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NPR Leader Out After Board Clash – washingtonpost.com — The back story is simple. The typical public radio station managers and owners are extremely dull-witted. This guy delivered them a huge audience and once they got the audience they wanted no new Internet-delivered content since it was perceived as competition. Apparently the NPR news blog was killed too. It will all deteriorate now. You watch.
People at NPR said, however, that Stern and the organizations 17-member board had clashed repeatedly over several of Sterns initiatives, including NPRs expansion into new media. Those initiatives often riled station managers, who saw them coming at the expense of serving the hundreds of public stations that pay dues annually to NPR.
NPRs board, which includes 10 members from station groups, declined to renew Sterns contract yesterday.
I don’t know about you, but my local NPR affiliate is glad that they got rid of Stern. Though some of the things he has done have been good, the vast majority of them have been bad for National PUBLIC Radio, in that he was taking the PUBLIC out of it and putting corporate interests in its place.
My local affiliate, WAMC, in Albany, NY, is listener supported for about 90% of its funding. A little comes from grants, federal and state programs, and corporations. This is not true of other affiliates, one who has teamed up with Clear Channel. NPR gets its funding from the affiliates (I hear the station manager complain all the time about this), the federal government, and endowments. More and more money is coming from corporate interests, and this does not serve the public well, as corporations are NOT people. Small businesses, who are trying to plug their local wares on the local station are one thing, but when GE or ADM sponsor something on NPR or PBS, I start to wonder as to what corporate spin there has been put on this. Over the last couple of years, I have noticed that NPR has become more and more corporately aligned, and their programming shows. I am glad to see this change, and hope that someone new can put NPR back on the proper track.
We should stop giving NPR taxpayer money every year.
“This guy delivered them a huge audience…” = The guy is too good to fire.
And Hitler made the trains run on time = the guy is too good to go to war with…
“It will all deteriorate now, you watch.” Nothing like an editorializing way of pushing the story into accelerated flames.
In that spirit, new aphorisms will appear:
Where there’s a whiff of smoke, there’s an apocalyptic inferno.
A penny saved is a million bucks.
Unlock the barn and the horse will get back in.
Always trust Microsoft.
Early to bed and early to rise will give a man girth, direction and size.
Everything made in Detroit is good for America.
Dvorak’s agenda is to inflame you with Truth.
Seriously, I’m reading reports that he QUIT March 5 or 6. So how is this Big News now? Can you get fired 60 days after quitting?
Google his name and you will find out a bunch more.
#22 – We should stop giving NPR taxpayer money every year.
Right, because between 1% and 2% of NPR’s total budget is funded by competitive grants from state and federal sources, and once that boondoggle is cleared up we’ll be showing budget surpluses and all children will graduate with high scores and all terrorists will surrender and sunshine will blow out of all our collective asses.
There is no federal budget line item called “Free Money For Public Radio”.
Although, there should be.
#23 – And Hitler made the trains run on time
No he didn’t. That was Mussolini.
#19–stopher==so the guy made millions? How? I infer that he made it by selling out the interests of the dues paying member radio stations to outside corporate web based entities.
Again==his JOB was to keep the board and the paying members happy. How much money he makes for the NPR reserved capital funds is of NO INTEREST to the paying membership who I assume elect the board members?
So yes money is important and in this case the paying members and their elected board members were losing theirs.
It is pretty clear–even though I am assuming everything.
#24, 1-2%? Then they should have no problem without the money, and that’s some money saved. I didn’t realize that was your standard for budget cuts.
Is NPR relevant anymore?
>>Is NPR relevant anymore?
Sure. Anyone with an IQ in the triple digits listens to it on a regular basis. I guess that wouldn’t include you?
#29 Mister Musturd said, – “Sure. Anyone with an IQ in the triple digits listens to it on a regular basis. I guess that wouldn’t include you?”
That must explain why you can’t answer any of my questions to your posts that are completely wrong?
LOL!
So the people who download free music are sorry because they can’t download free NPR shows?
Boo hoo. Bobbo and GigG are right – no one has an obligation to go bust to satisfy the internet’s “freetards”.
This story is months old.