National Public Radio is apparently so proud of its reporter Tamara Keith's story about how she can't find any millionaires who don't want their taxes raised that it has the story linked three times this morning from its home page — once under "business," once under "politics," and once under the highlights slide show in the upper righthand corner. The headline is "GOP Objects to 'Millionaire's Surtax'; Millionaires We Found? Not so much."
From the article:
We wanted to talk to business owners who would be affected. So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview.
So we went to the business groups that have been lobbying against the surtax. Again, three days after putting in a request, none of them was able to find someone for us to talk to. A group called the Tax Relief Coalition said the problem was finding someone willing to talk about their personal taxes on national radio.
NPR did find three business people who were in favor of the tax, or who said they wouldn't mind.
Well, it may be that millionaire job-creators aren't foolish enough to go on NPR and subject themselves to ridicule from left-wing journalists or to abuse from left-wing NPR listeners. Or it may be that, sadly, there just aren't that many capitalists who are willing to stand up publicly and defend the principles of capitalism. Or it may be that NPR didn't try very hard on its own to reach free-market-oriented business owners, relying instead on politicians or advocacy groups to do its work for it. The whole thing comes off as sort of a lame stunt — as if NPR's failure to present both sides of this tax debate is a newsworthy development in its own right.