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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.)\u00a0 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.)<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
I’m also reading the NCPR website, and the posts on the In Box, and want to make a comment on that.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In today’s Ottawa Citizen, I’m quite enamored with a story by Jennifer Campbell about a new program to train carillon players<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hun? Who? What?<\/p>\n