no, it's never gonna stop again. Ever, if it does, that means the Internet is broken. So all right, So let's start with a couple of pieces. You got one that I guess this was posted today about CBS, so people may be aware. CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, settled a lawsuit with President Donald Trump. The amount was I think like sixteen million dollars, and it'll go to cover legal fees, but also a nice chunk of change will go to his presidential library, which I think is going to be hilarious. If his presidential library is completely funded by media, that would be that would be pretty apropos. I think ABC News is working that a little bit on that front too. Yeah, exactly, So yeah, I mean you could have this whole shrine to Trump paid for by media, which is it's apropos becaus Like without the media, he probably would not have risen as he did back in twenty fifteen with all of the coverage that he was getting. But I digress. The point here is that the settlement occurred, and it it occurred because of the way Sixty Minutes edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during the twenty twenty four presidential election, and I thought that was sort of sort of the end of it. But I was surprised, there's a New York Times interview that you are quoting here. So wait, do you have a New York Times subscription? I do. Oh my gosh, everything I thought I knew of you is shattered. Well, you know, Pete. I'm one of those people that wait until like a week before the subscription goes out, and then I'll threaten to cancel, and then they offer it to me for like three or four dollars a month. Oh, kind of like the Charlotte Observer does, except I think there's a late ninety one cent. Now I'm not subscribed to the Observer. I do have a line that I draw on that. Well that's fair, okay, Well, all right, so I guess I can't. Yeah, I have an Observer subscription. Oh yes, my opinion about. You, but not a New York Times subscription. All right. So in the New York Times, they did an interview with the CBS Corporation CBS Corporation vice chair Sherry Redstone, and what did she tell the Times. Well, she's she is not she is not the vice chair anymore, but she was acting in a capacity of non executive chair. She basically had stepped back from her role there around the time that all this started happening with the lawsuit, and she even though she had stepped back from settlement discussions in January, according to her, she revealed something in a pretty extensive interview with the New York Times and this is what they wrote, they said in part. One of the reasons why she she speculates that the settlement occurred was that they were worried about Trump's lawyers being able to get their hands on raw footage of some past sixty minutes interviews that that CBS News did. And one of the interviews Sherry Redstone talked about was one with Joe Biden in October two, twenty twenty three, when Scott Pelley interviewed Biden and the according to what she said, the President had seemed drowsy and had to be prodded to answer, and she said she and some others CBS News worried that CBS might be accused of editing the interviews to conceal mister Biden's failings. And her quote was, this case was never as black and white as people assumed. Other words, in other words, you know that where there was where there was smoke, there was fire here. You know, Trump made an allegation, and you know, you read between the lines of this and this is like hmm, and this was kind of predictable. There were people that were saying, right after the news of the settlement was announced that you know, these resistance media organizations, they don't typically settle unless there is fire to the smoke, and that's kind of what happened here, I believe, with CBS sitting on this unaired footage of Joe Biden allegedly needing to be prodded by his interview or because he looked sleepy. Yeah so, And just looking at the timeline, this interview with Biden occurred according to The Times in October twenty twenty three. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but October twenty twenty three, that would be before the debate performance that ended his re election campaign. I believe that would be before. Yes, yes, because the debate happened in June of twenty twenty four. And this something else, something else you have to consider is that you know, there was a revelation I think it was to a couple of months ago, and I forgive me for not remembering the particulars, but it was revealed that Biden had been his medical team sometimes had him on sleeping aids right well, which which for somebody of his age, and with some of the issucy that had gone on, it could lead to the types of problems that we sow from him, you know, the forgetful and just looking out of it and lost and kind of things like that. So this kind of would lend credence to that as well. So interesting and yeah, so I agree with you. Your assessment here is that they decided to settle because they were sitting on something they feared would prove Trump right. And yeah, when Trump had been hammering Biden, and you know, right wing media has been hammering Biden for years that he is in cognitive decline. And why isn't the media covering this If they're sitting on a raw interview footage of Biden appearing to prove that very accusation, then they don't want that to get out either. It's also I think this happened with the CNN settlement as well. There's a lot of stuff in the