Democracy Now or Rush Limbaugh
Over the holidays, I had a message from a long-time friend of the station who found herself defending NCPR’s decision to not air Democracy Now!, the public affairs program hosted by Amy Goodman. She thinks we made the right decision, but asked me to spell out why we made that decision.
1) NCPR is a news organization that provides fact-based news and information so people can make well-informed decisions about their elected officials and the world around them.
2) NCPR does not broadcast partisan “news” programs. If we aired a program that advanced a liberal agenda, we would be obliged to air a whole spectrum of agenda-driven programs. Ultimately, these programs preach to their own narrow choir. Our mission is to bring people together in a space that encourages civil conversation…in today’s media world, there is very little of this kind of space left.
3) Democracy Now! is widely available now on platforms other than public radio stations.
Weigh in. What do you think? Many of you have asked us to carry Democracy Now! Others have thanked us for working to keep our airwaves politically neutral.
I encourage you to share your opinion.
Tags: democracy now, journalism
Agree.
I’ve never heard Democracy Now! but I think you’re all just scared of James O’Keefe, and probably with reason. Getting on the wrong side of those people is a good way to lose your funding. In NPR’s case, it’s probably best never to court controversy, and run whenever somebody bullies you. I’m dead serious.
Also agree. There’s no longer any real “news” in the mainstream media for the most part. That’s why NPR is my “go to.”
” Our mission is to bring people together in a space that encourages civil conversation…in today’s media world, there is very little of this kind of space left. ”
hear, hear!
Ellen-
Level of response to your post indicates the level of listener concern about your policy. As you know.
Nice that you put the question out, though.
Agree…I prefer NCPR remain politically neutral.
agree
I just listed to Democracy Now! (having never listened to it before) and was quite impressed. The program covered a number of important stories that seemed to have been missed/ignored by the mainstream media.
Ellen, as for your 3 points, and with respect….
1. It appears that Democracy Now! does provide “fact-based news and information” – can you point us to ways in which it doesn’t? (I read through their website and it appears to be focused on providing an independent perspective on the news).
2. Wouldn’t the concern about programs that advance a liberal agenda also apply to many NPR/NCPR programs – including “All Things Considered”? (this is certainly a standard charge leveled by many in Congress).
3. Now that I have discovered Democracy Now! I will probably start listening to it as a podcast. However, as a long term member of NCPR (and someone who gives cash annually) I would love to listen to it on NCPR – my favorite local radio station.
If I believed NCPR was “politically neutral” I wouldn’t bother responding to your offer to weigh in. My sense is that NCPR is for the most part “mainstream”, which puts it to the right of neutral.
I understand an NPR affiliate’s desire to walk the middle path given public funding concerns and labels such “liberally biased”. The question is not whether we should carry DN! or any of the extensive programming available through Pacifica on NCPR, but could/will we create a “community station(s)” that is free to carry progressive views and opinions to counter the monopoly the “right wing” media currently enjoys locally?
Is it NCPR’s opinion that there is room on the southwest end of the FM dial for such a radio station in the North Country?
Good Decision. Neutrality is your most valuable asset. Keeps you above the fray, so to speak. That’s why the left hates public radio.
Ellen: After researching Democracy Now! I feel you made the right decision. I’m not sure you can compare Democracy Now to Rush but neither has a place in your programming. I am a bit surprised that you had to create a “why” document. I would have thought such a document would already exist as part of your guiding principals.
Stick to your guns.
NCPR has done a fantastic job at expanding the geography of its reach. But there’s been a price for this expansion far greater than the cost of more antenna towers, translators and the like. The price is the programming that is taboo, like Democracy Now, that will scare away business and corporate sponsors. So please say it like it is. NCPR is a business. It’s the MONEY that matters.
While the author of the comments below did not send these to me directly, I saw the post because I am on the listserv on which his comments appeared. So, I’m not sharing his identity, but thought his remarks should be shared as a good example of a perspective that represents a significant segment of our audience.
“At this point, I do not have the slightest interest in sharing my thoughts on political neutrality with NCPR with the promoters of that station. I had my “Democracy Now” conversation with at least two staff members in 2003 – 2004. As a result, my family no longer contributes to NCPR.
