Current (https://current.org/2011/03/page/5/)
Frontline has hired former Yahoo! News blog editor Andrew Golis as its director of digital media/senior editor. He’ll oversee integration of the Frontline broadcast, Web and new media initiatives. At Yahoo! News, Golis built a network of nonpartisan reporting blogs, including the Upshot, which received 100 million page views after just six months in operation.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) sent a “Dear Colleague” letter today (March 15) alerting members of Congress to press coverage that last week’s undercover video sting of NPR executives was edited in a misleading manner, citing stories from the Associated Press and on conservative TV host Glenn Beck’s website. “Recently, members of the media and Congress have paid great attention to a hidden-camera video taken of National Public Radio (NPR) fundraisers by activists working for James O’Keefe,” the letter reads. “I wanted to bring to your attention analysis conducted by experts in video editing and journalistic ethics, as well as a broad range of conservative media figures.. . .
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) today (March 15) introduced H.R. 1076 (PDF), an updated version of his previous bill to ban federal funds from being used on public radio programming. The latest bill now specifically prohibits “funding of National Public Radio and radio content acquisition,” and also bans using any federal funds to pay NPR dues.The House Rules Committee also just announced an emergency meeting for 3 p.m. Wednesday to consider the bill; that must take place before any floor action on Thursday.
Beth Kirsch is the new vice president and executive producer of digital media content for the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN). She’ll oversee the $30 Million 2010 Ready to Learn Project LAMP (Learning Apps Media Partnership), recently awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to the network and two partners. Kirsch joins HITN from WGBH in Boston, where she’s worked since 1999 on shows including Between the Lions and Martha Speaks. “With more than 20 years of experience in public television, Kirsch brings expertise in educational media, animation, writing, editing, outreach and fundraising,” HITN said in a statement. “During her time at WGBH, Kirsch raised many millions in funds for television production and outreach initiatives focusing on literacy, science, literature, social issues, and health.”
“Public Broadcasting’s Cowardly Executives” is the headline Ralph Nader’s column on CounterPunch, a self-described “bi-weekly muckraking newsletter.””The tumultuous managerial shakeup at National Public Radio headquarters for trivial verbal miscues once again has highlighted the ludicrous corporatist right-wing charge that public radio and public TV are replete with left-leaning or leftist programming,” he writes. He goes on to furnish numbers for conservative vs. liberal guests on Charlie Rose (far more conservatives, by his count), and points out that Nader himself as appeared “not once on the hostile Terri Gross radio show.””Here is a solution that will avoid any need for Congressional contributions to CPB,” Nader writers. “The people own the public airwaves. They are the landlords.
Since his appearance on On the Media last weekend, This American Life host Ira Glass has received “very thoughtful emails” from conservative listeners about the liberal bias they hear in public radio’s programming, he writes on the TAL blog. Glass invites listeners to join the conversation on TAL’s Facebook page and on On The Media’s website.
Is the dialogue among conservatives regarding funding for public broadcasting becoming more nuanced? On the Weekly Standard’s blog, writer Philip Terzian embraces the conservative viewpoint that federal funding should be killed, but he also notes: “The fact is that the kind of radio and television I like — classic jazz and classical music, arcane documentaries on history, literature, and science — is nearly nonexistent on the air, except on PBS and NPR.”In a response to that commentary in the New American, published by the ultra-right John Birch Society, writer Beverly Eakman, an education policy analyst and former speechwriter for the late Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, says that conservatives need to become more involved with pubcasting. “In the present political climate, where even children’s programming is rife with leftist messages, junk science, and psychobabble, however subdued, it is probably a mistake to support CPB with taxpayer dollars,” she says. “However, if the culture is ever to be turned around, conservative traditionalists need to step up to the plate and get on the boards of organizations that will present the kinds of high-culture programs that PBS does.”And Mary Kate Cary, a former White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush and a contributor to NPR’s Tell Me More, points out in U.S.News & World Report that CPB has a board comprised of six presidentially-appointed members, three Republicans and three Democrats.And CPB is legally charged with “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.””. .
Why did Glenn Beck’s website The Blaze publish a critique of the NPR sting video? Politico reports on reactions to the analysis by Scott Baker and Pam Key, the first journalists to compare the 11-minute video that prompted resignations of two top NPR execs to raw videotape that was recorded during James O’Keefe’s undercover sting of NPR. Jennifer Rubin, a conservative blogger for the Washington Post who has criticized Beck, questions “whether (Beck) is trying to do something on the up and up and advance good journalism or whether he is doing it to create a controversy and stick his finger in the eye of the right in some ways in retaliation for all of the negativity that’s been expressed of late.”
The House today (March 15) votes on H.J.Res. 48, a short-term Continuing Resolution that would keep the government running through April 8. It cuts $6 billion in spending from the fiscal 2011 budget by reducing or eliminating 25 government programs and earmarks. If passed, CPB will lose funding for two already completed initiatives: $25 million in station fiscal stabilization grants, and $25 million for the recent radio interconnection infrastructure project. The programs were also cut in the president’s budget, as well as the Senate Democrats’ most recent CR proposal.
Arthur Hoehn, Minnesota Public Radio’s first professional announcer, died Saturday (March 12) after a battle with lung cancer, MPR reports. He was 72. MPR founder and president Bill Kling recalled that for live concerts, Hoehn was “the entire crew. The truck driver, the equipment schlepper, the producer, the engineer, and the announcer.” Hoehn worked at MPR for 40 years, retiring in 2002.
The Labor/HHS subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, which oversees CPB’s outlay, has scheduled a hearing on “Alternative Approaches to Funding Public Broadcasting” at 10 a.m. Eastern on April 6 on Capitol Hill.
Minnesota Public Radio President Bill Kling attributes the turbulence at NPR to its old-fashioned governance structure in today’s New York Times. “NPR has been a victim of its own success,” he tells media columnist David Carr. “It never matured in terms of governance as quickly as its news capabilities did. It is controlled by a board from member stations that think of it as primarily a provider of programming for their stations and not the giant media company it has become.”
Rob Bole, CPB’s veep of digital media strategy, says on the Media Future Now website that public broadcasting isn’t yet making sufficient use of digital media.”To be frank, public media is not capitalized nor organized to take full advantage of emerging connective technologies,” he says. “We have a reliable, strong broadcast infrastructure that provides free, universal service to every American. However, we are not funded to the appropriate level to build the same strength in the digital media space.” He did praise last month’s unique coverage of Mideast revolution news by Andy Carvin, NPR’s senior social media strategist, across multiple platforms. “Andy is a rock star and a visionary of what digital media means in the news space,” he said.Bole will be speaking at the D.C.-based group’s monthly meeting, on March 22.
Nell Minow, a corporate governance expert, today (March 14) blogged a chat she had with her father, pubcasting pioneer Newton Minow, about the current federal funding battle. With the budget being cut to control the soaring deficit, how can America justify spending tax dollars on public broadcasting? “All of us should work to reduce federal spending,” Newton Minow replied. “Cuts should be made for all programs, but what is being proposed now are not cuts — the proposals are to eliminate and end public broadcasting completely. Current federal support for public broadcasting is about $1.35 per person per year — or about two cents per person per day.
Boston public broadcaster WGBH’s Media Library and Archives is partnering with the Boston Public Library, Cambridge Community TV and Northeast Historic Film to develop “The Boston TV News Digital Library: 1960-2000,” an online collection of the city’s television news heritage, it announced today (March 14). The initiative will draw on some 70,000 news stories from commercial, noncommercial and community cable television to create a central online catalog. Among the footage: A young Harvard student, Barack Obama, speaking at its law school in 1990; civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 after leading a local march of 5,000; and Pope John Paul II’s 1979 visit. WGBH Archives is providing copies of its programs The Ten O’Clock News (1976-91), The Reporters (1970-73) and Evening Compass (1973-75).
Was the 11-minute NPR sting video that blasted through the mediasphere on March 8 edited in a deceptive way? Two different analyses — the first published by The Blaze, a news and opinion website published by Glenn Beck, and the latest from David Folkenflik, NPR’s media reporter — find it was. “It was clearly unethical — you don’t do that unless there’s no other way to get the story,” said Terence Smith, former media correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, in an appearance on CNN’s Reliable Sources with NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard. Host Howard Kurtz also interviewed James O’Keefe, the conservative activist who produced the video sting through his right-wing investigative organization Project Veritas. O’Keefe describes himself as a journalist and defends the use of hidden cameras.
A “Press Conference to Defend, Not Defund, Public Media” kicks off at 1 p.m. Tuesday (March 15) on Capitol Hill, sponsored by Free Press, “to shine a spotlight on the negative impact that cuts to federal funding for public broadcasting would have on local jobs, local journalism and local communities,” it says. Speakers include Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), NABET-CWA President Jim Joyce, AFTRA President Roberta Reardon, and Craig Aaron of the Free Press Action Fund. MoveOn.org, CREDO Action and Free Press Action Fund will deliver 1 million signatures they collected defending pubcasting from funding cuts.
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) is working with the House GOP leadership office to redraft H.R. 69, which currently targets NPR program funding. A Lamborn aide today (March 14) told Current that they anticipate the bill to be on the House floor Thursday for debate and vote. The new bill will prohibit direct federal funding of NPR, as well as ban the use of federal funds from CPB for payment of dues by local radio stations to NPR.
PBS says stations raised $32 million in the last pledge period in December, down 8 percent on average from a year ago, reports the New York Times today (March 14). So far the March drive shows a 31 percent increase in the number of dollars pledged compared with March 2010. Since 2005, the average amount of time PBS member stations pledge has increased by 9 percent; some stations now devote 10 weeks a year to the special shows, the Times notes.
The State of the News Media 2011 from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism was released this morning (March 14). “The biggest issue ahead may not be lack of audience or even lack of new revenue experiments,” its overview says. “It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own destiny. News organizations — old and new — still produce most of the content audiences consume. But each technological advance has added a new layer of complexity—and a new set of players—in connecting that content to consumers and advertisers.”The authors of the eighth annual report estimate that 1,000 to 1,500 more newsroom jobs will have been lost in 2010, translating to a 30 percent drop in newsroom staff since 2000.Here are comments from news analyst Rick Edmonds, who has contributed to each report.