MacFarlane’s Major Rage Donation

• Days after Seth MacFarlane‘s outrage over Fox News host Tucker Carlson‘s suggestion that viewers should discount any other media besides Fox News, the creator of Family Guy, American Dad! and The Orville made a $2 million donation to NPR and another $500,000 to KPCC/Pasadena, the top news distribution for NPR content in Southern California. The news was first reported by Deadline.com.

In MacFarlane’s tweet last Saturday, he criticized Carlson, whose comments he interpreted as telling viewers, “don’t think critically, don’t consult multiple news sources, and in general, don’t use your brain.” To counter that impression and to support NPR’s mission to create a more informed public and strengthen democracy, MacFarlane’s sizeable donation is designed specifically to support NPR’s Collaborative Journalism Network, which was created to better connect NPR’s nearly 1,800 journalists embedded around the world by linking newsrooms within geographical regions to better share resources, cover breaking news more efficiently, collaborate on overall coverage and ramp up investigative reporting, hire and deploy more beat reporters and elevate local and regional stories to the national level, eliminating “news deserts” in certain areas of the country.

In a statement to Deadline, a NPR spokesperson said, “We are deeply appreciative of the generous gift from Seth MacFarlane, which will go to supporting local news coverage, allowing NPR and Member stations to continue working together to tell the story of the whole country from everywhere in the country.” Bill Davis, President & CEO of Southern California Public Radio, echoed those sentiments in his own statement to Deadline, which read, “We are deeply moved by Seth’s generous contribution to Southern California Public Radio, KPCC and NPR. It is this local/national partnership that is the heart of our shared public service mission and we are committed to more fully realizing that mission thanks to this gift and his challenge for others to join us.”