Although the boosters of NCPR represent that the station is “politically neutral,” that is a lie. My discussions with staff members were initiated after all public affairs programs that NCPR aired consisted of blatant propaganda (with no countervailing point of view) about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the threat posed by Sadaam Hussein, and the danger of a nuclear Iraq. I believe it was hogwash at the time and subsequent events showed that to be the case. When I raised the issue with my contacts at NCPR, they were unapologetic. They argued that the station’s treatment of the run up to the Iraq invasion was “fair and balanced.” Their choice to use the words of the liars at Fox News was telling.
NCPR aired NPR produced programming that was neither politically neutral nor local. The political discussions were framed in such a way that the assumptions foisted on us by our leaders were uncritically accepted as true. If we assume that the Earth is flat, the possibility of falling off the edge would logically follow.
We live in a society where falsehood in the service of income and profit is both acceptable and accepted. I can listen to bullshit all day for free. I’m not going to pay to promote its distribution even if it comes packaged between entertainment shows.”
Ellen thanks for sharing the above post. I know the author, agree and add the following.
Democracy Now! is not the Truth, but I feel that NPR programming is so narrow and centered as to be irrelevant. Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy are known worldwide and excluded from NPR.
I receive Canadian News via TV antenna (mostly TVO Canada), and can tell IN A MINUTE, by topic and vocabulary, that it is Canadian programming. They have Zinn, Chomsky and Roy on occasionally, debates about 9/11, Global Warming, and a host of other topics that are just systematically excluded from the American experience. Mass media is censored in the US and NCPR is Mass Media.
NCPR’s Community Board is comprised of hand-selected plutocrats from the SLU Board of Directors, the station license holders, and does not reflect the community. Can the station try Democracy Now! (on the local Alternative channel in Potsdam) for one year and put it to a vote? Hundreds of ex-listeners might return and balance out the losses of big money controlling supporters. It would fulfill your mission of building community and educating the 99% during the current economic depression, which is a time of government of/for the Corporation and the resulting uprisings of both Occupy Wall street and Tea Party.
We need our local radio to be a community resource that might foster occasional cognitive dissonance rather than mind-numbing repetition that reflects national hypnosis. Please consider and get community feedback on this matter.
Here’s a message I received from John Scarlett in Rossie…he had trouble posting his comment to this blog, so I’m forwarding on his behalf.
“Being the hermit I am, I had not heard of Democracy Now until reading your essay an hour ago, which I followed with one hour of today’s Democracy Now. Wow, where have I been? Because I can get Democracy Now on our computer, I have no need to lobby for including it on NCPR, but based on what I heard and the credentials presented for Amy Goodwin and her staff on their home page, the idea of making Rush Limbaugh the opposite pole of Democracy Now seems pretty ridiculous to me. Up to now I have been an avid consumer of NPR and public television’s news, along with sporadic attention to the New York Times and a few other sources (CNN, rather than FOX, when I am in the cardio room at the gym). Now I might focus mainly on Democracy Now. Political neutrality is impossible, it seems to me. You can never just ‘present the facts’ because there are too many ‘facts’ (talk about an elusive category!) and the act of choosing which ones to present is a political act. I listen to public radio not just to ‘get the facts’ but to get a ‘liberal’ slant and menu of interests. Where am I going with this? I guess I can never get enough intelligent opinions from many different perspectives and have no problem with your including more political stuff. The trouble is there are only so many waking hours, and I love the mix you have created for NCPR. If I want more OpEd’s I am content to go elsewhere whenever I need to.” — John Scarlett
Thank you Ellen for initiating this conversation.
As a curious part time consumer of Rush and his ilk, I find the motives, agenda and content of the “right” a far cry from that of the DN!
When I moved to the North Country from Colorado, where progressive thought and ideas abound, I felt that the internet would allow me to stay in touch with the media outlets I gravitated towards. To a large extent that is still true.
Where we come up short is that you don’t know what you are missing if you are not aware that it exists. John Scarlett makes that case perfectly.
The net has some incredible nuggets tucked away for those that are aware of what to look for or with enough time and energy to find something new and refreshing.
There are very good reasons why we are all still supporters of RADIO and haven’t completely given into the web, radio works.
How can we make it work better in the NC?
It’s difficult to imagine that anyone hasn’t heard of Amy Goodman’s show who has internet access but I guess that sums up the problem with excluding Democracy Now! because it’s available on other platforms, but I’m much more interested in the idea that NCPR considers it’s broadcast “neutral”.
If it’s neutral then how is it that the Year of the Protester is somehow a discussion about Egypt?
How is it that the nuclear meltdown in Japan is characterized as a minor glitch for a promising technology?
Why is the Heritage Foundation brought in the analyze the Wall street fraud?
I could go on all day, and everyday.
If there is any serious intention in this post then let’s not only air Goodman’s efforts but Aljazeera English, Common Dreams, Truthout, or any of the other fledgling news outlets struggling with this same problem.
When Secretary of State Clinton announced that “we (United States) are loosing our ability to control the story” a few weeks ago, she saw this as a problem. I call it the face of hope.
mike owen
Ellen,
I think you better define what you mean by “neutral,” regarding the Amy Goodman show and consequence of having to provide the opposite point of view. The neutral that I’ve heard on NCPR has had a bias all its own and it has been all over the map, regardless of whether it was at a local, national, or international level. Your listeners deserve more than we’re getting and perhaps the political correctness that NPR dictates to its local affiliates makes that type of menu or smorgasbord of ideas impossible for you to provide. Our loss. If Democracy Now is available online (I’m a hermit like John Scarlett) I can see that most definitely intruding into the time otherwise spent listening to NCPR.
For some reason my two comments are not showing up.
Hi Bob– and others–Sorry about the long wait in moderation. Your comments went into that queue because this was the first time you have commented at the All In blog using this combination of username and email address. Any future comments from you will go live when posted. normally I receive an email when a comment goes into the moderation queue and during works they get prompt attention. I didn’t get an email on this (or ten other comments on this blog). I’ll check it regularly today to see if there are further comments held in limbo. Dale Hobson, NCPR
Thanks to everyone who’s weighed in on this issue. I’m somewhat reluctant to reply point-by-point to your comments–that seems a bit heavy-handed. However, I do think some response is called for, particularly regarding the nature of NCPR and its funding base.
Here are the numbers:
We receive 5% of our cash revenues each year from St. Lawrence University (that’s a flat $100,000 annually).
We receive 35-40% of revenues from individual donors with the average gift about $80, and ranging from $5-2,000 (most much closer to the lower figure).
We receive anywhere from .05-5% of revenues from “major” donors, that is, gifts of more than $5,000, and this section of revenues varies widely from year to year with $100,000 in total major gifts being an exceptional year.
We receive 30% of revenues from businesses and organizations in the region, via underwriting support. These contributions average around $1,000, and range from a few hundred dollars to $15,000 (with the higher end underwriters usually being large non-profit institutions in the region rather than corporations).
The NYS Education department provides about 5% of our revenues, though this may disappear in the current economic climate.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides about 15% of our revenues. (And, because there still seem to be people who don’t understand our relationship with NPR, we receive NO money from NPR–rather, we pay for the NPR programs we choose to broadcast. There is no “direction” or “order giving” from NPR to member stations; in fact, the reverse is closer to the truth, with member stations providing the majority of NPR Board members.)
The remainder of our annual revenue comes from special project grants (like the Knight Foundation grant monies directed our way by the Adirondack Community Trust, or the NYS Music Fund grant we received a few years ago to do the UpNorth Music project).
I have summarized our revenues because I find it deeply troubling that some people think our decision-making is influenced by major donors or the need to raise money in particular communities. To the contrary. Much of the expansion the station engaged in over the past two or three decades was mission–not money–driven. We knew that small communities across the region could not afford to establish new public radio services. We also believed it would serve the residents of the region to have a public radio service that connected our far-flung communities to each other. We invested time and money in building out the station’s infrastructure and, while those communities now served by repeaters have generally “paid back” the investment, we do not “make money” from the expansion, we simply raise enough to keep it going.
Most public radio stations across the country have not built and maintained news departments like NCPR’s–certainly they have not made the 30-year investment that we have made in news. Years ago, we decided to put our resources into regional news because we believed it directly addressed a regional need: news that ties together people throughout the northern reaches of NYS. If we were about money, we would NOT air regional news. We would purchase more programs from national producers and perhaps add a few volunteer music hosts. Our budget would be reduced by almost 50%.
So, I firmly and unequivocally object to the notion that the news we do is based on a desire to “make money from wealthy donors.”
On the main points being made about NCPR’s news coverage and our policy decision to not broadcast “Democracy Now!” and other politically partisan programs, I would add this…
NCPR–and for that matter NPR–works with limited resources. Our largest failure may be one that we struggle with internally all the time: how can we cover everything we want to cover with the depth we’d like to when our resources are ultimately quite limited? When people rely on us for day-to-day coverage of key regional issues/news as well as investigative reporting, how do we make choices between those needs and demands?
I believe we can always do better in terms of providing in depth coverage–and I know our news team would like nothing better than to work on extended investigative and enterprising pieces. I know we sometimes miss stories. But, I also know that our news team is always striving to provide you with as much information as they can about the things that affect our communities and our lives.
Much of the criticism leveled against the station is as much about NPR as NCPR. Ironically, I am frequently in touch with NPR when I think they have failed to cover, or cover thoroughly, stories that deserve their attention. Your criticisms of NCPR are taken seriously and are being discussed around the station as I write this reply.
Finally, I must admit to a bad comparison. Democracy Now! is not the obvious opposite of Rush Limbaugh. While DN is an advocacy program, it is based on some serious effort to explore issues of importance to our society. Rush is more about yelling and I don’t care what political position you represent, yelling doesn’t work for us.
Thanks for your honest input and criticism.
Thanks Dale.
I find it interesting that the DN! dilemma (as it has come to be know nationwide
among PUBLIC radio stations), was not on the table when NCPR chose to use more of the local band width with yet more NPR/CPB programming
The human less,auto pilot, Clear Channel approach to radio, also know as RADIO REMIX, is taking up valuable space on the dial and does nothing to serve the local community. In fact, it stands in the way of a potential low power-fm community station in the Canton-Potsdam area. In parts of canton, the multitude of powerful NCPR signals steps on other stations signals, creating dead zones where all you get is NCPR.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that NCPR does a great job at what they do,
there is just way more out there that deserves to be heard.
Bob,
Sorry, I meant to reply to your inquiry about low power FM and then I was distracted and my earlier post was already too long…
For those who are not familiar with low power FM, a quick explanation: some years ago, the FCC proposed to open up the FM broadcast band to more stations by allowing licenses for new low power local FM stations. The idea was to address the need for local stations–a need largely created by the takeover of most local commercial stations by large conglomerates, like Clear Channels. There were some objections from both the non-commercial and commercial broadcasting communities–in some cases, existing stations were probably threatened by potential competition. In the case of many public radio stations, the bigger concern was that the original FCC proposal did not protect existing stations from potential signal interference from the new stations.
NCPR has always supported the low power proposal. We’ve helped some community organizations elsewhere in the country get started. In this neck of the woods, the only potential low power station operator we know of was a religious group that secured a low power frequency some years ago and then never used it.
But, if you want to find out more about the possibility of starting a low power station in your community, you will find below everything you need to know to look into getting a station going.
Bob Washo–one final point: we secured the 88.7 FM frequency as an experimental station. While the Remix thread is not local, it has been welcomed enthusiastically by listeners within St. Lawrence County who can tune it in (it doesn’t get beyond this county). And, if you’re interested in Democracy Now, remember…that’s no more local than Remix.
Okay, here’s the tool kit you need, thanks to Radio Bob, to find out about and even start your own community low power FM station. Let us know if we can help.
LPFMs (low power FM stations) can occur anywhere within the FM band (commercial or non-commercial).
It appears that there are plenty of LPFM “slots” available in Canton or Potsdam. There are may be slots available in many other communities across the Adirondack North Country…we only looked at Canton and Potsdam as a starting point. You can do a search yourself at the following locations:
http://cdbs.recnet.net:8080/lpfm.php?
Or from the FCC: http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/lpfm_channel_finder.html
By the way, the 60 dbu service contour for a LPFM is limited to 5.6 km (3.4 miles)… so an LPFM could conceivably cover most of Canton with a pretty good signal.
Readers can look further at the RecNet website to learn more about LPFM (a fascinating subject!) http://home.recnet.com/
Hope this helps–Bob Sauter
If NCPR were to air Democracy Now, why not also call upon NCPR to air Rush Limbaugh?
No, I am serious.
If I were to wish for more of anything on NCPR it would be for more of Radio Bob and The World Cafe.
Radio has become so darn talkish. Talking heads on TV and talking heads on radio. Talk, talk, talk equals blather, blather, blather. I yearn for the day of people on radio such as Murray the K, Tom Clay and Alan Freed.
Opinion?
Well, everyone has an opinion. So what?
Don’t like my opinions? You are in good company because there are times when I don’t like my opinions.
Experts. I am sick of experts. It often seems what experts are really expert at is getting paid to have an opinion.
Count and counterpoint.
If you need to be feed a never ending dose of liberal or conservative opinion, please get a life. Better yet, do something constructive like make something. Anything.
With all due respect Mr. Klein, there is no need or room for that sort of personal and pointed dialogue in this forum.
Besides, it was NCPR that solicited our views on this matter.
Further and for the record, my farm and gardens feed over 100 of my Canton neighbors year round.
I like a lot about NCPR and support the station as much as I can. That said, I’d love to have Amy Goodman and DN! on instead of, say, the 2 PM weekday programming.
I have limited access to internet shows, personally, and I’m surely not alone. Going to the internet means NCPR loses me as a listener for that time, anyway. That’s not good for NCPR, because once you’re on one media you tend to stay there until the content precipitates a massive drop in interest to the particular listener. I also like the idea of using Remix for this, but not at 5 AM on Sunday morning or similar.
I would not put Rush and Amy in the same category. Amy is not a yelling fanatic; nor does she participate in the tiresome “gotcha” journalism that Maddow and other estimable colleagues of hers on the “left” so often do (despite excellent work otherwise). Amy is a true old-fashioned investigative journalist, and a good one. I hope we will have her on our airwaves in the North Country eventually, and better ON our favorite public station than competing with it, no?
Just to add my two cents. I think many of the previous comments are good. I too would like to hear DN on a regular basis. Too much information is given in the form of “spin” on various topics. My feeling is that DN is more about finding out what is true and what isn’t. That’s much more important than just being balanced, if we are to be an informed citizenry. I think that in general, NCPR does a very good job and I listen a great deal and contribute. But I think that DN would be a great addition to the programming and would provide more understanding of domestic and world events.
Hey, there’s someone else with my initials!
A warning from the near north (or actually near west where in Kingston). Advocacy / opinion / expert panel broadcasting that fills our Canadian news media can get incredibly mind numbing regardless of the point of view, though I think it is fair to say it leans centre-left in Canada. In little PEI out east where we used to work a friend at the local CBC would refer to the “CBC 100” – meaning that of the whole population they only ever went back for the point of view from the same 100 people. Bo-ring.
What NCPR and, to a lesser degree, NPR succeeds in doing is getting local and regional news to local and regional people and letting those people make up their own minds. If you were ever to get into providing that service, it would be as separate from NCPR as Remix is – and might deserve its own separate broadcast as well. That might be a good and fine thing but it is a very different thing and, frankly, not all that different from Rush even if the tone is tactically different.
There is no politically “neutral” programming. Every show has an agenda, Every show has censorship by omission. It is time to grow up and recognize NPR shows for what they are and move on to anything other than the status quo.
NCPR needs to expand and wean itself off NPR channeled programming. How about any of the three:
Democracy Now!
Al Jazzera English aljazeera.com
or Russian Television RT.COM
Well, at least from the blog responses above, listenership is almost evenly divided on the DN! issue, kinda like the rest of the country.
An interesting thought to ponder…….