The Diane Rehm Show

mellifluous, when you use terms like "Repugnicants", in my book you don't deserve any reply at all, but since my mother raised me right, I will give you one anyway.
mellifluous wrote:
"Let me see if I understand you, ecgberht: You seem to believe that everything worthwhile can be monetized"
You conflate Public Radio with natural resources.
" also note you tacitly endorse the notions that corporations are people who have civil rights"
If you want to discuss CU v FEC, let's have at it. Explain to me how that case could have been decided differently.
"and that legislators have the right to sell things that don't belong to them in return for legal bribes."
And I said that where?
There is a lot of anger in your posts, mellifluous and not a lot of thought. I would not want to have your blood pressure.

I am a current listener in Arizona, and would financially support NPR, but I find the news reporting, topics, discussion panels, etc. to be biased. Across the board, I don't hear fair and accurate consideration or equal air time to all sides of the political or socio-economic spectrum.

To that end I don't believe that "public" radio is really that unless it does offer those considerations and equality in reporting, and therefore should not qualify for any use of Federal funds.

If NPR would provide balanced content, I would absolutely support it.

As someone recently explained it at a cocktail party raising money for the arts, NPR is effectively a taxpayer-supported Democratic Super PAC.

It uses its funding from all sources to relentlessly articulate issues important to progressive Democrats - gay issues, women's issues, government-paid health care, public employee unions, environmentalism, pro-illegal immigration efforts private and public - over and over and over and over while then, sadly, then having no more room left to articulate conservative or Republican issues - government spending, government debt, selective enforcement of federal law, taxes, government intrusion and takeover of private markets, crony capitalism, etc.

It's all perfectly legal, the Supreme Court just ruled that it is: NPR is a Democratic Super PAC which channels its funding into overwhelmingly promoting Democratic Party political platform interests as "newsworthy issues", and Gary Knell now runs it.

I don't know how Gary can say that there is no political agenda. Everything that involves people, involves their worldviews and their politics. It DOES color what's being communicated.

The least biased things I hear on NPR is the BBC World News and Car Talk...and that isn't saying much.

I've become convinced that the PBS/NPR funding models do not work in smaller communities. It's inefficient. I'm sure there are effective stations in rural areas or small cities. BUT what I witness in the Midwest is little to no local news generation, just rip and read or days old stories that the newspapers have already done. I started at public radio and moved to public TV before going into network news.

I've also lived in SF, Boston, Ann Arbor and had vibrant NPR stations that did great local news coverage. In small midwestern cities w/ public radio stations I see a churn of donation dollars to pay programming fees for the national shows and a churn to pay the local salaries of everyone at the station AND THAT IS NOT A GOOD USE OF FUNDING, especially when their local news generation is so poor. To pay all these staff salaries around the country doesn't make sense. Do you have a solution? My local station was once one of the best in the country. The first GM went on to run great NPR stations on the coasts and the folks here now make no effort to cover local news. Why should I donate when that's the situation? It's a sham. And yes, I've shared these views with them. They are misguidedly protecting their jobs. It's bureaucracy run amok.

In these difficult economic times, has NPR considered tapping into the collective expertise of the thousands of reporters and editors who were downsized in recent years as newspapers cut staffs or closed their doors?

I'm sure the out-of-work journalists would prefer to be paid; but if the NPR budget is tight, the reporters and editors might be interested in volunteering for NPR outlets.

An example might be a popular newspaper columnist, now out of work, who could continue his or her work on the local public radio station.

I distrust this saying, because the truth can hurt, but so can untruths---so something's having hurt is no sure test of its being truthful.

For example, a falsehood can hurt if it's conveyed in such a way as to indicate that the conveyor wants you to hurt---the anger or hatred in the conveyance can itself be hurtful. It were better were this not so, because it makes it gives the malicious what they want, but it is so.

On a more pleasant but apposite note, a potentially hurtful truth need not: if you've palpably good will toward its recipient, they might actually absorb the truth as useful information, rather than thinking of it as an attack against which practicality or honour demands defence.

shakazulu wrote:
"I don't want Fox News, NBC, ABC, any of them taking government dollars. "
And they don't ... only NPR.

Very thoughtful post, shakazulu, thanks.

To repeat Mr. Ellison's questions to Mr. Duntov since he has not answered:

"Here's a simple question for Arkus. If NPR is liberally biased in your view, please name the news media organizations you consider to be fair and straight down the middle."

Since conservatives are now well to the right of where they once were, in fact extreme, everyone else looks liberal.

What is really upsetting is what a chill business interests and conservatives have put on NPR reporting for fear of losing funding. Telling the truth becomes liberal bias. Maybe the model of corporate funding is wrong to begin with. NPR should be publicly funded.

ecgberht,
Thanks for proving/confirming my statements..........by being poorly informed and poorly educated.

Buuuuuuuuurrrrrrppppp!

I'm flabbergasted by the conservative commentors' comments. They seem to think that anyone who disagrees with them is "biased" even though they regularly watch/listen to the most biased media around. Fox was CREATED to be biased & to advocate for rightwing causes & politicians. They & the Kochs funded the Tea Party Express as well as many of the teaparty get-togethers like the one Glenn Beck held. I guess if all you watch or listen to is biased propaganda, then actual facts & truth WOULD seem biased. What loons!

NPR and Diane Rehm consistently report on and discuss the news with a somewhat liberal bias. As an example, last Friday, June 1, Diane said: "corporate CEO's are making tons of money .... they ought to be answerable to more people than stockholders."

If CEO's were answerable to people other than stockholders regarding their salaries, we would be living under a much different system and I don't think it could be called free enterprise.

Nevertheless, I enjoy listening to NPR for thoughtful, in depth reporting and discussion of important issues. But I also listen to the conservative side.

soundpam wrote:
" I guess if all you watch or listen to is biased propaganda, then actual facts & truth WOULD seem biased".
I don't know, pam. Try posting some actual facts and truth and we'll see. Glenn Beck, blah, blah, blah. Koch brothers, blah, blah, blah. Tea Party, blah, blah, blah. You need a new tune, pam. And this time, try a little lyric (read: substance), not just melody, this time, 'k?

ecgberht wrote: "mellifluous, when you use terms like "Repugnicants", in my book you don't deserve any reply at all, but since my mother raised me right, I will give you one anyway." ecgberht, even though I may have reason to question your intellectual integrity, your grip on reality and your command of relevant facts, I wouldn't even think to disparage your upbringing or by extension, your mother, especially since we don't know each other. Shame on you.

I do indeed conflate public radio with natural resources. You see, I am continually frustrated in trying to divine any principle that "conservatives" apply consistently: apparently there is none. When I did a little cursory searching on the roots of Conservatism, I found that at its root, Conservatism isn't a philosophy or ethic -- it is merely a posture, a stance resisting progress. This seems to me to be an awfully slim reed upon which to base a justification for the eradication of individual liberties, mismanagement of public funds, habitual fraud and sanctimoniously lying as a way of life: yet "conservatives" continually howl that they are insufficiently respected and politicians compete to determine who is the most "conservative". It's like bragging about brain damage.