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You really should research how it works and what kind of money we are talking here and NOT take Rush Limbaugh's word for it.
I have researched it, have you? I already know your argument, you're going to say NPR gets very little direct funding. What will conveniently be left out is the stations who are heavily subsidized provide a substantial amount of funding for NPR, the tax exempt facilities many of them are located at, the "sponsors" who get a nice tax credit and on down the line.
FYI I don't listen to Rush, matter of fact the only time I hear what Rush has to say is when some liberal is losing his mind over his latest rant.
Except for Car Talk, NPR is e-pollution of the most offensive kind.
Until recently, I had the local NPR station as one of my presets - solely to listen to Click and Clack on the weekends. But occasionally I would hit that button during the week just to sample what was going on at other times. I did that mainly because there was a time many years ago when there was some other content of real value and interest on NPR, and I remember those times. But those days are long gone.
Today, its content is a wasteland of garbage that makes me see red within seconds of tuning in. Again, except for Car Talk. That preset is now re-assigned.
NPR has a wide variety of material offered to it's stations. It is up to each station as to what and how much talk radio it wants to present.
Since many NPR stations are broadcast from colleges, I've heard some that were almost entirely music, with widely divergent shows featuring everything from rap to classical to Broadway show tunes, each presented by a student host, and most done in 1/2 hour segments.
I live in an area where I can receive 2 NPR stations. One has a classical format, and the other is more similar to what I described above. The second has more talk radio during the day than the first, and both present the 2 NPR 2-hour news programming in the morning and afternoon. Neither features some of the music programming I've heard on other NPR stations.
If a person looks around on the net, it's possible to find just about any kind of music made on NPR. Net casting is the wave of the future.
It depends on the station. In Southern California we have quite a few NPR stations. I know of one that is all talk, one that has a lot of new music, one that is classical music, etc.... All stations are not alike in their format.
^^^ This. Each NPR-affiliated station is locally funded (twice yearly "pledge drives"). The type of programming depends on the local support. Syndicated programs produced by NPR or PRI cost money for rights purchase (Car Talk, Morning Edition, Fresh Air, etc.) and are generally only played at peak listening times such as mornings, evenings, and weekends. The rest of the air is filled with whatever the stations can afford. In left-wing areas (California, for example), they have the money to produce and air local shows that are usually blatantly liberal. THIS is the type of show that right wingers hear and start foaming at the mouth about federal funds, even though these shows have nothing whatsoever to do with National Public Radio. In Mississippi with minimal support, after the morning news shows are over they have a single locally-produced show (a gardening call-in) and the rest of the day is classical music with minimal talk (only the news blurbs on the hour). Nights in Mississippi are nothing more than a cheap re-broadcast of BBC news.
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Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
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Originally Posted by augiedogie
NPR is blatantly liberal/leftist. I never listen. I don't know why my tax dollars should support it? It is not even open in any way to open discussion on an issue between conservative vs. liberal point of view.
It is actually accused of being both too conservative, and too liberal. Sometimes people just don't like what they hear, and they blame the station of being partisan. I remember them being accused of being too pro-Israel, and then anti-Israel.
First, how do you know they are "blatantly liveral/leftist" if you "never listen"?? Second, if you're listening to something blatantly liberal you're most likely listening to either the occasional commentary piece or else to a locally-produced show which has nothing to do with National Public Radio. I agree that the official NPR news shows have a slight left lean, and few of the hosts are quite obviously anti-gun. But it's still the most non-biased news source available. Even the anti-gun hosts take care to respectfully interview people who promote agendas they personally disagree with.
Warning: If you are likely to be traumatized by an anti-NPR rant, please click that convenient 'back' button now
Since cancelling cable I've been listening to NPR lately--deliberately avoiding the hours between 5am and 9am, and then 3pm and 8pm, during which intervals it's *all* talk--and even so I'm absolutely astonished at the network's antipathy toward music. How does anyone tolerate it?
In the few hours ostensibly devoted to music there is still more talk than music. In order to facilitate more talk NPR plays extremely short pieces--snippets really--often less than a minute or two long. Sometimes, instead os short pieces, they actually play just portions of a work. "Here's the opening section of the Rite of Spring" one announcer said last night.
Then more "announcements" before, after, and sometimes during every piece of music, no matter how short. (Incredibly, this is as true at 2am as it is at 2pm. My local affiliate now has a talk show called "Performance Today" running from 2 to 3am.) These "announcements" include commercials for Antiques Roadshow, references to various sponsors, 'community service organizations', 'science matters', Garrison Keillor, other NPR shows, ideastations.org, etc. Often the announcements are longer than the piece of music they follow.
When I was young (Get off my lawn!) even commercial classical stations (there were such things then, honest!) would play entire symphonies and even operas. Now the average length of pieces played on NPR is less than three minutes. Often they are just snippets one or two minutes long. Then? More yakking. (I will leave aside how much of NPR's yakking is composed of political propaganda...what constitutes information and what constitutes propaganda seems chiefly to depend on how much one agrees with it.)
Now, commercial radio justifies this because of its need for advertising dollars. What's NPR's excuse? Oh, but NPR has commercials, too! Not just its intermittent-to-endless begging for dollars "support", but the endless 'sponsored by' and commercial announcements as mentioned above... There are also some surprisingly childish announcer antics--particularly on weekends--more suited to Top-40 AM radio circa 1972.
Ever talk to a radio announcer? They'll tell you about all the lonely people out there in Radioland, for whom the announcer's voice is their only company. What lifesavers they are! Even if they make a difference for only one person, then it's all worthwhile (never mind the millions who might prefer listening to music). That this view dovetails so neatly with their very favorite thing--the sound of their own voice--is purely coincidental of course.
Thanks, I feel better, slightly. I guess one part of this is that I haven't quite accepted that NPR is really just talk radio nowadays. But then, why should it be publicly funded?
My question to you: If you hate NPR to the extent of frothing at the mouth, why watch or listen to it?
When I change the station on my local radio station they lose a customer and the station gets less advertising dollars, I'm voting with my wallet. How do I vote with my wallet with public radio?
Easy, don't contribute to your local station. It's the most direct form of "voting with your wallet" there is.
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