From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V7 #149 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Saturday, June 25 2005 Volume 07 : Number 149 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Advertising Free Programing ["Bill Chmelir" ] Re: [RS] NPR - PBS [Lisa Davis - home ] Re: [RS] Re:PBS [Lisa Davis - home ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 11:49:54 -0700 From: "Bill Chmelir" Subject: [RS] Advertising Free Programing Katie, Excellent point about children not having to be exposed to advertising while watching Sesame Street. Now that is something I am willing to fund with my tax dollars. Advertisers who target children with their absolute crap products are the lowest of the low in my opinion. How many "Dora" products are necessary for the healthy growth of a child anyway? I heard once that public radio is only 14% publically funded. 86% comes from donations form people like us and from endowments from people like the McDonalds heiress. Can anyone confirm or denigh that? Based on past posts I would say that Jason and I are the most conservative folks that regularly post on this list. Coming from that perspective, my take on All Things Considered is that the hosts and reporters are Liberal but that they contiously try to represent both sides of the issues. The result is a product that is slightly left of center. But then there are the BBC reports that they mix in from time to time. Those reporters questions could just as easily have been written by Howard Dean. One such question I heard in the run-up to the Iraqi election went something like "Isn't it true that the Iraqi elections are doomed to failure"? These reports are far left in my opinion. I injest reports on NPR as I do all news from any source. I ask myself "where is the source coming from and how does that affect what they are telling me"? We all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences and therefore draw different conclusions. Just because our conclusions are different, that doesn't mean that we haven't thought the issues through. Bill ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 00:49:06 -0400 From: "Norman Johnson" Subject: [RS] more NPR Bill wrote: >> I heard once that public radio is only 14% publically funded. 86% comes from donations form people like us and from endowments from people like the McDonalds heiress. Can anyone confirm or denigh that?<< http://www.npr.org/about/privatesupport.html >>On average, public radio stations (including NPR Member stations) receive the largest percentage of their revenue (34%) from listener support, 25% from corporate underwriting and foundations, and 13% from CPB allocations.* (* These figures are derived from the most recent CPB data available, FY02. The remaining average revenue breakdown is: 6% from local and state governments, 15% from institutional support, and 7% from all other sources.)<< From CPB's site http://www.cpb.org/about/ >>CPB receives an annual appropriation from Congress, representing 14.9% of public broadcasting's revenues. << > Coming from that perspective, my take on All Things Considered is that the hosts and reporters are Liberal but that they contiously try to represent both sides of the issues. The result is a product that is slightly left of center. << No, I'd say a product somewhat right of center. They have on more Republicans than they do Democrats. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1180 >> Despite the commonness of such claims, little evidence has ever been presented for a left bias at NPR , and FAIR's latest study gives it no support. Looking at partisan sources-including government officials, party officials, campaign workers and consultants-Republicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 3 to 2 (61 percent to 38 percent). A majority of Republican sources when the GOP controls the White House and Congress may not be surprising, but Republicans held a similar though slightly smaller edge (57 percent to 42 percent) in 1993, when Clinton was president and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. And a lively race for the Democratic presidential nomination was beginning to heat up at the time of the 2003 study.<< That study doesn't even take into account how far the Republican party has moved to the right and how much the Dems have moved to the center. You can hear from people from the far right like Grover Norquist and all of the consultants from the Hertiage Foundation on NPR-- but how often do you hear from Katrina vanden Heuvel and Rachel Maddow. Yes, Howard Dean is heard from but what about Howard Zinn? Norman ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 22:33:00 -0400 From: Lisa Davis - home Subject: Re: [RS] NPR - PBS I am a big NPR supporter and deplore the thought of cuts. I pay my memberhsip annually. BUT, I still have to compare my local WWUH radio of the University of Hartford, which has everything from 3 hours of folk music EVERY morning, to alternative, to classical, to Pacifica news, to a show dealing only with gay/lesbian perspectives on the news, and for whom the annual budget is something like $60,000 per year (although no doubt they get to use University-provided studios, etc.) -- with our Connecticut Public Radio, which I support pretty much ONLY for All Things Considered, which offends my ears with broadcasts and re-broadcasts of Prairie Home Companion and talk shows, and gave up folk music long ago, and apparently has a vast budget. AND keeps buying up more airwaves so that the local college stations can't be heard beyond 20 miles, because the CPR signal interferes. And public radio is funded by corporate sources - -- take a look at the Form 990 they have to file with the IRS and you'll find that the "community support" is about 20-30% with corporate sponsorships teh lion's share. And which practically gives advertising rights to its corporate sponsors. I guess what I am saying is I support NPR news and the rest of it might well be handled locally and more cheaply. And I wonder whether in some places public radio may become such a big "institution" you wonder what the difference may be with CNN............ I"m being provocative here, I know that some of this is CAUSED by inadequate public funding, but still!!!! I'd like to see some criticism of the COMMERCIALISM of public radio these days too. Hey, you can listen to WWUH on the internet at http://wwuh.org, too. Worldwide. ANd before you panic, you can listen to BBC news on the 'net too. Not to mention news from all other countries of the world. Norman Johnson wrote: > Bill wrote: > > > >>>Perhaps artists that were helped in finding an audience through NPR > > airplay, > like Richard, should donate $1 from each CD sale to NPR to help sustain > their funding.<< > > Perhaps they should, and perhaps the other groups Bill mentioned should also > do more. > > But that doesn't obviate the responsibility of the government to provide for > CPB, etc. One of the major functions of the federal government is to > "promote the general welfare"; it's even enshrined in the preamble of the > Constitution. Public radio and public television do a great deal to promote > the general welfare, and we the people-- by means of our federal govt--have > a responsibility to promote it. > > Norman ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 22:54:58 -0400 From: Lisa Davis - home Subject: Re: [RS] Re:PBS >It was on A.M. talk radio and the guy said that while his kids grea up watching Sesame Street and PBS shows, he felt the private sector could do a better job if they were given the chance. As a liberal, I can also report that Sesame Street was charged with fuelling modern children's appetite for sound-bytes, little 2-minute snips with no continuity... I'm 45 and came of age on "Sally Star" and assorted westerns, not Public TV. "Hey Arnold" is a great show on Nickelodeon and I'm proud my kids grew up with it. I'd say the same for Rugrats except that I fear Angelica was for a time a role model! And you have to approve of a show like "Spongebob squarepants" when it gets targeted by the far right as promoting homosexuality. I hate the commercials, though; but like I said the trouble with public TV has been that the corporate "acknowledgments" sound a lot like commercials to me, too. lisa, fresh from a 2-day break ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V7 #149 ***********************************