With this week's NPR news has renewing the debate about de-funding public broadcasting, it's worth highlighting a recent report (pdf) that puts our public broadcasting system into perspective when compared with 14 countries around the world.
Though cutting public broadcasting appropriations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would essentially limit the "public" nature of our system by cutting out the government, it's important to remember that most public radio stations receive only about 10 percent of their money from CPB. For many public radio stations, though, if it comes to it, the loss of this federal money may make it all the harder to sustain local programming — and local newsgathering — if it cannot be found elsewhere.