Current (https://current.org/2005/12/)
Seven listeners have sued Detroit pubradio station WDET for fraud, claiming they were tricked into pledging for a music-oriented station in October while management was planning to switch its daytime schedule to national news programming, the Detroit Free Press reported. The change took place Dec. 13. The worst time to make such a switch is after a pledge drive, commented Chicago Public Radio’s Torey Malatia, quoted in the Chicago Tribune. Via Romenesko.
StoryCorps, the oral history project launched by pubradio producer David Isay, has announced 2006 stops for its two traveling audio studios. One MobileBooth visited Gulfport, Miss., earlier this month and the other will come to New Orleans in May. The project has taped nearly 2,000 personal stories in 26 cities so far. Booths also operate at Grand Central Terminal and the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
The bones of former Masterpiece Theater host Alistair Cooke were illegally sold after his death, reports the New York Times. “At this point, we’re just reeling,” said his daughter. “It’s so horrific on so many fronts.”
NPR’s reporting is less liberal than critics charge, and The Newshour with Jim Lehrer hews close to the political center, according to a forthcoming study of media bias led by a political scientist at the University of California Los Angeles.
“I believe NPR relies too much on think tanks in general and on conservative think tanks in particular — especially when it comes to economics, and defense policy issues,” writes NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, clarifying views expressed in his previous column.
The format change at Detroit’s WDET-FM is “a very risky move,” says former General Manager Caryn Mathes in the Detroit Metro Times.
PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler faults producers of Now for their handling of a Nov. 18 field report about wages paid to Latino electricians hired for reconstruction work in New Orleans. Complaints about the report from BE&K Inc., the subcontractor whose wage and hiring practices were examined, and the producer’s response are posted on Now’s website.
Meanwhile, CPB Ombudsman Ken Bode faults Getler for being too easy on PBS and producers of Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories in Getler’s Dec. 2 critique.
Students at Swarthmore College and pubradio veteran Marty Goldensohn are producing War News Radio, a show about Iraq reported entirely from stateside. “We thought we were at a disadvantage not being on the ground in Iraq,” a student tells The New Yorker. “But when you hear from reporters there that they can’t even leave their hotels you start to think.”