I am also exasperated and digusted by NPR’s slant to Faux news. Never expected that NPR would be choosing “experts” from Starr’s law school (pepperdine) to comment on Supreme Court nominees and selecting corporate shills from the industry funded front group CSPI to disparage environmental protection. In neither case did NPR inform listeners of the commentators’ profound biases.

NPR’s bookers keep booking wingers as “correspondents”, ensuring that wingers’ values determine the confines of the discussion.

When I called KQED the person on the phone acknowledged the right-ward tilt on NPR.

KQED is one of the biggest cash sources for NPR during pledge drives – and just happens to be located in San Francisco.

Seems like a ripe target for sophisticated media activists: I wonder what proportion of donors would make “partial pledges” deducting the % of the station’s budget going to support NPR news?

Yeah, I have warm fuzzies for NPR and PBS – but not for the corporate values grafted onto NPR while the CPB was taken over by Bush’s corporate appointees. The corporations already have their media – all of the commercial networks.

Why should NPR listeners pay to subsidize corporate spin over public broadcasting?

Anyway, KQED is in the midst of a pledge drive: not a bad time to help station management understand the price of NPR’s takeover.

When KQED – and other flagship staions in major progressive markets – feel the bite, NPR news will feel the heat.

While we take back our nation and Constitution, I think we can take back the people’s media, too.

And – if any city and region has the media acivists and passion to wrest NPR away from the corproate bookers – San Francisco and the Bay Area is the place.

It should be a fun fight, actually. So if you have a moment to call KQED’s pledge line and describe the coverage you’d like to support on NPR news, please do.

This is a public fight. Anyone can join in – and I hope they will.

If anyone on fdl wants to discuss the problems in NPR news with KQED – the largest economic contributor to NPR member station fund drives – the station contact info is:

KQED, Inc.
2601 Mariposa Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
tel: (415) 864-2000

Office of the President:

email: pres@kqed.org

Pledge Line:
tel: (800) 937.8850

KQED Radio Administration:
fax: (415) 553-2241

_____________________________________________

KQED Radio News
email: fm@kqed.org
newsroom tel: (415) 553-2361
fax: (415) 553-2118

PS: I am including the number and contact info for the KQED newsroom for clarification – they are part of the solution, and their progressive values and freedom from corporate spin remind me of NPR from 20 years ago.

I hope any calls to the KQED newsroom on this issue would support the perspective they maintain despite the network’s spin.

This administration will not concede a thing to public opinion, let alone to the Democrats. Are you kidding?

It will retreat to the powers it thinks it has. Which is to say, any damn thing the boy king and his minders want to do.

And we will have better luck trying to get even the most basic information from the Sphinx.

Thanks for keeping up the fight in Alabama. We appreciate you.

The big problem is not where justice is located, but the gall of the NSA/White house to say that because you do not have security clearances, you can’t investigte.

So who has security clearances? Not anyone who is willing to do the job in the American People’s best interests. In other words, friends of Cheney, Bolton & Negroponte. And they will tell us everything is above board, legal, legitimate (even as hey are scaping your colon for biometric data).

Bush has essentially made the claim that there is no constitutional right to be told the truth. Everything he does is consistentt with that contention. For example, there was some discussion in the last thread from last night (Greenwald’s book thread) where a RawStory article was summarized, wherein it was reported that current US activities inside Iran cannot legally be investigated by Congress because the mujahadeen group Bush outsourced the operation to has not been declared a group/entity by the white house. Thus, it does not exist, ergo congress can’t investigate.

Isn’t Bush’s vision of democracy inspiring? Funny thing, this is the one point where Bush has told the truth — this IS the type of democracy he is exporting!