Prison Radio Audio Feed

On the floor of the Sentate, Robert Dole made this statement on May 16, 1994. Yesterday, taxpayer-supported National Public Radio was scheduled to start running commentaries by a convicted killer on death row. The commentator was to be Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of the cold-blooded murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Taxpayer-subsidized NPR was to pay Abu-Jamal, the founder and former information minister of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panthers, $150 per commentary. National Public Radio argued that the Abu-Jamal commentaries would bring a, quote, unique perspective, endquote, to public radio's coverage of crime and punishment. That one-sided, quote, unique perspective argument offered little comfort to the law enforcement community, the victims of crime, or the American taxpayer pumping money into the public broadcasting system. Officer Michael Lutes, president of Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police argued, and I quote, I was under the impression he was supposed to be