Canceling of NPR Shows. Is NPR Getting What it Deserves?
If you ask me to count how many emails and phone calls I made to NPR during the Bush reign, it would probably be over 100. My emails were ALWAYS asking NPR to DO ITS JOB and instead of enabling the corruption, acting as apologists, running superficial political stories, they needed to tell the American people what the hell was really going on be it the lies into Iraq, snowmachines in Yellowstone to Rumsfeld making a kiilling off the Tamiflu vaccine (anyone talking about bird flu now? NO. Because the entire thing was fabricated and Rummy left with millions of dollars from his Gilead Pharmaceutical stock--source: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein). Now they are boo hooing that some of their shows have to be cancelled like Day to Day and Weekend America.
Well guess up NPR? You are going down with the rest of us, collateral damage from the Bush years and I say you deserve to go down in flames. Maybe if you had reported the truth you would be ADDING shows under the Obama Administration, not cancelling them.
I'm not boo hooing for your damn show cancellations. You asked for it. Next time do your damn jobs in the name of something you seem to have forgotten about--democracy.
Like everything else, the bushies wanted to control the news. That was so evident and frustrating.
January 31, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want to know how Juan Williams and others manage to go on Fox News one day (such as the day last week when he said Michelle Obama is like Stokely Carmichael in a dress), and then are touted as impartial news analysts on NPR.
In NPR's defence, the Bush administration did plenty of "burrowing" in the upper echelons there as well, and it is amazing that as many shows like the Diane Rehm show stayed on the air in spite of their mal-leadership. NPR also has been the sole source of in-depth reporting on Iraq war dead and wounded; widows and veterans. Maybe it has been handled elsewhere, but I think it has been laudable.
That said, I agree that in the news segments, they really did roll over. Rarely was a talking point challenged. Never did I hear anyone correct a republican when they referred to the "Democrat Party," which is a rude, purposely spoken insult. The list goes on and on.
I'm on the fence about the cuts. I sure hope Diane Rehm is safe.
January 31, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
True. The onsite reporting is excellent and I truly appreciate the risks these reporters take but it is still soft-peddling the point that we are there for a giant lie. It gets back to what Chomsky (uh oh) says about the media legitimizing anything. Without coverage that comes OUT and states the facts/truth, the soft peddling coverage accomplishes little. It's dancing around the fire. The emperor has no clothes, the elephant in the room etc etc. All those analogies. I think NPR legitimizes issues but it does not fully and truthfully cover them. There is a difference.
Point taken about Juan along with some disappointment in Suarez and Eifel.
January 31, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yikes, singling NPR out when none of the news orgs really did their jobs is a bit much.
January 31, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, since I have sent them probably $1000 as a MEMBER over many many years, I kinda think I have a say as do the other million members. It's called PUBLIC radio. PUBLIC radio. It operates differently than corporate media (which can blow us off and does) or it's SUPPOSED to anyway.
January 31, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but even though the proportion of money they receive from the federal government has dropped pretty drastically, they still have to answer to them in the form of the CPB.
I know, I've been frustrated with some of their coverage, too, and many times I've been tempted to throw a shoe at Juan Williams, but they've been walking a tightrope, here.
February 1, 2009 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a case of history not necessarily repeating itself but certainly rhyming. There is a great history of public broadcasting here http://www.carnegie.org/results/carn.results_fall_06.pdf
Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act into law in 1967 forming the Corporation for Public Broadcasting [CPB] that included public radio and TV.
In the early 70s NPR broadcast the Watergate hearings and Nixon tried to forbid any covering of politics.
The CPB was almost entirely funded by the government and Nixon vetoed funding. [one of the early ideas for funding was by a tax on television sales, Brit style, keeping as much independence as possible. It was not to be]
In 1981 Reagan threatened funding cuts and the dissolution of the CPB. The funding strategies that came out of that ended up being perhaps too dependent on corporate and foundation donations, unlike the Pacifica model.
