Another Public Radio Emp. Fired for Activism in OWS

[raccoonradio]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-gr...-public-radio-employee-canned-occupy-activism

>>She was canned for promoting herself as an activist instead of a journalist. Her only understandable confusion is that line gets awfully blurry in the liberal land of public radio.

Waiting for the first situation of a public radio employee/JOURNALIST being canned for taking part in
a Tea Party event...Note: NPR fired Juan Williams for making a controversial comment but he was an
analyst not a journalist. Williams argues that the action was not in the spirit of "honest debate". But
again, this woman is a journalist and she was taking part in the movement.

Scroll down to comments and you'll see an excerpt from the NPR Code of Ethics
>>The purpose of this code is to protect the credibility of NPR's programming by ensuring high standards of honesty, integrity, impartiality(emphasis mine) and staff conduct. We accomplish this by...(b) setting rules and policies that prevent conflicts of interest, (c) establishing guidelines for outside work and activities that may reflect on NPR, and (d) establishing policies and procedures to ensure that the activities of NPR that fall outside journalism and daily production - corporate underwriting, foundation funding, marketing and promotional activities - do not jeopardize our journalistic independence
or involve NPR journalists in activities inappropriate to their roles (emphasis mine)

 

[TheBigA]

Waiting for the first situation of a public radio employee/JOURNALIST being canned for taking part in
a Tea Party event..

Tea Party events seem to take place mainly in red states. Don't know of many in NY or DC. I could be wrong. Less likely to see an NPR person at an event in Iowa or Georgia if they don't live there.

I think it's good that this is happening because I feel a generation of people has grown up not knowing what's appropriate and what isn't. They need to think about this. If the main office at NPR hasn't held an employee seminar on this, they should. And it should be discussed at the annual Public Radio Convention.

 

[uncamark]

I think it's good that this is happening because I feel a generation of people has grown up not knowing what's appropriate and what isn't. They need to think about this. If the main office at NPR hasn't held an employee seminar on this, they should. And it should be discussed at the annual Public Radio Convention.

Of course, "The Takeaway" isn't an NPR show (it's PRI). Also, I assume that the National Federation of Community Broadcasters' so far unsuccessful attempt to sell it to their members has been built around the idea that it has more of a POv (one could say an outwardly left-of-center POV) than NPR's news shows. That's been about as successful as the attempt to sell the show as attracting the younger demos. The pubradio hardcore audience (who HATES it, although they hate almost anything new at first) has already chased the show in its home market to WNYC-AM. I still think that PRI's got to give the show up pretty soon.

 

[TheBigA]

Prairie Home Companion was originally pitched to NPR, but they passed, thinking it was too rural for their audience. That's what led to the creation of PRI.

 

[uncamark]

Prairie Home Companion was originally pitched to NPR, but they passed, thinking it was too rural for their audience. That's what led to the creation of PRI.

Frank Mankewicz: "No one outside of the state of Minnesota will ever understand that program." Wrong, Frank.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Prairie Home Companion was originally pitched to NPR, but they passed, thinking it was too rural for their audience. That's what led to the creation of PRI.

You mean APM?

 

[TheBigA]

You mean APM?

It's gone through many incarnations.

 

[uncamark]

You mean APM?

It's gone through many incarnations.

And Bill Kling was involved in the birth of both PRI and APM, although he isn't involved with PRI anymore. PRI was originally known as American Public Radio until the early 90s and MPR's programming was distributed through PRI until about 10 years ago, when APM started. (The Classical 24 turnkey format's officially a co-venture of MPR and PRI.)

 

[aaronread]

To be clear, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) was heavily involved in the creation of PRI, but as time went on and MPR produced more and more national content, and had more and more capability (both human and technical) to distribute nationally....they eventually ditched PRI and created American Public Media (APM) to handle their own distribution.

To say this was contentious would be an understatement.

It could have very easily been a death knell for PRI, since they "lost" some of the biggest shows in their stable. And there was real question as to whether the public radio market could support three different distribution houses. Personally, I think that question is not yet answered but it's looking a lot more positive than it did a couple of years ago. Well, positive for the houses. The affiliate stations all got hosed with having to pay yet another affiliation fee.