Controversy over NPR’s recent acceptance of underwriting credits ...
Controversy over NPR’s recent acceptance of underwriting credits from govt. of Kuwait has caused enterprise to think anew about guidelines for “appropriate method” of accepting underwriting from sovereign govts., NPR Pres. Kevin Klose told board meeting March 8 in…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Washington. He said there was hardly any public comment when NPR accepted underwriting credit from German govt. 3 years ago to mark anniversary of collapse of Berlin wall, but there had been “much public comment” on underwriting credit for Kuwait to mark 10th anniversary of its liberation from Iraq. Those credits were completely consistent with NPR’s underwriting guidelines, he said. Saying guidelines on accepting underwriting from sovereign govts. need to be revisited, Klose said it wasn’t matter of independence or integrity of NPR’s news operations, which always had been protected and insulated from influence of any underwriting. “It is in the area of the perceptions” that guidelines needed to be clarified, he said, and issue will be resolved in way to ensure that “perceptions and reality are congruent” in public mind about NPR’s values. Klose defended NPR’s proposal to lease wall at its Washington headquarters for mural art. “It is a perfectly reasonable use of a blank wall,” he said, and NPR was doing what Congress and its board instructed it to do: to explore “reasonable ways to be self-sufficient as possible and as responsible as possible to our own values.”