As a result you hardly ever see any programming very critical of the power structure.
It is no surprise that Bush, like Nixon and Reagan before, tried to further limit public broadcasting.
January 31, 2009 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the biggest grassroots pushbacks of the early 1990s was when Gingrich wanted to gut PBS. It didn't happen then but it seems like they've slowly leaked funding to the point where here in Chicago the flagship tv station WTTW runs infomercials in primetime some weekday nights and on weekend days, airs Antiques Roadshow over and over again, and buys British reruns instead of airing original programmimg. On radio the we get way too much BBC world service.
February 1, 2009 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then they need to quit asking us for money if all they are and ever be is a pseudo-propaganda arm of whatever status quo is in power and they won't challenge the status quo even when it is subverting the U.S. Constitution. I honestly am thinking twice about supporting NPR anymore. I will support LOCAL programming but I dont' like the idea of my money going to any program that comes out of the Beltway anymore. Eight years of lying and NPR just tooted along with it. This is just too egregious. Of course, we can shift our support maybe where it belongs anyway--Pacific and Free Speech Radio. Send your $100 to them instead.
Excllent post TB. Thank you.
January 31, 2009 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
dogtail -
I crossed NPR off my list years ago for just these reasons. Welcome to the club.
The NPR model is inherently flawed - when you have a government dominated for the right wing for 28 years, inevitably, public broadcasting will be affected (or should I say, infected).
I am frankly much more impressed with the Air America model which finally appears to have stabilized itself, and I'm more than willing to put up with tacky commercials that air there as a fair price for decent radio in corporate-dominated America.
February 1, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
W/o typos this time I hope. Too much caffeine.
Then they need to quit asking us for money if all they are and ever will be is a pseudo-propaganda arm of whatever status quo is in power and they won't challenge the status quo even when it is subverting the U.S. Constitution. I am honestly thinking twice about supporting NPR anymore. I will support LOCAL programming but I don't like the idea of my money going to any program that comes out of the Beltway anymore. Eight years of lying and NPR just tooted along with it. This is just too egregious. Of course, we can shift our support maybe where it belongs anyway--Pacifica and Free Speech Radio. Send your $100 to them instead.
Excllent post TB. Thank you.
Posted by Dogtail
January 31, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why write off NPR for what it became? Support it for what it could become.
NPR can thrive in this, a more democratic, fairer, more diverse environment.
Anything can be corrupted.
Look at the justice department.
I, for one, would endeavor to change it, not short-change it.
January 31, 2009 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some of CPB's functions have been muted by stations like CSPAN today.
There also seems to be a discrepancy about how much NPR receives from the government. Clearly, they are majority member supported, however.
Finally, NPR is not supposed to be for the lefties. A study has found that:
That seems about as it should be. NPR is NATIONAL Public Radio, not LIBERAL Public Radio.
One last note:
Air America couldn't be supported by the left and has gone down in flames. Obama raised a lot of money in his campaign. If the left were truly interested in this type of left-biased reporting, it should be possible to have. If only those pocketbooks would be open for it, just as they were for Obama.
January 31, 2009 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has Air America gone under? That's news to me. It's going strong in Chicago after years of embarassing near-collapse, recently having increased from one low-wattage AM station to an additional three FM frequencies that blanket the Chicago area, added local commentary, etc.
February 1, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Public radio acts more and more like commercial radio. The station I support, WGBH, used to call businesses contributing as businesses underwriters. Now they call them sponsors which I guess is more honest, anyhow. More disturbing, was a story which they gave very little play, and no wonder. One of their own employees embezzled half a million dollars. Who guards the NPR hen house? Not br'er fox, I hope
January 31, 2009 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that why there are sooooo many pledge drives lately?
January 31, 2009 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a difference to producing a program and buying programming for your station. The sponsors' money is there to produce the program. The stations than have to buy the programs. Pledge drives are not about generating content, but having the funds to buy it.
