I’m amazed at how fast these on-air people turned into idiots once the GOP took control, and it seems it’s a one-way process.

was an infrequent guest on a PBS show a couple of years ago, until a rather oily old conservative bird who didn’t much like me called and threatened to have their funding cut if they had me on again, and that was the end of that

.

To me this is the key sentence. It’s all about the money. I think we should understand this tactic.

When I went to the advertisers of KSFO I didn’t threaten them with a boycott,I told them to look at their own guidelines and see if they permitted their employees or vendors to call for the violent death of others. Since they usually didn’t, they then had to decided if they wanted to keep supporting them.

This tactic cost KSFO 28 advertisers and millions in revenue, Melanie Morgan was let go because of the money they lost. All done using the “free market”.

Thank GOD for the Net so now I can find progressive shows and even radio plays (btw Mike Malloy is producing one once a week) about anytime I want to listen to them.

Try Scott Simon one time and when he “interviews” FAUX tool Juan Williams and that other guy who “analyzes” the weekly news (can’t remember his name). When Bu$h was in office they both made me puke they were so fawning, everything had a “good reason” and everything Bu$h did was funny, smart, etc. Recently I decided to give them another try since I wondered if they would now be “tools” for Obama too. But nope, with Obama, they are “compelled” to be “neutral” and while neither was completely negative, they simply HAD to report “both sides” of things, when with Bu$h they all but kissed his feet.

I wished they had someone like Jane on there. It would be a breath of fresh air. But nooooo! Again, WHAT A BUNCH OF TOOLS! PPPPPPPPLLLLLLLLLLLLLPLPLPLPLPLPLPL on NPR!

Cat In Seattle

NPR doesn’t use the words I want. I’ll never support them again. Wah.

You prefer Fox? The Wall Street Journal? Hannity? Wall-to-wall right-wing talk radio?

Listen, like it or not, NPR is the last, best option on radio. This American Life. Prairie Home Companion. Speaking of Faith. In depth Supreme Court coverage. More than sound-bite coverage of important stories. Try finding anything like that on the AM or FM dial.

Don’t delude yourself. The right has been progressively taking over the broadcast news media for…well, as long as I’ve been alive, at least, so that they can set the public discourse to their liking, and NPR is one of the last few impediments. They would _loooove_ to let us do their work for them and give up on NPR.

You want your NPR back? Fight for it. Write letters. Call in. Object, like I did, the next time they have a hack from the AEI on.

But don’t don’t don’t just give it up. That’s just what Rupert Murdoch is waiting for.

NPR has become a mouthpiece for Beltway speak. It started going off the rails back in the early 90s when it moved to its then new headquarters and completed its transition from being an upstart operation to a comfortable part of the Establishment.

NPR is currently planning another move in 2012 or thereabouts to a new 400,000 sq. ft. center where it can misreport the news from more palatial surroundings. Surprisingly, NPR closed on the deal last year a mere 2 weeks after the September 15 financial meltdown hit. Apparently, the DC real estate bubble was still perking along because NPR sold the site of its now old new headquarters for $119 million. It had paid $12.8 million for the site in 1992. Even though it expects to net $80 million on the deal, NPR will still look to their coterie of faithful rubes listeners to help finance this extravaganza. This should put in context, I hope, the announcement of job cuts at NPR a few months back because of their, ahem, financial difficulties. Still I wonder if the coming crash in commercial real estate will come back to bite them. If it does, it could not happen to more deserving folks.

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/…..ment-50118