NPR raises eyebrows with note to employees about change in typeface: 'Why was I paying for fonts?!'

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National Public Radio, commonly known as NPR, sent a note to its staff Thursday that it will discontinue the use of its current fonts and replace them with open-source, free fonts due to the former's lack of affordability. 

"The fonts and typefaces used on NPR.org, digital properties, and our brand guidelines are changing to ‘Lato’ and ‘Source Sans Pro,’" NPR wrote.

"NPR's previously used fonts - Gotham, Knockout, and Sentinel - have been removed from our website and digital properties, and will be completely phased out by the end of January. Due to a price increase and a change in the licensor for Gotham, Knockout, and Sentinel fonts, we have decided not to renew our license for those fonts," they continued.

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The NPR (National Public Radio) building in Washington DC. Founded in 1970, NPR is a non-profit network of 900 radio stations across the United States. (iStock)

NPR noted that this change will last "for the foreseeable future".

The news was first broken by Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Semafor and a former New York Times media columnist. 

"NPR tells staff it can no longer afford some fonts," Smith tweeted.

NPR voting editor responded to Smith's tweet saying there is a difference between "costs" and "can no longer afford." 

"I know absolutely nothing about this decision, but making a decision that factors in costs isn't really the same thing as ‘can no longer afford,'" he tweeted. 

Fox News Digital reached out to NPR for comment and asked how much the organization was paying for fonts prior to the announcement, but have not received an immediate response. 

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Tucker Carlson discusses NPR on an episode of "Tucker Carlson Tonight".  (Fox News)

Scott Lincicome, director of economics at the Cato Institute, poked fun at the news. 

"As a taxpayer, I'm mad they didn't do this sooner. Why was I paying for fonts?!" Lincicome tweeted. "NPR should be using only free fonts AND ALSO should not exist." 

In a subsequent tweet, he clarified that he only meant that NPR should not receive subsidies from the government.

"Was a joke. I just meant the subsidies," he wrote.

"This seems far preferable to cutting costs in other ways," Geoffrey Skelley, senior elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight, tweeted.

Trevor Mitchell of the Argus Leader wrote, "we have to fix inflation before i'm forced to write in wingdings."

The host of The Jamie Weinstein Show said, "Elections have consequences."

Inflation has been a concern throughout President Biden's term. (iStock)

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NPR has long been accused of having a liberal biased by conservatives. Last year, they came under criticism for broadcasting a live abortion on the air and previously called the Hunter Biden laptop story a "pure distraction."