Pacifica is still operating and without CPB money. This suggests so could NPR and PBS member stations. Maybe managers wouldn't get such high salaries. Maybe they couldn't afford fancy real estate and state of the art equipment. Maybe they'd have to find more effective means of fund raising than the same old begathons. But they could continue to operate without CPR money.
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FCC Opens Investigation into NPR and PBS
- Thread starter xmtrland
- Start date
All that for $60,000 to $80,000 a year. They are not going to get half of what they want at that rate, unless they find someone with sufficient savings and considerable "dedication to the cause" to make up for the dreadful pay.That is true now but it wasn't always so.
Pacifica is in deep deep trouble financially
Pacifica is in deep deep trouble financially, stemming from highly dysfunctional bylaws that have made a functional national board impossible. Pacifica has failed most of its annual financial audits since 2010. Pacifica used to receive around one million dollars annually in grant funding from...newdaypacifica.org
Also, CPB is still allowing Pacifica stations to advertise jobs through its website.
KPFA-Pacifica News Director, Berkeley California
KPFA News Director KPFA is seeking a seasoned journalist with a steady hand to lead and manage our news team and oversee the production of high-quality, mission-driven news content. This includes reporting on the Trump Administration's norm-busting initiatives, their local impacts, and the many...cpb.org
General Manager KPFT-Pacifica Foundation Houston, TX
The Pacifica Foundation is seeking a General Manager for KPFT Houston. Employment Type: Full-Time, On-Site Exemption Status: Exempt The Pacifica Foundation was founded in 1946 and is a non-profit organization providing educational services through listener-supported community FM radio. There are...
However, as the NPR CEO testified yesterday, the federal money that goes to NPR is not for programming, but for the national interconnection system, that is used by everyone, not just NPR. It's also an integral part of the Homeland Security system. So defunding NPR is bad for national security.
Remember, the local station managers are hired in particular for their fund raising ability. People with that skill are in short supply across the spectrum of non-profit publicly funded entities. So the board of directors will hire a fund raiser and base the salary on what they think they can bring in.
The funding marathons are only a part of a non-commercial station's activities. Generally, larger amounts come from local industry and business and funds that distribute money to "worthy" local activities.
Or, it simply means segregating the Homeland Security system and integrating it into a different entity.
Once again, the federal funds are used for the interconnection system, which is available for use by everyone, not just NPR.
The federal funds don't go to news. Their only criticism is the news coverage. So as long as federal funds don't go to news, they should have no basis.
It depends on the stations and markets. As I've said, this isn't about amending the way stations are funded. This is specifically aimed at ending federal funding, regardless of how it's used or where it's needed. They aren't looking at the usage at all. They as basing this all on what they see as biased NPR news reporting. Not on anything else these stations do for their communities.
We have already heard from Paul Walker, who has said his station would have to shut down if it lost CPB funds.
Truthfully, this whole thing is based on one article, written by Uri Berliner. Last year, Scott Fybush linked an article that did a point by point refutation of everything in the Berliner article. But the committee is accepting it as fact, because it helps them with their case.
As long as NPR News receives public funding, it can never be truly independent. It will always be subject to political pressure. It doesn't matter if NPR gets the money directly as in the early days or from stations using CPB money to buy programs.
I don't agree with those who content NPR is politically biased. It seems they go out of their way to be politically "fair and balanced." But they are socially biased in that they accept WOKE or politically correct philosophy as gospel and this is reflected in their presentation and their editorial judgement.
It doesn't mean anything if a percentage of NPR News employees are "Democrats." Up to and including the last election, DC had closed primaries. So does New York State. If an NPR employee wants to vote in a primary election, including elections for local offices, they have to register in one party or another. In many area, one party is dominant so that party's primary decides who wins a given office. If you want vote in a school board election, you better be registered in the dominant party. Registering for a party in a closed primary state is hardly political commitment or activism. Journalists do have opinions but they are trained not to let their opinions shape their reporting. If anything, journalists too often bend over backwards to be "fair" - often to the detriment of accuracy in reporting. Nixon got re-elected after Watergate because too many journalists were being "fair." Trump got elected the first time because too many journalists, including at "NPR" were busy striving for balance.
The outcome of the Congressional hearing was already pre-determined, based on its official title, "Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable".
Strangely enough, it didn't contain any mention of the commercial stations which are broadcasting paid propaganda from the Russian and Chinese governments, which would actually count as "anti-American airwaves"...
But they don't. That's what I've been saying. The federal money goes to the interconnection system, which is available to everyone.
Stations use their federal money to buy news programming from many other sources. If stations or the state governments that own them don't want to carry NPR news, they're welcome to drop it, as is happening in South Carolina. But the fact is that every other news source these stations use covers news the same way as NPR. So it's really unfair to single out NPR News when these politicians simply don't like news in general.
You're saying they're polite. They're fair to everyone, regardless of their race, gender, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation. Something wrong with that? As long as they're citizens and pay taxes, aren't they due the same treatment on the radio as everyone? Shouldn't the public airwaves be fair to everyone? They belong to all of us, right?
So basically, they don't like news as we understand news to be (they only like the kind of neo-news that's all about shouting, arguing and judgment passed off as actual reporting, I take it).
I'm saying, it's not their job to be polite. It's their job to uncover and report the truth. The definition of fairness is not and should not be finding evidence that somebody is a crook and then letting that person claim it's not fair.
Cold Coffee
Banned
Let's say their preferred candidate just lost the election and they sound like sad whipped dogs on the air.
Is that biased reporting? Or just showing human emotions.
Is that biased reporting? Or just showing human emotions.
Of course. But their presentation is polite and fair. So is Sean Hannity. He's very polite. So perhaps that presentation gets confused as being elitist and therefore woke. But the public airwaves belong to everyone, even if they are Black or Hispanic or gay or handicapped or Muslim. They should all be treated the same way, and the news that applies to them should also get reported. On any given day, NPR reports news that affects all of them. What's wrong with that?
Did you listen to the hearing yesterday. They stated very clearly what they feel is news, and then called NPR communists.
Marjorie Taylor Greene Threatens Funds For 'Communist' NPR And PBS
A Democratic member of the panel used his time to ask several questions about Sesame Street characters.
BTW Her comments were aired last night on NPR. She was not edited or censored. They were fair and polite.
As I've said, they're sore winners.
Cold Coffee
Banned
Honestly, I like to listen to all opinions from a wide variety of news sources. We should not silence one side or the other.
I think the points being made about the Federal Government funding being related to a non-content tech area removes any bias, favoritism or influence there.
What most thinking opponents of government support (That excludes MTG, of course) seem to focus on is the fact that the majority of the content staff is fairly progressive if not declared Democrats.
Unless a bunch of Republicans want to give scholarships to journalism schools for conservatives, there is no response possible here other than "so what can you do about it?"
Fair analysis. I am not a regular listener, nor is my family... but I attribute that to being more of a cultural issue than a political one.
That is an interesting perspective. Having a newspaper editor in the family (although he retired two decades ago) I have always had the impression that journalists have identified the Democratic Party as being the "working person's party" and felt empathy with them. As there seems to be a transformation of the core focus in both parties, this may affect future assumptions.
With so few stations having actual journalists today, we find that many large markets have no such creature on the staff of any radio station while TV operations are so consolidated that no original thoughts are encouraged. I have even heard from an acquaintance (n=1) that he is afraid to do any controversial investigative story because he fears negative audience feedback that could make him look expendable. The two areas he's most concerned about covering are LQBTQ+ and immigration issues... again, just the comments of one person.
This is, again, the left calling right extremists "nazi" and the right calling the extreme leftists "commies".
Anyone who is actually familiar with "nazis and commies" can agree with either statement. But those seem to be trigger words that are pushed at every possible chance.
I think I will go to Breitbart and do a site search on "communist" and then to HuffPost and do the same for "nazi".
In radio, we have so many far right talk stations and shows that there is a huge imbalance. Yet those criticizing NPR don't realize that the radio world is overwhelmingly filled with radical far-right extremist voices; any perceived bias in NPR does not come close to balancing that scale.
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