[Peace-discuss] NPR and WILL

[Alfred Kagan]

This morning I listened to the morning news on WILL AM from 6 to 7 am.  
There was no mention whatsoever of John Conyors hearing on the Downing 
Street Memo yesterday.  This is obviously explosive news, 30 members of 
Congress attended, and 122 or so members of Congress have signed a 
letter asking for an investigation. So how is it that there is no 
mention on "our" public radio station?  Obviously, the people at NPR 
have been intimidated, but I think it goes beyond that.  Their news has 
been going downhill for years.

So I have a dilemma, and I would like to initiate some discussion.  Of 
course, I support the concept of public media, but I can't support what 
is going on at NPR in Washington.  I strongly support what Kim and 
others have accomplished at WILL with local programming.  How can we 
support public media and local programming but not the kind of 
programming we currently get from NPR and PBS?

Americans contribute millions to local NPR and PBS stations but we 
don't get as much independent media as we should. I think we do a lot 
better locally than  many other communities in the country, but that is 
only a side point here.  I have to ask the question, what would happen 
if all those millions were instead contributed to independent radio and 
TV?  What would happen if Amy Goodman, Bob McChesney, etc. got to spend 
that money instead of the neo-conservatives in Washington who currently 
run our public media?

We are at a point where our public media is under attack, and we have a 
campaign to save it and mitigate the budget axe.  But we have to ask 
the question about what we are saving and what it look like after we 
succeed (if we do).  It seems to me that there should be some way to 
influence the content if we are going to put our efforts here.

I don't know the answers, only the questions.


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801

tel. 217-333-6519
fax 217-333-2214
akagan at uiuc.edu