internal communications that they don't want to divulge because it would obviously lay bare the lie that they are an impartial media operation when we know they are not right. I mean, if you think about it too, be in some of these lawsuits, you know, there could be this thing where they don't necessarily feel like they would lose the lawsuits in the court of law, but in a court of public opinion. Sometimes things come out in lawsuits that are far more damaging, you know that than a potential loss or even a win. You know, let's say they won the lawsuit and defeated Trump. You know, the larger issue could have been, you know, what came out from discovery, which you know that one Biden interview was a case in point that could have damaged them so much, so much more than anything that came out of. This lawsuit, right, and then they would have also shown a pattern that CBS was engaged in. Because if they're doing that for Biden and then they're doing it for Harris, who else are they doing it for? Right? Right? So yeah, I know, I think that's a stute. Speaking of media, and I just saw this come across Twitter formerly known as x NPR host Ari Shapiro is leaving NPR at the end of September. Ari Shapiro is the host of All Things Considered. You've also got a piece posted to RedState dot Com about NPR And I saw this story also at Legal Insurrection that apparently there's some foundations that are going to step up and pour millions and millions of dollars into NPR stations. I am completely shocked. Couldn't see that coming right. Well, you know, and this this comes on the heels of another report that we saw from I believe it was the New York Times a couple of months ago, where they talked about how donations to NPR PBS stations quote unquote exploded, with donors across the country giving an unprecedented number since Congress cut federal funding. And so you know, you had donors, not necessarily wealthy donors, but just you know, random average people donating and actually many of them when they donated, they set themselves up to be recurring donors, so they will be continuing to donate, you know, forever, how long they choose. But this report that came out from the Washington Post yesterday, it talked about how major philanthropic organizations including night My Farther and Ford, announced they're committing nearly thirty seven million in emergency funding to keep public media stations afloat after Trump's Precisions package stripped away federal funding. And the weeks of this peak is that it's actually not even aimed directly at PBS and NPR, but some other local stations. I think they numbered in like a one hundred and fifteen radio and TV stations across the country and rural airs that rural areas that they say will be especially negatively impacted by the the fundings. So this isn't even something that goes directly to PBS and NPR, goes to I guess maybe sister stations to them across the country, And it's not just a going to be a band aid. According to the Washington Post report, it that's a consultancy public media company said it launched a quote bridge fund Monday today the most at risk public TV and radio stations to stabilize the system and the aftermath of federal funding loss and help public media become more sustainable in the long run. So in other words, you know, you've got this public media group that that's actually involved in ongoing funding from rich people, right rich you know, you know, the typical usual people to fund over long periods of time to the same the networks and absence of the funding. So it just kind of proves a point that I know you've made. I've made another Conservatives have made that hey, they didn't need our money after all. No, and the list of the foundations are all the usual suspects. The Night Foundation you mentioned, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, Melinda Gates her Pivotal Ventures. If you listen to any of the NPR programming, you will hear those names. These are very wealthy foundation's rich donors and they've been funding NPR for a very long time. And yeah, they did not need our money. They did not need our tax money in the first place. They can pay for the content that they want to hear. And if they want to hear about the mating rituals of the bumblebee, then they can pay for that. We don't need, right, Yeah. And I think we can thank Cheryl Crow in part for this, because I don't know if you remember this, but back in February she made a very public showing of selling her tesla. She posted it on Instagram. She sold her tesla and she said the prostseeds of it would go to NPR. So thanks Cheryl, yeah, for inspiring your fellow leftists to put their money where their mouths are. Yes, exactly, Stacy Matthews. You can read her work at RedState dot com. Always a pleasure to chat with you, Stacey. We won't hold it against you. Did you have a Washington Post subscription too? I actually do the archives? Oh most of these. I do the little archive thing. Yeah, yeah, the New York Time that do get a subscription because we we write about them a lot. But it's only five bucks a month. So don't hold it against me. No, we won't hold it against you, and you won't hold it against me about my observer subscriptions. I'll try not to. All right, Stacy, good to talk with you again. You two fee. Thank you, take care that. Stacy Matthews from RedState dot com. All Right, so you've heard me talk about Creative Video for almost a year. But did you know they also offer a