Comment by munchler
1 day ago
I listen to NPR every day and, honestly, I think this might be for the best. It's going to hurt for a while, but in the end, I think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands on its own without interference from politicians.
> I think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands on its own without interference from politicians.
What does the "public" in "public broadcasting" mean to you?
Ideally, it would be entirely non-commercial, funded by direct donations from the public.
That is not what "public" means in ordinary language. Public is intended to mean "supported by taxes".
Support by donations is always dependent on the largest donor.
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Then it becomes an organization dominated by those who donate the most -- and there have already been cases where a PBS affiliate self-censored and modified its editorial in an attempt to placate a potential donor[0].
[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/a-word-from-ou...
What are taxes for, then?
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Can we call it public broadcasting when it fails to even dimly reflect the diversity of ideas for the areas it serves? Milk toast conservatives like Juan Williams were deemed intolerable a long time ago, so calling it public radio at this point is a misnomer and a sad farce.
I think you mean "milquetoast". The wikipedia link led me to "milk toast", which is interesting in itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_Milquetoast
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_toast
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Juan Williams wasn't let go because he's conservative; it's because he's a bigot (unless you think being a bigot is a conservative qualification):
"Look, Bill [O'Reilly], I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
https://www.npr.org/2010/10/21/130712737/npr-ends-williams-c...
"NPR, like any mainstream news outlet, expects its journalists to be thoughtful and measured in everything they say. What Williams said was deeply offensive to Muslims and inflamed, rather than contributing positively, to an important debate about the role of Muslims in America."
https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2010/10/21/1307132...
NPR can also be a bit of a meme sometimes. Maybe it's just circumstance but every time I hear NPR for any period of time longer than about 20 minutes they do a segment on a topic like polyamory, how women are proudly reclaiming the word "bimbo", or people protesting the administration using interpretive dance.
It is certainly not programming with much mass market appeal.
Perhaps not every form of media needs to be engagement-driven?
The beautiful thing about public media is that it can broadcast things that don't have a profit-motive for being broadcast.
> The beautiful thing about public media is that it can broadcast things that don't have a profit-motive for being broadcast.
True, so one would expect to have heard much more about Bernie Sanders when he was making runs for president. Unfortunately the only coverage he usually got on likes of NPR was when it was something negative about him.
So much for straying from profit motive.
Shouldn’t publicly funded media at least be representative of the wide diversity of views and interests that the public holds?
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> when it stands on its own without interference from politicians
Why on earth do you think it will be free of interference? Obviously they will find other ways to pressure and censor them. As they have done in many cases already.
I wonder how the people at NPR feel about all those donations they took from the Koch Foundation over the years...
They feel fine about it. They're run plenty of pieces that run counter to Koch Industries' interests.
(Also, did you mean the Charles Koch Foundation or the David H. Koch Foundation? The Koch Foundation is a different entity with a different mission.)
You obviously know which ones I mean.
Hasn't it been largely free of interference up until now? And would you prefer it suffer from corporate interference like all other media?
It's been a political football for decades. Conservatives use it as an example of liberal spending run amok, so public broadcasting has had to constantly look over its shoulder during that time.
No, I would like to eliminate corporate influence as well, but that might not be possible in a capitalist society.
Take a tax supported public good, remove the public support and then claim to worry about corporate influence? What do you think was holding that corporate influence at bay?
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You prefer interference by corporations?
> I think public broadcasting will be stronger when it stands on its own without interference from politicians.
What does the "public" in public broadcasting mean to you?
Most of NPR's news programming has been terrible for many years.
Pay attention to how many segments—even that are sort-of connected to an actual news event, which, many aren't—revolve around political strategy, poll numbers, and (in season, which is now like three years out of four) electoral race polling.
It's, like... a lot of them, outside the human-interest and arts coverage stuff. They consistently divert into talking about political media messaging strategy and poll numbers and crap, and they do it so very much that it's got to be something they're doing on purpose. This isn't news reporting, it's lazy, safe (because you don't have to engage with substantive questions of policy and outcomes, nor even questions of fact) horse-race bullshit. It's a complete waste of the listener's time, if they're there for actual news reporting.
On the flip side, though, I'm not seeing a lot of "sink or swim in the market" US media doing much better, so I wouldn't bet on them shifting to anything better (though shift they might).
It hasn't been interfered with until now, what are you talking about about?