Paycheck or not, NCPR deserves support
I’m not a station employee, at least not directly. I’m a part-time independent producer who has been lucky enough to file stories from the Ottawa region with NCPR.
It feels like a great privilege. I get freedom to explore, along with critical support, primarily from an exceptional editor and news director, Martha Foley. That lets me share stories from Canada with really smart listeners across the border.
Yesterday, I spent a great day at the station answering phones and taking donations. I like doing that because: it’s an outstanding station, the volunteers are always interesting folks and the callers are great too. Everyone connects. And the whole we create is somehow even greater than the sum of its parts.
Today I’m back home in Kars, debating a necessary decision about digital access to the New York Times. I read the Times enough to know I owe them some money. They want $15 every four weeks. (Frankly, that seems a bit steep.) But the main thing holding me back at the moment, is their payment model. Monthly automatic deductions on my credit card. (Which I hate. I would prefer to pay just once, for a 6 month or yearly subscription.)
Contrast that with NCPR, which says YOU can decide what the service is worth, YOU choose how you want to make that contribution and it’s all voluntary and under your control. Pretty cool, hun?
I’m also reading the NCPR website, and the posts on the In Box, and want to make a comment on that.
Brian Mann has just made the case that few would expect a plumber to fix a busted toilet for free, and NCPR cannot function for free either.
The first commentator on his post objects to the implication that people aren’t also creating valuable, credible content for free, out of the goodness of their own intentions. That’s a fair and valid point.
But I want to add that a lot of the good, free, positive activity happening ‘out there’ greatly benefits from the forum provided by stations like NCPR.
NCPR dedicates air time and web space to community calendar events. Many are freely created but they still need a way to be publicized. A fair number of the features I produce don’t seem important enough to deserve scarce news budget dollars, but still seem worth sharing with listeners. So I do them anyway. You can work for money or you can work for love, but without NCPR, it doesn’t go as far. And NCPR can’t do what they do without actual money.
In today’s Ottawa Citizen, I’m quite enamored with a story by Jennifer Campbell about a new program to train carillon players.
Hun? Who? What?
You know, carillon! The church bell-like instrument that plays actual music.
They are not all that common. According to Campbell’s article, there are only 11 full carillons in all of Canada – and just 9 get played, due to a shortage of players. As visitors to Parliament Hill may know, there’s a great one in the Peace Tower and the current official Dominion Carilloneur is an American, Andrea McCrady. Dr. McCrady (a medical doctor who changed careers to follow her musical heart) is teaming up with Carleton University to create Canada’s first program to train more people to play this rare and remarkable instrument.
I can bring a story like that to your attention (for free!) via the In Box. I can also perhaps go cover some story like that and get it aired on NCPR – because people like you support that station.
Admittedly, you may not give a darn about that particular story. But sooner or later some other off-beat story will be one you value, that perhaps would not have been heard any other way.
It’s a cool thing. And it can only happen with broad, continuing support.
I’m in. How about you?
Tags: public radio
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I’m in. I renewed in the fall on the monthly installment plan that you don’t care for. I’m thinking when I renew again I may just pay it all up front if I can manage it. I’d like to see more tax dollars going to NPR & PBS since I’m sure there are many using it that don’t contribute. There are no commercial stations out there worth listening to.
A story on rare and remarkable instruments is great.
Public Radio has taken on a political viewpoint and that is not great.
Using the plumber analogy, certainly a plumber deserves to be paid.
But if the plumber comes into the house, and instead of just plumbing, he starts to spew his political views, he probably won’t be invited back.
JDM – you should still send in some money.
Peter:
I have supported ncpr in the past. I am disappointed with the direction they have gone and are going.
Maybe you should stop using the plumber then.
JDM – if your plumber said something to you in passing that lead you to believe he/she was a liberal, but was still a good and honest plumber – I bet you’d call him/her back if you needed another plumbing job done.
If you don’t pay, JDM, then quit commenting here and wasting NCPR’s bandwidth. It’s sort of like stealing, or at least welfare dependency, and we know you’re a free-market pay-your-way rugged individual. There’s plenty of free blogs, like RedState, where you won’t have people challenging your facts, and that go in your “direction.” Big world! Enjoy!
I would like nothing better than to walk in the house of some advocate of “raise THEIR taxes” and open their refrigerator, and help myself to their roast beef and milk.
If they think they have a right to my stuff, then by golly, they had better be ready what they have with me.
It’s only because I have a place where the help-yourself crowd hangs out, that I do feel “ok” with freeloading.
And, judging from oa’s comment, they don’t like it.
Well toooooo bad.
redo on this sentence:
If they think they have a right to my stuff, then by golly, they had better be ready to share what they have with me.
I don’t understand either version of the sentences, so we’re all good.
But you’re still not paying for something you’re using, and allowing others to pay for it. At least I think that’s what you’re saying. Go Galt!
JDM: I’m with you. I was a TV station manager in the Rochester area for over ten years. I’ve been retired for 11 years and a listener of NPR for 40 plus years. I have a very extensive background in media literacy. While I do appreciate my background I will admit it can be a problem. My wife doesn’t like it when I turn the TV off in the middle of a news broadcast! On more than one occasion I have warned NPR about the slippery slope they were on. No one is interested in listening. They just seem to defend their current position. I do and will support them but I question the changes I’ve seen. I think your comments and my comments are what NPR needs to hear and consider. It could make them better!