Public broadcasting
 

I think that public broadcasting is good. In it, there's no neo-liberal slant and it serves good as a balance against commercial media. You can watch both and get a good perspective on things in society. If it works as it should, it really serves the people. What do you think about it? Is it good or bad? I guess pretty many neo-liberals will come and argue against it, hehe.

in the states, the folk who talk the neoliberal ideology game are conservative.
its a confusing terminology shift, which may explain why neoliberalism as an ideology is not an operative category here--which means that conservative free-marketeering passes without being named.

are you asking about public broadcasting in the sense of the existing public broadcast system in the states, or are you posing a more general question about how to think of the airwaves as a public good?

Public broadcasting is seriously underfunded in the US, and has become dependent on corporate sponsorship. I can't help but believe that they are able to exert some influence on what is produced for broadcast.

Pffwwaaahhh??

Public broadcasting is a must! How can we have free speech without it!?

Fuck ClearChannel!

Viva l'Internet!

i really enjoy public broadcasting, although i think that it actually performs a role for government, by moderating and controlling leftist voices. there's a damn good reason why so much of the underwriting for NPR is from lockheed martin and other weapons manufacturers -- control the funding and you control the message. the weapons makers are smart -- they know that owning NBC helps them control the attitudes of the vast huddled masses, but helping fund NPR gives them influence over a small but politically active demographic that otherwise might cause them quite a few headaches. on our local CPB radio station they do an, actually quite likeable and interesting show called "homeland security: inside and out," which from beginning to end to me reads like a love letter from the new inside-the-beltway security/war economy culture to the old leftist guard. i think there are countless examples of this on NPR/CPB/PRI.

there's an excellent, if sometimes rather slow, book by someone stone saunders (carol?) called "the cultural cold war" that outlines CIA efforts to co-opt leftist media after world war ii in liberated europe. it was intended to control and corrale leftist opinion in western europe so that it didn't start bending toward marxism and provide an opportunity for soviet expansionism to reach further west than berlin. it's an interesting tactic and i think it's still at work now.

i sound a little paranoid, maybe. :P i actually don't necessarily think this institutional control of NPR is a bad thing, i still like NPR and listen to it constantly and they do excellent coverage. but there are definitely some political realities they will not touch. i bet they will never do a real story on peak oil, for instance, or the 2002 coup attempt in venezuela.

Actually, NPR has covered the situation in Venezuela numerous times:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=3852655
http://216.35.221.77/templates/story...toryId=7092786

And Peak Oil:
http://globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/449

NPR member stations aren't required to broadcast all of their programming, which may account for why you'll hear stories in one part of the country but not another part. Everything is on their website, though.

cool! i'm happy to be corrected.

i actually can't listen to audio on the computer i'm on now. do the stories about venezuela discuss the possibility that it might have been at least partially orchestrated by the CIA? [i'm not saying it was, but the allegation is out there, and from what i've heard, it's essentially credible...] does the peak oil story talk about the possibility that there might not be a way to fix the problem and maintain our current level of consumption using alternative fuels? because i think i mis-spoke. it's not these topics in themselves that are untouchable, but certain points of view on them that are beyond mainstream purview even though they strike me as reasonable.

I don't have time to listen to the stories to find the answer to your questions, but something to keep in mind is that "balanced" reporting does not mean (or, at least, should not mean) giving all points of view equal time. Some points of view are more credible than others, and part of a journalist's job is discerning what things have a basis in the facts and what things don't have enough evidence to report. Even if the possibility that the CIA orchestrated the situation in Venezuela is credible, I don't want to hear it being reported unless they have credible sources for the claims. (Keep in mind that I have not read about these claims, so maybe there are credible source. My point is simply that seeming reasonable and being credible are two different things.)

Yes - you can read it in the articles I pasted links of. Mark Hertsgaard (second transcript in the Peak Oil thread) talks about the finite oil supply. I believe the second link on Venezuela mentions the US's possible involvement in the coup.

NPR won't save the world but it's on the right track. I'd wager that most NPR listeners also scan other news sources for their information, hence listeners are well-informed. NPR programs are made in a way that encourages listeners to draw their own conclusions and seek out more information versus douchebag O'Reilly/Tucker Carlson's methods of winning arguments by yelling and kicking people off the show.

Man, I really hate them. I don't hate many things, but I really hate them.

The people should control the media, not be controlled by it.

The credible sources (witnesses) regarding actual US involvement in the coup have all escaped to Miami or are in hiding in Venezuela. The government did get a call from their military personnel that there was a US helicopter seen on the night of the coup. There are documents showing the US government funding the insurgent organization that led the coup.

Draw your own conclusions.

I've got them hiding in my basement at this very moment.

Credible sources say so at least.

NPR isn't perfect by any means, but it's certainly one of the best news sources out there. I've barely listened to any other radio stations since I started listening to public radio. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Chicago Public Radio is one of the better public radio organizations in the country. PBS also has some gems, with shows like Frontline and NOW, among others.

Word. Sometimes Chicago Public Radio does a joke-off where they tell yo' momma jokes and stuff. It's clean but hilarious. Quality quality. Much better than that Ryan Seacrest drivel on the other stations. Ugh but as I recall... there's not much else worth listening to in Chicago (KISS, B96, Q101, the Drive ... same crap).
Viva Sirius, viva podcasts.

I'm from the generation that grew up watching Sesame Street (B.E. - Before Elmo) and Reading Rainbow with Geordi LaForge and Mystery on PBS in the Chicago 'burbs. I still try to catch Arthur if I have the chance.

Same here, though I do remember Elmo when I watched Sesame Street. He wasn't any sort of sensation at the time though, he was just...Elmo. Loved Reading Rainbow too. (And, actually, we're about the same age.)

Anyway, it's true, there's not much else worth listening to on the radio around here. It's quite annoying when, on occasion, there's something on CPR that I don't care for (such as A Prairie Home Companion) and I can't find anything else to listen to.

Podcasts are definitely great...I only listen to the actual radio when I'm in the car, otherwise I subscribe to the podcast for most of the public broadcasting shows I enjoy.

Yeah, Elmo's gotten to the point of being a friggin' marketing messiah or something to resurrect Sesame Street with his flashy intro and obnoxious high-pitched voice. Awww Sesame Street, you don't need fancy clothes... you're perfect just the way you are.

670 the score.

Nice thing about sports radio is that if you follow the teams its amusing and unlike news radio it doesn't piss me off.

The music stations are all pretty much crap now. I love how Q101 the "alternative" station still plays stuff that I listened to in college at times. I think there hasn't been any real new non-corporate created music on those stations since 94.

The conservatives in the US are social conservatives to gain votes. I kinda see them as neo-liberals however. I do not ask this question to only people in the US. I'm asking it to people in all over the world but most of the people here seems to be from the US (which is normal) so whatever... discuss it from a US perspective if you are from there and if you feel like it.

Hmm I must say the radio station selection here in Berlin is much better than anything I've heard in the States... not totally sure how it's funded but I listen to Motor FM which plays unsigned artists alongside well-known and indie.

What's the situation in Sweden?

We have public radio and television broadcasting and we have had some ministers that it were discovered hadn't payed taxes for it so they had to resign after hard media pressure, hehe. It was pretty funny. They were off course like our current government, right wing conservatives.