As I read through the accounts of WRVU’s final terrestrial moments last week, I get a horrible feeling of deja vu as I recall how I felt when learning about the sudden shut-downs of KTXT and KUSF. Although Vanderbilt Student Communications had alerted WRVU to the possibility that the station could be sold back in […]
Just four months after University of San Francisco (USF) pulled the plug on KUSF’s terrestrial broadcast, the former KUSF studio in Phelan Hall has been dismantled. When I stopped by the station on May 17, DJs were still broadcasting from the now online-only KUSF.org. I was told that May 18th would be the final day […]
Today is the day that supporters of college radio at Vanderbilt University have been dreading. After yesterday’s news leak that the call letters to beloved college radio station WRVU had been changed to WFCL, official word came today that the station is in the process of being sold to Nashville Public Radio for $3.35 million […]
Sandwiched between the large media markets of Philadelphia and New York City, New Jersey has always had a tough time staking out a unique media identity. Of particular concern has been the ability to have good news state news coverage not dominated by the two adjacent metroplexes. The state of New Jersey has had a […]
You know public radio is truly keeping with the times when a podcast named What the F*ck gets repurposed for a 10-episode run syndicated by the Public Radio Exchange. I wrote about WTF, as it is more commonly known, back in March because it’s become my favorite podcasts, in part because host/creator Marc Maron is […]
NPR is wondering out loud about an interview suggesting that climate change may be depleting the natural food supply for bears at Yellowstone National Park, causing them to attack and kill people. Global warming is reducing the production of fish and pine nuts, thus prompting hungry bears to assault several campers last year. That was […]
NPR has released an exhaustive audit of its Israel/Palestine dispute coverage for the first quarter of this year. Since NPR doesn’t do public audits of its environmental, mobile phone, or country music coverage, I’m guessing that the review reflects the fact that anything you write about the Israel/Palestine subject is grist for the protest mill […]
Luckily this is not another story about a student-run station being sold by its college. Instead, it’s about a public station being sold to another public radio group. WDUQ is Duquesne University’s public station in Pittsburgh, PA, airing much of the typical NPR news programming along with about 100 hours of jazz a week. Duquesne […]
Over the last three weeks NPR has released some interesting statistical data about itself through its Ombudsman’s office. The data bolsters common knowledge, that NPR’s politics are moderate-to-liberal. Here is a summary of the revelations. Listeners First, the plurality of NPR listeners identify themselves as liberal, but a considerable percentage see themselves as either “conservative” […]
I am a monthly donor to my local public radio station so that I don’t even have call in during its pledge drives — they’ve already got my donation. So despite their attempts to make the morning drive pledge pitches compelling, by the second or third day I turn the station off in the morning […]
