A final reason is that we at NPR are proud of our public service mandate and we take it seriously. Perhaps the greatest distinction between NPR and the commercial media springs from a difference in our basic purposes. As Daniel Schorr likes to say, the thing to remember about commercial broadcasting is that it's about commerce. We address our listeners as citizens, not as consumers. NPR News programs have relatively large audiences, but these programs are not profit centers, and we do not exist primarily to bring a mass audience to hear an advertiser's message.
Commercial broadcasters make billions of dollars each year using the public's airwaves.
They pay not a penny to the public for this privilege. It strikes me as a sensible idea that a tiny portion of those commercial profits, or a small tax on the sale of commercial licenses, be placed in a trust fund for public broadcasting. Public service journalism is thus preserved and American society along with a growing worldwide audience benefits. But for this idea, or some other, to work, Congress will have to recognize there is value in preserving public broadcasting. That is the bottom line of this year's long, drawn out debate.