The Nation blogger Ari Berman writes that “changes sought by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s (CPB) conservative chairman, Ken Tomlinson, and his majority Republican board include redirecting money away from news and toward music programming, the appointment of two ombudsman with conservative ties and an examination of NPR’s Middle East coverage for evidence of bias.” More below, with poll:
Why the need for such a shake-up? Maybe because CPB board member Cheryl Halpern is a former chairwoman of the Republican Jewish Coalition whose family has business interests in Israel. Another board member, Gay Hart Gaines–who once ran Newt Gingrich’s political action committee and together with Halpern raised $800,000 for the Republican Party since 1995–“talked about the need to change programming in light of a conversation she had with a taxi driver about his listening habits,” the New York Times reported yesterday.
Apparently, her driver wasn’t aware of the CPB’s own internal polling, which found an 80 percent favorability rating for PBS and public radio. A similar number dubbed NPR “fair and balanced,” with listener demographics split equally between conservatives, liberals and moderates. …
More music?
Well, here in the hinterlands, the only public radio station we can easily get carries classical music 24/7, except for a two-hour window in the early evening when they air NPR news shows.
I’d give anything to get Seattle’s KUOW/NPR station, which has great original talk programming.
I should add that luckily we get lots of Canadian radio, which is vastly better than U.S. fare.
Apparently the current proposal is to replace at least some of the talk with music. Why bother with all that messy conversation!
In Chicago, the PBS station has been a pathetic, frightened little wimp for some time now, obviously genuflecting to its corporate and foundation sponsors. It moved NOW to the Sunday morning cartoon slot (possibly helping kill it in the process), dropped Charley Rose, moved Frontline to after prime time when there’s something controversial, and so on. And it has so much fundraising that it’s unwatchable most of the time anyway, unless you really WANT to see Best of Lawrence Welk for the 40th time.
OTOH, the NPR station, WBEZ, has to be among the best in the country. Great local programming (including This American Life) that gets into real issues with a depth and boldness that puts the network programming to shame most of the time. I have to think the difference is that it costs a lot less to run radio, so they don’t have to kiss sponsor ass the way tv does.
I’m beginning to think that the US is probably inferior to the rest of the developed world in that we’re incapable of having public media that works, unlike Britain, Canada, Germany, and all the rest. One more star in our crown of failure as a nation.
Maybe it’s time to just let government support for public broadcasting die and try to take up the slack with private individual support. Could it work if we ran all-out one-time campaign to raise enough money for an endowment that would keep public broadcasting alive and independent? Seems like $300 from 10 million people would about do it. I’m not talking about a “liberal” network here, just an honest one that practices good journalism. Worth a try.
By all means, let NPR examine its Middle East coverage for “evidence of bias.”
If they do so honestly, they will find that their coverage has been insignificant, frightened, slanted rightward, shilling for the administration, happy-talk non-news features for some time now, and generally full of items that would not be considered newsworthy in a media climate not ruled by corporatism, favoritism, mendacity, fear, and ruthless politics.
Kind of following up my previous post, listen to this clip from a local Chicago show, Worldview, to hear what public radio can be like when it’s free to do real stuff. This is an interview by former CIA agent Ray McGovern on the Blair Iraq memo. I listen to public broadcasting a lot, and haven’t heard anything elsewhere like this. Kind of makes your point re the national npr news operation:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/wv_ramay05.asp#16
Hiel Buschler !! Little alse needs to happen. Question that comes to mind, do we get a cool salute and march ??
PSB over a year ago. They hired an old friend of mine…very, very, very Ultraconservative Red person in Blue State to head their Marketing. I adore my old friend, but it scared the shit out of me. I can never discuss politics or religion with her it doesn’t work. We have had to many fights in the past. I was tipped off when they hired her. At least I got her to stop dressing like a nun.
If their examination of NPR’s Mideast coverage were to accurate, I’m sure that they’d find a bias. But it certainly won’t be one in favor of progressives.
Do you think this was all instigated by Bill O’Reilly after he felt that Terry Gross was hostile to him?
‘member that? He stormed off her show?
Probably the most wild interview ever on her show was with Gene Simmons of “Kiss.” What a pig.