Funding for public broadcasting in the United States has been in danger amidst a slew of negative public relations incidents involving executives at National Public Radio.

In the most recent public embarrassment for NPR, conservative activist James O’Keefe produced a three-part video series, and, in his own words, “exposed the true hearts and minds of NPR and their executives.”

The videos, posted on his website, Project Veritas, are a patchwork of secretly recorded telephone and film conversations, deceptive images, shaky camera work and O’Keefe’s narration.

On his website, O’Keefe claims he uses “journalistic investigations” to “expose controversy,” but his investigative tactics are unethical, unprofessional and completely lack journalistic integrity. O’Keefe violates journalistic ethics by targeting organizations that he personally opposes, recording people without their consent and distorting information that he obtained dishonestly.

One video shows clips of a lunch conversation between two “citizen journalists” posing undercover as potential Muslim donors as they converse with former NPR executives Ron Schiller and Betsy Liley. The video reveals Schiller bashing the Republican Party as “seriously racist” and expressing that NPR “would be better off without general funding” from the government.

Ron Schiller’s comments reflected only his personal opinions, and former CEO of NPR Vivian Schiller said that his statements did not uphold NPR’s editorial standards.

But O’Keefe is not a journalist and his work should not be interpreted as journalism.

The controversy over the executives’ comments oozes with irony because O’Keefe’s dishonest pseudo-journalistic tactics are now being used to hold public media officials accountable for honest statements — poor personal choices but, nonetheless, honest.

O’Keefe released the videos amidst legislative apprehension about federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the organization that distributes funding to NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service.

Ron Schiller resigned after the recording was exposed, along with former NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation). Liley is currently on administrative leave.

No excuse can pardon Schiller’s poor timing or his choice to express his personal opinions. He had the responsibility of acting professionally and representing NPR, even in informal situations like the secretly filmed lunch conversation. Ron Schiller offended the Republican Party, a terrible choice as Republicans in Congress push to eliminate funding for what they believe is a liberally-biased news source.

NPR may have a liberal bias, as the media in general tends to be left-leaning as a whole, but NPR employees do not have the right to express political opinions in professional settings because NPR is a non-partisan media enterprise.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives just passed a bill to eliminate federal funding for NPR. The bill will move to the Democrat-controlled Senate this week.

Despite recent controversy, the government should not reduce federal funding for public broadcasting because NPR is a trusted news source. If there are cuts to federal funding for NPR, coverage will suffer because NPR is a nonprofit that dependents on both public and private funds to produce programs such as “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition.”

NPR and its local affiliates, like KUT at the University of Texas, provide accurate coverage of local, national and international issues, a strong contrast to the so-called journalism practiced by corporate news conglomerates that litter the public sphere with bias and human-interest garbage.

NPR should continue writing headlines and stop making headlines in order to preserve public media as a trusted educational and informational source in the United States.