Letters to the Editor
cabdriver
Published Letters: 594 Editor's Choice: 8
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1968
[Read the article: The year that changed everything]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There was nothing especially politicized about my junior high school, and certainly nothing "countercultural." "Hippies" and "peaceniks" were still unknown among my classmates at that point, although things would change markedly in the next 1-3 years. No drugs, unless you count alcohol- I knew underage drinkers at age 12, and had joined their ranks around a year later.
The music of 1968 was remarkable, even on commercial pop radio- everything from country songs to southern soul music to vocal harmony groups to guitar rock and roll, all on the same radio station. That was before recorded music/broadcast radio became an "industry", run into the ground by people with tin ears.
I remember both the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations as terrible events. I think we were all too young to realize how much wind had been knocked out of the sails, and how much the country had been knocked off-course.I also remember watching news coverage of the riots in downtown DC. My high school had a black student population of about 10%. I don't recall a lot of racial friction or militancy among my black schoolmates in 1968, either before or after the assassination. A few miles down the road, I might have had a different experience.
The school was made up of a combination of service brats and locals- most of us white. It was a part of the state where the George Wallace vote was strong- Wallace ran for president in 1968 and got 13% of the popular vote, not too many people recall that these days. Despite that, when King was murdered, I recall no whooping and hollering with joy in the hallways.
The first and only time I ever heard someone voice an anti-Vietnam war sentiment in 1968, it was one of my teachers discussing the war with some students, after class. He was telling them that the pro-Vietnam War side didn't have its story straight. He said he had learned this from soldiers returning from the war. I couldn't believe my ears- and, at any rate, did not hear such statements repeated by anyone of my personal acquaintance for a long while afterward. With the White House less than 20 miles away, we only knew of antiwar protests from occasional reports on the television news.
My father was a career army officer. He had just been transferred to Vietnam, and he didn't return until late 1969. I had just turned 13. I wore a Nixon For President button in November of 1968.
I hope that helps you with your bitterness issues, "Electro Robot"- be they real or feigned.
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The Corporate Underwriting of NPR
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"As its federal funding came under threat," U.S. National Public Radio increased its ad sales. "Public-radio stations now count 18% of their revenue from businesses, compared with 11% from the federal government."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Public_Radio
"NPR and WGBH buy underwriting broker National Public Broadcasting
Revenue gains seen in merger of sales teams
Originally published in Current, Sept. 24, 2007
By Steve Behrens
In a bid to bring more corporate underwriting into public broadcasting, NPR and WGBH are birthing a new sales unit to sell a larger and more diverse inventory of options — national, multimarket, local, radio, TV, website and more.
They’ll combine NPR’s national underwriting sales team with a purchase announced Sept. 11 — National Public Broadcasting LLC, a privately owned firm that arranges spot underwriting for national companies on selected stations. The new rep firm’s inventory also will include NPR.org, PBS.org and websites of dozens of stations..."
"...Stern said the combined sales operation will have several sales advantages over the present divided sales efforts.
It will have a enlarged sales team — initially nearly 50 staffers — and will invest in more training, research data and sales tools, he said. In the past five or six years, Stern said, NPR’s expanded sales force has more than doubled the net’s underwriting sales from $18 million to $46 million. NPR now deals with nearly 200 active corporate underwriters.
As a “one-stop shop,” the sales unit will also have the advantage of offering a wider array of underwriting options...."
http://www.current.org/funding/funding0717npb.shtml
From an article in the September 1991 American Journalism Review:
"...According to studies by the Simmons Market Research Bureau, 40 percent of NPR listeners are college graduates, compared to 19 percent of the general population. More than one in six has a graduate degree. They are more likely to be male than female; most fall in the 35-to-54 age bracket. They are also relatively well off, with 35 percent making at least $50,000 a year. Thirty percent of NPR listeners consider themselves conservative and 30 percent liberal, compared to 40 percent and 20 percent among the general population...
...Nearly a quarter of NPR's $33 million in revenues in 1990 came from foundation, corporate and association grants. Jane Couch was hired in 1982 to increase such funding, which in 1983 amounted to only $2.7 million. She reports record giving this year – more than $12.5 million – most of which will go into future budgets, with only $4.2 million earmarked for 1991 itself..."
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=1333
I don't bring up those reference excerpts with the intention of beginning a discussion on how the adoption of corporate underwriting may have affected the news content of NPR. That's a conversation for another time.
I'm simply tired of right-wingers continually referring to NPR as if it were some bastion of Trotskyites, funded largely at taxpayer expense. That's a nonsensical claim.