Can the public take over public broadcasting?
Before I start I just want to encourage everyone in Arizona to get out and vote. Those of you in Utah and Idaho have the more challenging job of caucusing. I appreciate everyones effort to get out and help us bring forth a revolution!
I explored the reason why corporate commercial broadcasting ignores Bernie in an earlier diary:
http://caucus99percent.com/content/want-understand-crazy-election-just-f...
Today I want to look at noncommercial broadcast. Public broadcasting has a personal meaning to me. Cliff Durr was a fine person and gentleman (much like Bernie). He was a Rhodes scholar, an Alabama New Dealer, and civil rights activist. He saw the need for non-commercial news and information in order to promote true democracy.
...he was appointed a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). There, Durr gradually began focusing his work on protecting the public interest rather than advocating for corporate banking or broadcasting interests. At the FCC he fought for advertisement-free public broadcasting and open public access channels for community participation in the newly emerging television industry. - See more at: http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1254
Cliff would be saddened to see the state of public broadcasting today. He would wonder why so called public broadcasting would blackout and sneer at the most progressive candidate we've seen in years, Senator Sanders.
According to the NPR ethics handbook
...the public deserves factual reporting and informed analysis without our opinions influencing what they hear or see. So we strive to report and produce stories that transcend our biases and treat all views fairly...
So, why is Move On promoting a petition which states the following:
If you want a flat-out comparison of NPR's bias and relative avoidance of Sanders, check out their candidate pages at NPR:
Bernie Sanders: 14 stories in 2015
Hillary Clinton: 76 stories in 2015
There was 542% more for coverage of Hillary. Need more proof of bias?
Here are some numbers to demonstrate the uneven coverage, taken from NPR's search page.
Includes "Hillary Clinton": 236.
Includes "Hillary Clinton", excludes "Bernie Sanders": 188.
Includes "Bernie Sanders": 66.
Includes "Bernie Sanders", excludes "Hillary Clinton": 13.
Includes "Hillary Clinton" and "Bernie Sanders": 48.
Of NPR's recent coverage of Hillary, 80% of it excludes Bernie Sanders. Of NPR's coverage of Bernie Sanders, only 20% of it excludes Hillary Clinton. Interestingly, when you limit results to only what was heard on air, the percentages are the same, but the numbers are even worse:
"Hillary Clinton" heard on the air: 113.
"Hillary Clinton", without "Bernie Sanders": 91.
"Bernie Sanders" heard on the air: 27.
"Bernie Sanders", without "Hillary Clinton": 5. (and only one of those is specifically about Bernie)
Visit and sign the petition here:
http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/tell-npr-to-stop-ignoeing
So why? Surprise, surprise it's corporate influence.
From: http://fair.org/home/national-plutocrat-radio/
Fully three out of every four trustees of the top NPR affiliates belong to the corporate elite.
The 17-member board is composed of 10 NPR member station managers, the NPR president/CEO, the chair of the NPR Foundation and five so-called “public members.” (There appeared to be a vacant spot for a public board member at the time of publication.)
While a majority of the board is populated by NPR station managers with backgrounds in public media, the rest of the board members have strong ties to the corporate sector. This includes NPR CEO Jarl Mohn, who has an extensive background in commercial media, having held executive positions within E! Entertainment, MTV and VH1. Additionally, NPR Foundation chair Howard Wollner is a retired Starbucks senior vice president. All four of the so-called public members represent the corporate elite; three of them are executives in the financial industry.
Male board members outnumber women 10 to 6 (63 percent male). Fifteen of the board members are white (94 percent, more ethnically homogeneous than any of the station boards studied), while only one—Caryn Mathes—is African-American.
I found the following statement with no sources to back it up:
“It's telling that David Koch made a $23 million dollar 'donation' to NPR and thereby gained a seat on two of the station's controlling boards.”
Here's the board of directors
http://www.npr.org/about-npr/182676957/npr-board-of-directors
But evidently they are in the process of selecting a new board
http://current.org/2015/11/npr-board-of-directors-to-expand-add-public-d...
And have just selected a new director.
http://www.xpn.org/about-xpn/press-room/pr-2015/npr-board-of-directors-w...
Maybe the time is right to influence the direction and make these widely listened to stations cater to the people, not the plutocrats. There are not that many major NPR stations. The most-listened-to NPR affiliate stations, based on Arbitron ratings, are KQED (San Francisco), WAMU (Washington, DC), WNYC (New York City), KPCC (Los Angeles), WHYY (Philadelphia), WBUR (Boston), WABE (Atlanta) and WBEZ (Chicago). (The two top-rated public stations, KUSC in Los Angeles and WETA in Arlington, Va are mainly classical music rather than a news format.)