Not all NPR shows are broadcast on all NPR stations.
January 31, 2009 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Without "Click & Clack", and "A Prairie Home Companion" I wouldn't give a hoot about them anymore. I haven't donated to them since about 2003.
February 1, 2009 1:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
But! How about "this American Life," and "Wait Wait, don't tell me?"
=O
February 1, 2009 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think we better tell you...
February 11, 2009 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The very fact NPR even exists at all is an affront to our American belief system.
The idea that government has the means to sponsor and mold the 'news' to the American citizenry is an EXTREMELY dangerous one.
The government is ALWAYS interested in the well being, growth, and expansion of the government. This invariably means the promotion of SOCIALISM, hence, programs by Bill Moyers and others with an undeniable Marxist bent who don't have a gnat's chance in hell of making it in the marketplace.
Those who can justify NPR are nothing more than the Marxist lunatic fringe in this country. Remember TASS? Well, NPR is nothing but the American equivilant of TASS.
February 1, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are so funny. In a "car wreck" kind of way.
The reason for public broadcasting is exactly the opposite of your hyperbolic ranting.
In many areas of the country, they are the only thing going, because there isn't enough people for private enterprise to consider broadcasting in those areas "commercially viable."
The farm report may be a socialistic type of broadcasting, but you'd have to be a moron to think there was something overtly evil about it.
You know, if I wanted to read the moronic one-note complaints of the hardcore minority on Free Republic, I'd read it there. You might add something to the conversation if your comments were something other than outdated tired old ultra right wing polemics which have been thoroughly debunked since about 1948.
February 1, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was an NPR junkie for close to 30 years; I remember when Diane Rehm was a pup, and Scott Simon just a hustling cub from Chicago.
That went on til April 2004. For the previous few years I had listened with growing unease to the right-wing-ization of NPR coverage, especially its cooptation by the conservative think-tankers, the DC smoothies with the suits and PhDs that the NPR types were/are such suckers for, and maybe didn't even notice that they were being suckered by.
Then Air America started, and I tuned in to Al Franken, Randi Rhodes and the others for a few days. The next time I turned back to "All Things Considered," I suddenly had a visceral revulsion response -- literally, as in "I-think-I'm-gonna-toss-my-cookies" -- against what NPR had become.
It was like when an old brick chimney that has tottered a bit for years suddenly crashes down in a smoky heap. Or that chilling moment when you know you have to get a divorce.
I quit listening to NPR cold that day, and have never looked back. Occasionally, on long-distance driving trips in a rental without XM-Sirius, an NPR show turns up while scanning the dial. It only takes a few minutes before it's clear that little has changed.
I make an exception for Garrison Keillor, who is not and never was NPR. (indeed, I hear he and NPR have a mutual-loathing relationship, which makes me like him more.) Ira Glass isn't NPR either. And Amy Goodman is excellent too.
Sure, the commercials are obnoxious on Air America and its burgeoning progressive talk rivals; but so what? They're honestly commercial, unlike the NPR "underwriting" bulls***, and nowhere near as bad as the endless pledge drives. "Go the phones now" -- Gag me with a spoon; drown me in a coffee mug; smother me with a goddam tote bag.
And believe it or not, the news coverage on progressive talk is just as good, and lots of times better. Thom Hartmann is an A-1 Class Act, prostate pills and all.
One of the shocking realizations awaiting so many progressives of my and the Boomer generations out of the current collapse is that, OMG, NPR isn't even necessary anymore. Technology as well as culture-politics have left it behind.
Dianne Rehm, for instance, could likely get real sponsors, go syndicated and do just as well in the years she has left. (Here's to ya, Dee.) And not that I care, but Click and Clack too. (Oh, but they already HAVE sponsors. Only the suckers think they're still "non-commercial.)
Yes folks, there's life, love AND damn good news reporting on radio after and without NPR.
And more and more of us will soon be finding that out, I think.
February 1, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink