Violence Added To Public Radio Threats

Michael Hedges March 17, 2011 Follow on Twitter

What adds measurably to the media landscape is a diversity of voices. Sometimes that’s accomplished by policies opening access to the media space. Sometimes it’s accomplished by balancing public and private media. All the time it’s to “enrich man’s spirit.”

A man in the US State of Maine was arrested in January, held on federal charges of threatening to torture and kill two hosts of the National Public Radio (NPR) news program All Things Considered. The three-count felony indictment was reported by The Smoking Gun (March 16). NPR had not reported the threats at the request of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) citing an on-going investigation. The suspect, who remains in custody, allegedly send emails threatening violence and demanding money. Since the January shooting in Arizona targeting a Democratic member of Congress that left six people dead the FBI watches carefully threats by individuals psychologically sensitive to violence -laced invective heard and seen in some American media.

The United States House of Representatives (The House) is set to vote (March 17) to “de-fund” public broadcasting. (See update below) Newly emboldened right-wing teabagger congressmen want to punish NPR for the always-unproven allegation of “liberal bias.”  In recent weeks right-wing activists aligned with the teabaggers secretly recorded a NPR fund raising executive talking with potential Arab donors, actually fakes, part of the set-up. He left NPR rather quickly after the indiscrete language offended the teabaggers. The NPR president also resigned suddenly.  Public broadcasting in America has had challenging times but never such a concerted effort to kill it.

Public radio in Europe is also under threat, though not usually with violence. The Conservative-Murdoch government in the UK has taken an axe to the BBC, hoping to shrink it to the size of a small town library. The right-wing Hungarian government has brought its public broadcaster firmly under political control. The red herring is always fiscal restraint. Crony capitalism and reducing independent voices has become the spirit of the times.

Differences between European and American media, policies and practice, are wide. American media has always been, largely, a commercial pursuit, part of the resolute belief that for-profit media better serves a marketplace. The ‘real’ money, it’s been said, in American broadcasting is the buying and selling of stations. European policies since the end of the Second World War have recognized media’s special value in the informing and entertaining its citizens. State media propaganda has been replaced, largely, by an independent public media.

Public media, radio and television, had a ragged start in the United States. Most began as educational broadcasters, community outreach for schools and universities, often designed to train students for eventual careers in commercial broadcasting. The US Congress created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in 1967 to provide funding for facilities, towers and transmitters at educational broadcasting stations.

“Our nation wants more than just material wealth; our nation wants more than a ‘chicken in every pot’, said US President Lyndon B. Johnson on signing the Public Broadcasting Act. “We in America have an appetite for excellence, too. While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit. That is the purpose of this act “

CPB went on to provide funding for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for television and National Public Radio (NPR) for radio. Both PBS and NPR would be program production providers for affiliated local public broadcasters. Government funding was always modest, most flowing to institutions holding broadcast licenses. Both PBS and NPR were far below the political radar and largely ignored by commercial media.

That changed quickly and set in motion the deep animosity of the political right for public broadcasting. NPR’s first broadcast in 1971 covered US Senate hearings on the Viet Nam War. A PBS television series called the ‘Banks and the Poor’ drew the ire of right-wing icon President Richard Nixon, who promptly cut funding for public broadcasting. NPR would go on to broadcast congressional hearings on the Watergate scandal and, eventually, the Nixon’s resignation in disgrace. The right-wingers have never forgiven public broadcasting.

But NPR soldiered on, investing in programming and satellite distribution. By 1983 it was broke, US$7 million in the hole. The US Congress bailed out NPR under the condition of a financial restructuring giving more money to local public channels, which then would pay for NPR’s services through subscription. NPR also developed an internal fund raising machine and paid back the government loan within three years.

After a brief respite, NPR and PBS were again subjected to attacks during the terms of über right-wing icon Ronald Reagan, who also cut funding to public broadcasting. In 1995, congressional leader Newt Gingrich offered NPR to Rupert Murdoch in hopes of eliminating the critical media voice. It failed. Mr. Murdoch would go on to hire former Nixon and Reagan political operative Roger Ailes and launch the veracity-challenged Fox News in 1996, now the megaphone for the American right-wing teabaggers.

At the same time, commercial broadcasting in America underwent a wave of consolidation. Local stations, radio and television, were bought up by larger and larger companies with mountains of debt. To meet the financial demands of investors, local services disappeared. The diversity of voices in American commercial media once rich because of thousands of competitive owners dwindled. There are only eleven radio ‘formats’, said one observer of American media, and none of them are local. Unsurprisingly, NPR’s main morning and afternoon news blocks have become hugely popular.

The current resolution before the US Congress would prevent local public radio stations from paying for NPR programming, often their greatest asset, with federal funds. A bill to cut funding for CPB was passed by US House but defeated in the Senate. It’s expected the current resolution will meet the same fate. It is, of course, only show business.

UPDATE (March 18): The US House of Representatives passed the resolution to deny federal funds to NPR as expected along party lines (2200 CET).

See also in ftm Knowledge

Public Broadcasting - Arguments, Battles and Changes

Public broadcasters have - mostly - thrown off the musty stain of State broadcasting. And audiences for public channels are growing. But arguments and battles with politicians, publishers and commercial broadcasters threatens more changes. The ftm Knowledge file examines all sides. 64 pages PDF (January 2010)

Order here