Seems to me that we the people might be able to reshape the tone and quality of their reporting. The other day the topic of teach ins came up. What if we had access to a big megaphone like NPR? We could help the nation understand the nature and depth of corporate ownership and control. And maybe, just maybe, cast off those chains and cut the strings of the puppet masters. After all these stations belong to the public … that's us!
Comments
The NewsHour changed markedly when Lehrer began to
transition into retirement. NPR has been subtly corporatist since Bush II. Any entity that uses public airwaves should again be held to the original "public interest" standard.
News You Can't Trust: Breaching the Public Interest in Broadcasting: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media_control_propaganda/News_Can't_Trust.html
[note: next 2 links have dense content]
The Public Interest, Convenience, or Necessity: A Dead Standard in the Era of Broadcast Deregulation? http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1479&context=plr
The Public Interest Standard: The Elusive Search for the Holy Grail: https://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/archives/pubintadvcom/octmtg/KRASNOW.htm
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
Sad
My wife thinks I'm crazy, but the political coverage of Morning Edition and All Things Considered outrages me. Particularly in their slant in the D primary, they not only dismiss Bernie, they lie. After March 15, I would have thought that each state was a decisive victory for Clinton if I only received my news from NPR. Literally, the word "clear" was used to describe her wins, though several were obvious ties.
In other states I've lived in with larger population centers, I could count on an "alternative," truly publicly financed station to provide the info and music I desired. In smaller, more rural markets, like my current one, most areas rely on statewide versions of public radio, giving us even less control. Local public radio does exist in some areas, but they have no money, manpower, or interest to be journalists. They focus on feel good, cultural stories, which is fine. Money, though, seems bizarrely committed to symphonic music for the boomer set. But actual information only comes from Fresh Air, and that's pretty hit and miss on actual news stories of the day, since Gross is just as interested in celebrities as she is vital information.
I'm more in favor of breaking up public broadcasting
completely. As long as it's a central hub of propaganda it will have undue influence.
I'd rather have local programming, and locally owned stations. Of course I'm also in favor of anti-trust legislation against major TV networks and Cable companies, so feel free to think of me on the LOONY left.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
NPR has become nauseating, thanks for sharing these findings.
It's one thing, and so transparently obvious, to watch how desperate for ratings the flailing and rapidly sinking MSM are. Exhibit A here, CBS CEO: “For Us, Economically, Donald’s Place in This Election Is a Good Thing”
But to have to cringe in disgust when I turn on WNYC to hear not only top of the hour "reports" of Trump/Cruz/Rubio (when he was in it), but even "liberal" Brian Lehrer continually stooping to the tawdry and running segments on Trump - all to the exclusion of Bernie, is a bridge too far. They're not dependent on dark money. Besides, where are the conscientious truth-tellers and proud intrepid investigative journalists?
They'll reap what they sow. Because if it's a horror showdown of the two celebrity candidates mud-wrestling and out tough-talking each other for months the public really will be forced to look in the mirror to see what it has wrought, which will be Idiocracy writ large.
In that scenario I see an increasingly restless vast middle class, still slogging in the morass of the Economic Terrorism of Wall St in a thousand different ways, not knowing how to handle the malaise and lashing out in ways that could lead to something really ugly. The good thing is it will induce some kind of revolution. Which is why it is so important to keep fighting for Bernie, and the peaceful, dignified alternative.
If the outcome ahead is a celebrity death-march into the abyss, every single journalist and editor who has had a hand in this venal insanity will have to answer to the American people as well as to their own conscience and ethical pledge.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Brook Gladstone's "On The Media" is still excellent.
Almost every time I hear her show I'm reminded of how radio journalism should be.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
(No subject)
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Just heard a Koch ad
on NPR Jacksonville last weekend. Another objective news source gone. Thank God for the internet.
Beat Trump with Bernie!
We own it?
I guess if we step up and take it over. Seems easier than dealing with MSM.
I also want to say I appreciate everyone's comments and links!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
They Dropped the Public from Michigan Public Radio
I lived in MI a few years ago. I listened to NPR frequently. Sometime around 2010 or so, I noticed that it had become "Michigan Radio" and the "public" was conspicuously absent.
I remember on a show, one of the on air personalities said,"Michigan Public Radio," and then promptly excused himself as if he had farted or something. I turned it off shortly after that. I could only handle so many reps of Cokie on Mondays.
In Grand Rapids, the public TV station has an amazing program where you can check out (like a library) broadcast equipment -- TV truck, campers, miss, tripods etc -- and even the studio can be scheduled if you have a production crew assembled.
I did some study and work there back in the late 00s. It was great.
I would like to create an alternative media system utilizing Social Media (SoMe) video tools. I've got a rather extensive plan (tented hands + evil laugh), too. I am hoping that we get some projects and teams together here at this place. I'm sure there is no lack of talent and desire.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu