NPR, Ron Schiller and the Public Radio Heartland
When I first started working in public radio thirty-plus years ago, I was a college dropout and my day job was butchering fish on the docks in Sitka, Alaska. That’s the village where I grew up.
That little public radio station was about as rural and rooted as you could want. Sure, there were jazz shows and you could sometimes smell a little pot in the air room.
But there were also shows about hunting and fishing. At night, we broadcast “muskeg messages” to long-liners and trollers anchored out near the commercial fishing grounds.
And they let me, a local guy in rubber boots and Carhartts, start volunteering. They welcomed me, respected me, and taught me a trade.
In the years that followed, I muddled from one small-town public radio station to another.
And after that first welcome experience, I learned a little bit about the snootiness NPR executive Ron Schiller showed in that awful gotcha video.
I’ve seen NPR folks flinch at the way I pronounce words. I’ve had people ask me with real amazement why I would ever want to live and work in rural America.
I’ve heard some amazingly ignorant and small-minded opinions about the white, Christian, middle American culture that I hail from and have stuck to.
And some people think that’s all that public radio amounts to. Even some fans of what we do — including Sue Schardt, an important advocate for public radio producers — argue that public broadcasting is pretty elitist.
“[W]e unwittingly cultivated a core audience that is predominately white, liberal, highly educated, elite,” Schardt wrote, following this latest scandal.
Others go even further. Former NPR commentator Juan Williams claims that Schiller’s comments offer true insight into the very DNA of public broadcasting.
But here’s the thing. In my experience, that kind of bigoted nonsense is the exception. And I don’t just mean that NPR are a bunch of liberal city-folk smart enough to keep their prejudices to themselves.
What I mean is that the vast majority of people I’ve worked with at NPR are deeply curious, open-minded, and knowledgeable about life in America — and not just life in the coastal cities or the “blue” states.
Many of them started their careers in “small-market” rural stations, spending long years doing farm stories, and writing about the travails of rural manufacturing.
The weird truth is that NPR is the only national network that talks and thinks and reports regularly about my part of America with any sophistication or nuance.
Tune in to Morning Edition and All Things Considered and you won’t just get corn-pone and kitsch from the heartland. You’ll get sophisticated, thoughtful, balanced reporting.
There’s a reason for that. Over the years, many of NPR’s signature voices — Howard Berkes, John Burnett, Peter Kenyon, Corey Flintoff, and Elizabeth Arnold — have been people with a lot of mud on their boots.
These are people who’ve spent years in “flyover” country. They can write about mining or oil drilling or running a corner grocery, or maintaining a small rural school, because they’ve gone deep into our world.
American journalism — including the vast majority of conservative American journalism — is primarily anchored in five big cities, Washington DC, New York, LA, Atlanta and Boston.
But it’s telling that my chief editor at NPR works from Maine. She knows and respects Main Street American issues — and thinks about this part of America with as much devotion as any journalist working.
It’s also worth noting that here in rural America, a lot of our listeners aren’t the elites.
In my world, public radio is kept on in the cafes, in the truck cabs, in the tractors, on the job sites, and in the mom-and-pop retail stores.
Yes, they’re people who love Morning Edition and our local news. But they also love bluegrass music, and they call us with their lost dog reports, and they send us their community calendar listings about Methodist church suppers.
It’s also a simple fact that in my public radio culture, a big slice of the listeners are conservative. In much of rural America, if you didn’t have conservative listeners, you just plain wouldn’t have many listeners at all.
Now, I understand that when a doofus like Ron Schiller sounds off, all that gets eclipsed. Public radio becomes a latte-sipping caricature, a Fox News laugh-line, a culture-war pinata.
But here’s the really sad part. When the dust settles, the vast majority of those big-market urban NPR affiliates will be just fine. They have the big audiences, and the big donors. They’ll weather deep cuts to their Federal funding.
I’m guessing NPR will muddle forward, too. They might have to trim their sails a little, but the network will survive.
The real blood in the water — and yes, this is an irony that infuriates me — will flow from the veins of this “other” public radio, the one that exists out here where I live, in hundreds of rural towns and small cities.
Many of our most grassroots stations, the ones most deeply connected to the culture Schiller was deriding, will be crippled if Schiller’s blather triggers any kind of sudden, abrupt funding cuts.
I happen to think that it’s fair and timely to have a debate about whether Congress should fund public broadcasting. That debate was needed before this scandal broke.
But we have to have that conversation in a way that doesn’t cripple the thriving culture of public radio that has evolved in America’s heartland.
Tags: public radio
Excellent article, Brian! The small NPR stations are the real lifeblood of the network! If you cut off the blood supply, the whole body dies.
“In my experience, that kind of bigoted nonsense is the exception. And I don’t just mean that NPR are a bunch of liberal city-folk smart enough to keep their prejudices to themselves.”
This statement will prove itself, one way or the other, in the coming days / months.
Absolutely excellent.
In a better, saner, world, the portion the Feds give to the local stations would be about right. But that is not the world we live in.
The push to protect funding kept citing public TV & radio 170,000,000 users, but only about, what 250,000 ,?, could trouble ourselves to click on the petitions supporting it. Users a mile wide, real supporters, an inch deep.
Brian, you do serve an elite, but it if not all brie-eating elitists, it is nevertheless an elite. People of love to learn, and be entertained at a different level than most Americans. I can’t even get my lawyer/college department-head sister to turn off the Today Show for a couple of minutes to listen to Morning Edition, or check out This American American Life or Wait,Wait…
Maybe the resources NPR, CPB, and the rest of the Public Broadcasting alliance might be better spent retrenching to build a funding base not dependent on a government dominated by by demagogues serving the prejudices of ignoramuses. Maybe there is a rural Joan Krock out there somewhere who understands and will help. And surely, a lot of the rest of us will.
I get more confused everyday over the definition of “elite”. Exactly who is considered an “elite”?
My understanding is that NPR itself is financially independent – thanks to the McDonald’s fortune. Its the local stations – like NCPR – that will suffer. Its a shame. There is lots of high-quality local programming that has nothing to do with the culture wars. My mother in California called me up a couple of years ago to tell me about this great piece she heard about some guy riding around in a snow-plow all day in and around Saranac Lake. (Good job Brian).
Elite today means someone who is better educated than you are (or at least thinks they are).
Its a dangerous situation because it means the experts are by definition wrong.
I think there is a lot of reverse-elitism happening in this “debate” about NPR.
Many who feel they are “real Americans” have a chip on their shoulder about East and West Coast Liberals who don’t understand the people in “fly-over” country. Tell them you live in New York and they think you live in a Manhattan penthouse.
It goes both ways.
But I don’t believe this “debate” represents the majority opinion in this country. Having recently returned from a 3 week, 6,000 mile road trip across “fly-over” country to Colorado and New Mexico I heard many NPR outlets and the great thing about the local stations is that they all had a unique, local flavor.
I spent a night at Great Sand Dunes listening to a local station broadcasting a town board meeting out across the vast emptiness to little farmhouses dotted on the landscape. The next day I did my laundry in Alamosa and noticed the radio station in a little residential building across the street from the laundromat.
I thought about going over and slipping 5 buck under the door. I didn’t, but I thought about it.
There is elitism and ignorance on both sides of this debate, almost everyone is a snob in their own way. People need to get over it.
Thank you, Brian, for this article. As your “boss,” I sure am proud to have you on the NCPR team. You nailed it.
What saddens me is how this brouhaha distracts everyone from the work being done day in day out at stations like ours–and by the one-of-a-kind news team at NPR.
I cannot say this often enough: the American people built our public radio system over the past few decades. You did it mostly with your personal contributions and, to a lesser extent, with your tax dollars. Like a road or a school, public radio needs on-going support or the commonly held resource falls into disrepair.
The conversation around the extraordinarily stupid remarks of the development team at NPR is actually heartening to me. I read through your posts here and in response to earlier blog entries and, regardless of where you stand politically, you clearly care about the well-being of public radio. You may think we can do a lot better, but you’re not saying we shouldn’t exist.
Thank you all. In spite of the egg on NPR’s face, it’s clear to me you care. In spite of where you stand on the federal funding issue, it’s clear to me you care. This makes our work possible. Thank you.
I grew up in the country, went to a one room school with 6-8 students in 8 grades. I’ve shoveled manure, pitched hay and herded cows into the barn for milking. Later on I went to a central school (culture shock), then the military and later college. I’ve met people who spent their whole lives int the well-to-do university educated class. I now feel like the old song “Mister in between”, not really fitting with either end of the culture spectrum in this country but I do have more empathy for the poor having spent most of my life struggling up from there.
Knuckleheadedliberal is right about the elitism and ignorance on both sides and I agree people should get over it but it’s tough when both sides feel like they are under attack from the other. Mr. Schiller’s comments were not entirely inaccurate. The problem is that he phrased them in a way that came off as an attack. Until both ends of the culture spectrum start discussing the things that divide them with mutual respect we will continue to have this sort of culture warfare.
Elitism is in the mind. It has nothing to do with facts on the ground. It has nothing to do with education or income. It has nothing to do with anything other than a sense of superiority and can include just about anyone and anything, including race, creed, level of any or no income, Republican and Democrat.
Elitism includes, but is not limited to, the so-called scientific community and research community that realizes survival means getting published. Getting published means don’t go against the prevailing winds.
If the prevailing winds point to a political outcome, everyone jumps on board or risks being left out of the room.
Being left out of the room is the worst outcome for an elitist.
Brian M: ideologues have their narrative, a narrative which is immune to nuance. The Becks and Maddows know this.
So now we’ve gone from “he was tricked” to he’s “a doofus”? Okay, at least you recognize it. Truthfully, I can sympathize with you guys at the local station level. You’re going through the same things I do with the Tea Party, gun control, conservative/Republican confusion. You are catching flack for something someone way up the ladder is doing. Welcome to the club. Irritating, isn’t it? I just hope you all remember this the next time you’re confusing Republican/Conservative with conservatives interested in saving the republic. Or when some doofus fat guy in bib overalls, a “David Duke Rules!” hat and with no teeth is said to be a representative of everyday gun owners. Or when some elite Washington talking head tries to label the whole Tea Party as right wing white supremacists. It really stinks when the message gets twisted, doesn’t it?
I’m all for public radio continuing. I just feel that NPR/PBS have outlived their mandate for public funding. I feel a lot of other sections of gov’t and entities receiving public funds are also due for a cut. Times are changing. Cut the apron strings and take this where you want it to go. you can say it’s only $90 million. True, but that’s $90m that could be feeding people, keeping them warm, paying down the deficit. There are lots of other places that could be cut too, make no mistake.
Bret–outlived what mandate for public funding? Did public radio every have a mandate? They justify themselves year after year, budget after budget. In my view, the public should have an interest in voices that are not commercial. That is, voices that do not depend for their existence on delivering a consumer market to advertisers. If you don’t believe that, then there is nothing to discuss. But i hasten to add: try listening to commercial radio–it is mostly,well, commercials (“the 15th out of the game is brought to you by Geico.”). If you don’t think the vaunted “republic” you are trying to save should hear news and cultural programming with a little less din, a little less salesmanship, than perhaps your republic isn’t mine.
As for elitism–i’ve been looked down at long enough by anti-tax, free market folk who think the Democrat position is weak, sentimental, ill-informed, self-indulgent, and doomed. They see themselves as residing in a kind of elite of realpolitik. that is, they get it, I don’t.
I happen to listen to NPR a lot–not for the political coverage nationally, which is weak and timid, but for the wonderful and absolutely unsurpassed local news coverage and cultural programming.
Well state Brian! I’ve listened to NPR stations since I was a kid. I’ve volunteered at stations since college and formed many friendships with public radio staff. Your characterization of the people who make the heart of soul of public radio are perfect. On a side note, it’s too bad that Vivian Schiller became collateral damage. I think she was on the right track at NPR.
IIRC Mike. the original mandate was to provide broadcasting services to under served areas, promote diverse and high quality programing, etc. At the time the nation was served by the 3 major networks in radio and television. It was felt there was a lack of choice among other things. Well, today we have scads of educational, cultural, ethnic and other programing. We have choices that were unimaginable in the 1960’s. You can argue the quality, but you can argue NPR/PBS quality too. Taste is subjective.
In your view “…the public should have an interest in voices that are not commercial. That is, voices that do not depend for their existence on delivering a consumer market to advertisers…” That’s fine, I don’t much care for commercials either. But, in my view I should not be forced to pay to support your desires for entertainment and news that fits your tastes. I’m fully in support of you taking financial responsibility for seeing NPR continue. But just as some people might stop supporting the wars with their tax dollars if they could or stop funding CIA or whatever other public entity that receives tax dollars, I would stop funding the CPB if I could.(Of course I’d stop funding a LOT of things if I could!) Your desires for cultural programing and local news don’t represent a worthwhile argument for the huge amount of money used to me. That’s all.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/396.html
Bret – the government at many levels does a lot to support entertainment infrastructure – and not everybody has to enjoy all of it. In the state of New York, there are lots of municipal stadiums that have state senators names attached. They are paid for largely by state tax money and they serve as both sports venues and maybe music venues. HIgh school championships might be held there too. I dont go to those events, although when my son was playing in a Lacrosse championship game I did go. The point is, I dont begrudge the state spending money on a community resource like a stadium. No one else is going to build it and it ends up being a joint use facility that people get enjoyment from. Its worth the money. Same with public radio. To say that we cant afford it is wrong. The Roman’s made stadia – the central American prehispanic indians made ball-parks. I could go on, but…
Brian M: This is a good piece. It precisely encapsulates why I like NPR so much and why I’m not nearly as keen on PBS news as I’m told I ought to be. PBS NewsHour is rarely more than a bunch of Washington insiders spout the establishment line. It has more depth than commercial TV news (not that it takes much) but very little breadth. Lots of commentary, little journalism. That’s what I like about NPR (and NCPR). It has depth but it also has breadth. It’s not all Washington or state capital politics with a sprinkling of (foreign policy crisis of the month). It covers what happens to ordinary Americans not only in big cities but in small towns. NPR has no competition as a national news broadcaster. No one even attempts to do what it does.
back to Bret–thanks, really, for the link to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting mandate. Enlightening. But i do think is still fulfilling that mandate, in spades.
I appreciate your dislike of your tax dollars supporting programming that i like and you don’t. But maybe all your tax dollars can’t go to only things you support. How about that? Of course, many people have a solution to this conundrum, which is simply reduce taxes across the board–at least, in that case, you are suppporting to a lesser degree fewer of the things you don’t happen to personally like, and you can challenge yourself–and others–to privately support what they like. It’s the republican way. And it’s couched as responsible, rather than self-centered. I figure i’m paying part of Clarence Thomas’s salary, and that makes my hair curl, but i accept it. History will judge him as the biggest joke in American jurisprudence. But it’s a big tent.
Great post, Brian. I’ll quibble with one description, though. Is Alaska really middle America? I wouldn’t consider anywhere you can possess dope for home consumption, including 25 marijuana plants, as middle America. Sounds pretty wacky tabacky west coast elite to me.
Bret, Schiller could be a “doofus” and “tricked.” In fact, he may have been “tricked” by a low-rent Stasi agent/window-peeper/burglar BECAUSE he was a “doofus.”
One other thing: Having llived for years among the “elite” in big eastern cities, never once did I hear any human being use the term “flyover states.” Just saying.
I understand that the local stations are the likely victims and I agree that this is unfortunate. The problem, though, is self-induced, albeit at the HQ level. The controversy has been simmering for a while and the behavior of the leadership has thrown gasoline on it.
I come back to the point that battle lines have been drawn. The conservatives and the leadership (e.g., Cantor) in congress attack the concept of NPR and regardless of how even-handed NPR personnel try to it’s hard to believe that these attacks don’t affect their perceptions and biases (a pretty important aspect of reporting, no?). I don’t see how this situation cures itself.
I hope this doesn’t make me an elitist, a label that would be hard to accept by someone born and bred in a blue collar neighborhood in Queens.
Is all art elitist? If that is the case the government should never fund the arts in any way. The same may hold for some parts of higher education which would have an elitist bent. It is funny how times change I remember in the 1960’s and early 70’s, the Lefties said that the Classics were elitist, and in addition classical music was elitist a product of the establishment and that was a Bad thing, rock and roll was of the people. Now we have inverse. Rock and roll is the commercialized branded product of the establishment and classical music needs help to get played. I don’t know what that says about conservatives and liberals in this country?
Many institutions get funding from the government and they take very opinionated roles. Consider Planned Parenthood or the Salvation Army. Both receive large amounts of government funding, neither is afraid to speak out on controversial issues they consider important. Consider Lockheed Martin, what does the CEO think about anti-war liberals? Is he allowed to speak about them over lunch with the generals? I think that he is allowed to do that.
Mike, I have absolutely no problem getting rid of a lot of Federally funded programs I “like” or think have merit. I think NPR/PBS have merit too, but not enough to continue throwing tax dollars their way. So we could do away with the CMP, the FMCSA, the DEA, funding/grants of local fire depts, historical associations, etc. Those are just a few things I think are worthy, but can see they need to be cut. In fact I’m willing to see broad cuts to almost every sector of the Federal gov’t, not just ones I dislike. Close the National Parks, cut the military, eliminate whole depts if they are redundant or inefficient. Even my sacred cow, the USMC, can slim down a lot.
What this comes down to is bigger than just you being self centered about your entertainment and news. It’s all of us giving to keep things from collapsing. If it comes to it I’d a lot rather have to send NCPR a few bucks each year so I can scream at the radio when Brian says something I disagree with than giving everyone whatever they want and leaving my kids and grandkids with a 3rd world nation carrying the debt of a 1st world nation.
Brian and Ellen,
Opinions are like….well you know what…..and everybody has one, so I thought that a concrete recommendation to address the problem of being a partial ward of the state might be preferable to the usual barking at the moon. I realize that a strategic approach to NPR’s future has to come from the top of the organization but presumably the organization listens to its constituent parts. So here it is for your consideration.
For what it’s worth, if I were advising NPR, I’d recommend that it strive to negotiate a plan (say, for three years) of continued de-escalating government funding (to zero in year 4) that would enable it to make the transition from partially government supported to independently run. It’s clear that NPR will continue to be a political football and that these culture wars will be re-fought periodically, if not continually, even if funding for the short term is forthcoming. Such a plan would enable the organization to marshall support in an orderly manner.
Clearly, this is easier said than done, but it would seem that it is preferable to being on the hot seat year after year.
Speaking of tax dollars – and I really hate the phrase “my tax dollars” but if I were to complain about “my tax dollars” why, oh why, is one dollar of my tax dollars spent to build stadiums for professional sports?
Yes, I know, millionaires need all the help they can get.
I disagree with Bill G.
I believe that Schiller may have been right in saying that NPR is better off without public funding. It may be true of the Washington DC or LA based NPR. But it may also be true that the entire network of member stations is better off with some amount of government funding. Certainly the smallest stations on Indian Reservations or in very rural areas need the extra financial support, but isn’t it also better if everyone feels some ownership of the entire Public Broadcasting network? Isn’t Public Broadcasting in a way like a National Park of the airwaves, something that belongs to all of us? And if it were untethered from that public mooring wouldn’t there be a danger of it all going adrift?
I would hang in there. Being on the hot seat is part of getting government funding and it ebbs and flows with the politics. I think NCPR for example has the right mix, it is mainly funded through donations while still receiving some federal funding through NPR.
To me I think as Brian m pointed out the real public good in public radio is serving markets like the North Country. I would be in favor of freeing the local stations from NPR; continue to subsidize public radio markets directly with direct grants to NCPR and others. That way if you have mismanagement at the national level as we do here, it does not hurt the true guts of Public radio which is the actual stations.
It might mean the station will have to do a lot more on-air fundraising. and more of those non-comercials.
Brian, Nice job, but you are preaching to the choir. A bigger, and perhaps more relevant, question might be what is the proper role -if any – of the government and government funding for a public broadcasting system in a capitalist society.
As a Libertarian I philosophically think government monies should be used only for the basics. Yet, as a avid listener to public radio and TV, my own quality of llife would be severely diminished with such broadcasts.
Government funding of public broadcasting has been under fire for years and, even if some funding is restored this time around, I think we all need to begin imagining a public broadcasting system without any governemnt funding. How might it work? Would you just ask listeners and underwriters to give more? What other business models might be explored?
Lets turn this crises into an opportunity to explore opportunities we might not have otherwise imagined.
Why did NPR fire Schiller without taking a look at the entire raw video and analyzing the audio first? I’m no Glenn Beck fan, but this is on Beck’s web site, and it appears Schiller’s comments were seriously doctored and taken out of context:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/does-raw-video-of-npr-expose-reveal-questionable-editing-tactics/
Worth reading the whole thing, but here are two interesting excerpts, and remember, this is Glenn Beck’s Tea Party-loving web site:
“So after saying that the MEAC website advocates the “acceptance of Sharia,” the video cuts to the NPR exec saying, “Really? That’s what they said?” The cadence is jovial and upbeat and the narration moves on. The implication is that the NPR exec is aware and perhaps amused or approving of the MEAC mission statement. But when you look at the raw video you realize he was actually recounting an unrelated and innocuous issue about confusion over names in the restaurant reservation.
AND
“NPR exec Ron Schiller does describe Tea Party members as “xenophobic…seriously racist people.”
This is one of the reasons why he no longer has a job!
But the clip in the edited video implies Schiller is giving simply his own analysis of the Tea Party. He does do that in part, but the raw video reveals that he is largely recounting the views expressed to him by two top Republicans, one a former ambassador, who admitted to him that they voted for Obama.”
At the end, he signals his agreement. The larger context does not excuse his comments, or his judgment in sharing the account, but would a full context edit have been more fair?…”
Glenn Pearsal says: “A bigger, and perhaps more relevant, question might be what is the proper role -if any – of the government and government funding for a public broadcasting system in a capitalist society.”
Is it a given that we are a Capitalist Society? Or are we a Free Market Society? Or is there nothing in our founding documents that suggests we are either.
It seems that many of our current financial problems are due to the nature of our unrestrained markets. If we are able to create a TARP to save the butts of people who should now be in jail but are not, then surely we can fund a system of broadcasting to inform the general public that is not tied to a profit motive.
It’s worth repeating: Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting goes to local stations. If that funding is zeroed out, local stations, not NPR, will suffer, and there’s no doubt that some stations, especially in rural areas will go off the air. So it’s about the money.
But it’s also not about the money: When Congress created the CPB, it aspired to create a broadcasting system for all Americans, that would educate, inform and encourage the free exchange of information and debate by citizens, apart from the pressures of advertisers or politicians. If we, as a country, decide to eliminate all federal funding for public broadcasting, leaving individual stations to find money to operate and pay for news coverage and programs wherever and however they can, then public broadcasting in the U.S. no longer exists.
Jackie could there be a model that simply funded the local stations directly?
This is not just about public funding of Public Broadcasting. It also includes any and all funding for the arts. It is an attack upon education and an attack upon everything and anything that isn’t supporting business.
How much of our tax dollars are supporting big oil and big farms? What about all the arms manufactures our tax dollars support and how many of those arms going to foreign governments, many of whom use them to oppress their own people.
The theme seems to be to cut back funding on anything that helps people live a better life but keep the cash rolling to those who are already wealthy.
Mervel, the current model DOES fund local stations directly. It does not fund NPR or PBS. The zeroing out of all federal funding means no federal funds for local stations. Federal money goes to local stations, which can use that money to buy programs from PBS or NPR, or use it for local news coverage or music programs or general operating expenses or whatever they need it for. That’s why the current defunding proposition is a crisis for local stations across the country.
Jackie thanks that helps me understand what is happening.
The debate is so focused on NPR that the politics are missing the point.
IMO we need to cut the funding for CPB, farm and oil subsidies, the arts, the CMP, pretty much everything to one extent or another. That includes the big 3. Quibbling about it just lets the interest payments add up. Suck it up, take the hit and move on.
Bret, with all due respect, the prospect of the US becoming “a third-world nation” if it doesn’t reduce the size of federal government strikes me as absurd. We are the biggest economy in the world. That’s just inflammatory rhetoric to pretend impoverishment is around the corner. It is this kind of scare-mongering–what aren’t the republicans afraid of?–that has damaged the quality of life in this country, not to mention the middle-class. While decent folks carry the banner of smaller government, i do believe the extremely well-to-do, for the most part, chortle with glee, as their work gets down for them by working, wage-earning folk. Meanwhile, they can feather their nests for their future generation and money that makes money (much of it through lending to the abovementioned). Why isn’t the country talking about the real dangers, about which scientists agree–climate change–rather than pretending doomsday is around the corner unless unions are gutted and taxes reduced.
NPR, apparently, has little interest in defending its own interests.
Death wish, I guess.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201103150021