game changing app for businesses that reward their teams with incentive trips. Well they do. It's called Incentive Trip Kit. If you want a business or work at one that offers these incentive trips, this is a mustap. It maximizes the impact and value of these motivational trips. It's a super easy to use app built just for your group, with private messaging, shared photos, important trip documents, even a find the group locator just in case somebody gets separated, and when I say it's private, I mean it. No personal emails, no phone numbers, no ads, no account sign ups. Everyone uses one shared login, so it's super easy, no hassles. During the trip, everybody can post their best photos and short video clips, and folks back at the office can even follow along. And then after the trip, incentive trip kit turns those memories into a professional storytelling video you can use to motivate, inspire, and get people fired up for next year's trip. More fun, more memories, more ROI check it out now at incentive tripkit dot com or call Eric at eight eight eight five three three seventy six thirty seven Extension two seven for the details. So yeah, Legal Insurrection website piece by Mary Chastain. Now, I mentioned Legal Insurrection with Stacey because some of her work does appear over there as well on occasion, but predominantly she's over at RedState dot com. So I didn't feel like it was it was in you know, poor etiquette or anything to mention another website when I had her on just for the record, not that anybody really cares. Okay, So Mary Chastain talking about this very same story from the Washington Post about this organized called Public Media Company, which established a bridge fund for the most at risk public radio and TV stations across the country. Because, of course, Trump signed the executive order ordering agencies to identify and terminate to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, any director in direct funding of NPR and PBS. Of course, PBSNPR in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which hands out the funds to the stations, who, then, by the way, turn around and pay NPR and PBS. For the content. So that's how that works, okay, So it's not like the stations get to keep all that money. They have to pay for their national network programming. And I've gone over this model. It's a different model than what we operate under in the commercial space, which is we usually get shows our national content, which I mean, we don't really have a lot here at WBT because we are awesome. You know, we're live and local from five am until nine pm. But you know, when we have had and we do use some of the national network shows, you usually get those for free in exchange for advertising slots basically, so that's why you'll hear some ads on the station that are national spots, because that's part of that deal. They get a certain amount of inventory or spots, and we get a certain amount of inventory, and but we get the content for free. Except for Rush Limbaugh, we had to pay. He was the only one that could charge and he was worth it. So that so that's a different model than what NPR does. They charge all of their affiliates boatloads of money for all the content, and so yes, they're handing down the money, but then they're also turning around and collecting it for the various programs that they offer. And what's the other one, American Public Radio I think it's called APR. They also provide national syndicated programming as well. So of course the public radio and PBS they sued Trump over this executive order, but that challenge failed because Congress then went and codified the cuts in the Recisions Act. Okay, so that's where that stands. Now, there are local impacts to this. People may remember a fella named Tommy Tomlinson. He used to be a columnist at the Charlotte Observer. He then went over to the local NPR affiliate here in town, WFAE. Full disclosure, I worked there as well a long time ago, not really on air except during a pledge drive or two. I worked mailing people coffee mugs, doing the daily deposits, booking the volunteers for the pledge drives, ordering the food and picking it up from the various local restaurants that would donate the food to the pledge drives to feed the volunteers. And then I would also go out and get the afternoon lunch run. So those were my duties. Right out of college. So Tommy Tomlinson is apparently out at the NPR affiliate. He told the Charlotte Observer that he had been kind of wanting to get back to full time writing anyway. He's sixty one years old and he had seven years on staff back in May, and he hosted the Southbound podcast as well as a commentary segment called on My Mind. He said, I really enjoyed doing the podcast and working at the station. The people there were great. I had a sense that maybe it had run its course for me creatively, and so when they said they were going to have to make some cuts, it did feel like that was a signal for me if I wanted to take a buy out, that this was a good time to do it so. On a personal level, Tomlinson wasn't unhappy to be among the half dozen staff members trimmed last month amid workforce cutbacks by WFAE, and to officially close out his time with the station earlier this month. And look, I said this all the time. I don't celebrate anybody losing their jobs unless they're like corrupt politicians or bureaucrats or something. But it's difficult. I've been through this. Anybody who works in radio, well commercial radio, has been through this. It can be difficult, and I wish him all the best. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breathtaking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their Cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, centrally located between Asheville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi grills, outdoor tables and your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. I got a peat. Mail from Jay who points out layoffs are prevalent across all sectors except government. Yeah, every industry, All businesses go through and do this. It's it's necessary. It is necessary to be constantly re examining your personnel. Do we need this many people to do the work? Has the work changed right? What's the environment now? Technological advances have you know, made certain things superfluous or duplicative. You don't need it anymore. So good businesses are always doing this. They're always trying to find ways to save money. That's how you turn a profit and stay in business, to keep employing all of the other people that remain on the payroll. So yes, except for government. When something isn't working in government, it's you know, we need more money and we have to hire more people. Charlotte Observer had this story about Tommy Tomlinson leaving WFE to apparently took the buy out and in the piece, I'm I'm really sure this connection that they attempted to make. Here there's a piece by theod and James. He has a section in here where he quotes Glenn Berkins, who is the editor and publisher of Q city Metro, and he says we're not in a very good place. And Q city Metro is a website, right, it's a according to the Observer, the hyper local news site aimed at a black audience. Black is capitalized because of course, must adopt the left wing narratives. It's aimed at a black audience. And he used to be a deputy managing editor at The Charlotte Observer two thousand and eight. Among Berkins' most daunting challenges right now is one that he has always had, actually, but one that he says is being exacerbated by broad anti dei sentiment currently being fostered by the Trump administration. Because, of course, we must view this through the prism of Donald Trump, he says. Media organizations that serve communities of color struggle all the time, but then you add this current environment, it just puts us even further in the hole. He says. Q City Metro has lost some advertising contracts this year, which has led to budget cuts that have put his staff down a couple of people. He currently has five staffers. None of the companies that decline to renew contracts have come right out and said we're responding to the Trump administration. They say, we are reevaluating our marketing. Our budgets have been cut. But it would be a very big coincidence if that was not a factor at all. Is it a coincidence? Though? Look, I've been in this industry for probably close to thirty years at this point. That's what they tell us too. When companies pull their advertising they say we're reevaluating our marketing, we're cutting our advertising budget, we're making a move over into this other platform. They're always look if you're dealing directly with the business or if you're dealing with an ad agency, they're always looking for ROI return on investment, and if you can't deliver them the leads, they're not going to keep advertising. They don't owe you advertising dollars. So it's not a matter of it being a very big coincidence. It's a business decision. And by the way, this is happening all over all over the media landscape. Money is moving from TV to digital I mean, and by the way, the highest ROI spoken word formats such as this right, such as this WBT and podcast now, which is basically radio. So it's I've said, I've told this story before that when I launched my own podcast back in what was it, twenty twenty, and I started reading a bunch of these podcast industry websites and stuff, and they were offering advice on you. Oh, so you want to start a podcast, here's how you do it. Whatever. I'm reading through this stuff and it's like everything they're describing is radio. These are the things that you learn in radio, And I said, well, if the podcast doesn't work, I could just go be a consultant and tell other people how to do their podcasts right, because what's the old joke those who can do, those who can't teach, and those who can't teach consult. So that's where that's where I thought I would probably make my mark. Now, Tommy Tomlinson in this piece, it says that he's going to do some more writing. He may go back into the audio world someday, but he says if he doesn't, he'll miss the intimacy that audio has that I think no other medium really has, in that it really does feel like a conversation you're having with one person, even if it's going out to potentially thousands of people. That is correct, and that is the power of the spoken word format. That's why the ROI is so high, because I am having a conversation with you. I mean, I can't hear what you're telling me unless you text. On the WBT text line driven my liberty view of GMCA, or you know, you email me or you call or whatever, then we have a conversation. But when I do the show, and all good hosts know this, you don't talk to all the people out there listening, because I'm just talking to you. That's the intimacy of this format, of this medium. He goes on to say, when you're in front of the mic just speaking into it, it feels like you're writing a letter to someone you care about and it's just for them, and you just want them to hear it and to respond to it. So yeah, as one who has been a consumer of spoken word format since I was a kid, listening to NPR like that, to me has always been the power of it. I've been on the other side of the speaker, so I know what that connection feels like. And anybody who listened to Limbaugh knows that too, and Tommy gets it to his credit. All Right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why. Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. This is from Andy, Hey Pete, great show as always, Thank you, sir. I'm a plumber. I ride around all day listening to talk radio in between jobs. I stopped listening to the NPR affiliate in town here a while ago. They are good on the weekends with some shows on Saturday morning. Otherwise it's so left leaning that I can't justify the time. Tomlinson was pretty good twenty years ago, but then he's been a shill for the left Okay. I play a game sometimes where I tune in to NPR. Usually within thirty seconds someone will make a DEI related statement or an anti Trump, anti wright statement. It both infuriates me and makes me laugh personally. If that's the narrative they want to push, that's fine. I just don't want my tax money going to it. It speaks volumes that the day to day listener and supporters aren't willing to finance it. What's all that fundraising for? Sorry about the long text you sparked the thought I wanted to share it. Love what you do. No, I'm glad you wrote it like that's that's the point. You can produce whatever content you'all want over there. And Andy is exactly right. I have listened to NPR long enough to know that all their stories are filtered through the exact same prism. And when you view yourself and all things through this prism, through this oppressed oppressor narrative, that is the tendency for interpersonal victimhood, that is TIV, a personality trait or disorder. And once you start thinking like that, as you think of yourself as the perpetual victim, then you can never break free of that thinking it is just a destructive way to go through life. Don't be a victim. To quote the late Dan Starks. Jonathan Turley. A couple of weeks ago, we had a piece about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that it finally accepted death over balance. It announced that, with the withdrawal of federal funding, it would cease operations on September thirtieth. Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations. But Turley says the autopsy will put this cause of death as self inflicted. For almost sixty Republican presidents and conservative politicians have complained about the overwhelming liberal bias at the CPB and its supported programs, particularly NPR. For most of those years, the CPB could shrug off the complaints. The Democrats controlled one or both houses, or at least the White House. With the political left solidly behind them, The corporation refused to carry out even modest reforms. It simply gave the stiff arm to every conservative effort to bring its programming back to the middle of the political spectrum. I thought it could still be forced to reform itself, he said. I opposed the continuation of funding for NPR as a state subsidized media outlet. It was not the pronounced bias of NPR that I felt justified its termination. The country should preserve a wall of separation between the government and the media. That's why Turley was against government funding of this. But the CPB is different. It funded abroad water array of programming and could easily have corrected its course. All the CPB had to do was refocus on programming to appeal to the greatest cross section of the population, and to decline to fund media programs like NPR that became more strident and partisan year after year. It seemed that the CPB was trapped within its own echo chambered existence. For them, he says, the choice was clear between neutrality and nonexistence. They grabbed a hemlock filled NPR pledge mug and drank deeply, choosing death over social dishonor. So. This announcement was met with a course of whales and lamentations from the left, But these are the same people who preferred this option to reforming the CPP to serve the greatest number of Americans. They had the opportunity. They could have added shows, They could have put shows on their network, They could have made shows available that would have been the what it would have been appealing to a larger portion of the population. But they couldn't bring themselves to do it. They made it. NPR made the same choice a few years ago. It was given the opportunity to select a new CEO who would represent a serious centrist leadership for the failing news organization. Instead, the board doubled down on that very bias, and they picked Catherine Marr, who had a long history of inflammatory political attacks on conservatives and was the very embodiment of activism. CPB, just a few months ago came forward, could have come forward with real reforms. Instead, it threatened legal action if Congress refused to fund them. The irony is NPR is likely to survive in a reduced form, but CPB is laying off its entire state in a righteous, indignant huff. None of these people needed to lose their jobs. If leadership served their organization by listening to views beyond their own insular circle of enablers, all right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.