The president’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 2018. Radio Survivor’s own Matthew Lasar joins to help us put this attack on public broadcasting in historical perspective. He analyzes the inherent weakness in the design of the CPB and proposes ways in which the system could be both stronger […]
The office of Corporation for Public Broadcasting Ombudsman Joel Kaplan has released some details of its investigation of StoryCorps, prompted by the complaints of blogger Sylvia Kronstadt. StoryCorps is heard on NPR’s Morning Edition and seen on PBS stations. The CPB has given the show 23 grants worth more than $15 million since 2003. In […]
Reading Corporation for Public Broadcasting Ombudsman Joel Kaplan’s recent posts on public radio stations WAMC in Albany, New York and WHDD in Sharon, Connecticut, one could come away with the impression that these signals have become the political domains of two men on hyper drive. For example, Kaplan, a journalism professor at Syracuse University, quotes […]
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Ombudsman Joel Kaplan’s anticipated second commentary on Pacifica station WBAI in New York City is out, and Kaplan says he’s gotten some responses to his original request for comment on gripes about “questionable fundraising ethics” at the station. They come from ‘BAI Public Affairs director Kathy Davis and interim Development Director […]
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Ombudsman Joel Kaplan has some advice for public radio station WRKF of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is fine for your talk shows to have call-in rules, but tell your listeners what they are, and enforce them the same way for everybody. “It is inappropriate for the station to formulate guidelines for […]
The latest round of the ongoing battle over public broadcasting has concluded, and lo and behold, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting lives. The new budget preserves funding for the CPB at $445 million for 2013, albeit with drastic cuts to smaller public media funds, and the complete elimination of the Department of Commerce’s Public Telecommunications […]
As everyone concerned about this issue knows, last week the Republican controlled House of Representatives voted to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting. The move was approved in the context of the massive spending bill HR1, “Making appropriations for the Department of Defense and the other departments and agencies of the Government for the fiscal […]
Every year scores of community and public radio stations apply for funding from the Department of Commerce’s Public Telecommunications Facilities Program. The venue funds a host of capital expenses that many of these stations can’t afford otherwise. The cash goes to upgrading transmission towers, funding shelters for transmitters, and buying new control room equipment, console […]
Free Press has a provocative new report on the state of public media and how to more adequately fund it. Many of the reform group’s proposals involve siphoning income from commercial station advertising revenue or Federal Communications Commission spectrum auctions. I’ve got an overview of the document up on Ars Technica, which has generated quite […]
As we’ve reported, National Public Radio has been filing comments with the Federal Communications Commission a lot these days, talking up its localism initiative, Android app, and new mobile site. NPR’s latest commentary to the FCC on its National Broadband Plan reiterates all these points. But here’s the paragraph in the filing that got our […]
