Yamiche Alcindor Evidences Need to End 501 (c) (3) Exemption for PBS

Watching the president's press conference on Fox News yesterday, I saw Yamiche Alcindor's insipid question. Alcindor asked whether, because President Trump has said that he is a nationalist, he is a white nationalist.

This is not a question that reflects basic knowledge necessary to be a competent journalist. Hence, the question arises whether PBS is functioning as a legitimate, nonpartisan news organization entitled to tax exemption.  No other major network enjoys a tax exemption.  The presumption is that PBS performs at a higher level than other networks, but the low quality of Alcindor's performance evidences a lower-level, partisan performance.

The term "nationalist" is broad, but its application  to President Trump suggests trade and international relations issues.  Advocates of tariffs in trade and of unilateralism in international relations are traditionally called economic or international relations nationalists. In the 1930s Senator Robert Taft, Herbert Hoover,  and other Republicans were nationalists in opposition to internationalists like Wendell Willkie, and President Trump continues in  this tradition.  This is basic history, basic economics, and basic current events--knowledge that is necessary to competent journalism.

Unfortunately, like many reporters in television news, Ms. Alcindor lacks knowledge necessary to competent journalism.  This raises the question as to why PBS would employ someone who lacks  minimal skills and who instead of functioning as a journalist raises shrill, bigoted questions in a press conference.

PBS is a not-for-profit corporation that claims to be nonpartisan, but it is clearly partisan. It is time to reconsider longstanding subsidization of Democratic Party publicists in the media and in higher education who masquerade as professors and journalists, fraudulently securing tax subsidization through Section 501(c)(3).  Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code is inapplicable to ideological or partisan organizations, and claims that Ms. Alcindor is a journalist or that PBS is nonideological and nonpartisan are disingenuous.