“Sponsorship, underwriting, advertising, whatever you want to call it…” - Vivian Schiller
Agree with those below who have very correctly pointed out that PBS and NPR do have commercial interests. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking otherwise.

It’s funny that Al-Jezera, is gaining viewers, and that it provides “real news” according to
Hillary, this sort of thing must drive the plutocracy crazy. Americas so called business
leaders decided a long time ago that real news was bad for business because it made it
to hard to hide their larcenies, and incompetence, it also made it more difficult for
Americas unconscious masses to continue swilling down high fructose corn syrup,
between bites of their favorite GMO donut, unaware that the cancer and degenerative
disease the suffer from was caused by the poison that those same business leaders sell.

Why just the other day, their intern in training, Obama, appointed another business
leader to his best practice panel, whose own company gave him a 35 million dollars
bonus, after his company lost 700,000 customers and, lost a government contract
because his company committed fraud.  Its just so typical of a government full of graft,
fraud and corruption to appoint business leaders who should be jail, to positions of
influence in government where they can continue to spread their disease and money.
Witness Goldman Sacks.

As long as Americans no longer have control over their polchickens, then of course
what’s on the news doesn’t really matter.  There is no turning back from the road we’re
on. The outcome is inevitable at this point. Americas plutocracy has destroyed this
country, by spreading poison through ever aspect of its body politic,  from the physical
through the mental.

Love DemNow….So much we are not told by the msm..This just out about the king lies:

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.-Voltaire

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/09/king-muslims-plots-terrorists/

“When we are discussing war, we need a media not brought to us by weapons
manufacturers. When discussing health care reform, we need a media not
sponsored by insurance companies or Big Pharma.”

I definitely agree with this which is why I find it hard to take PBS seriously
anymore. Have you seen the sponsors of Newshour? Chevron, Monsanto, Pacific
Life, Toyota… I really doubt my annual $50 donation can match the pull of these
corporate sponsors just as my campaign donations don’t do much against
corporate donors. I still try in my idealistic attempts at pretending my voice
matters but the reality hangs heavy on me.

I don’t listen to NPR for political or economic news. They have become irrelevant and spout the same falsehoods as the other mainstream media outlets.

The fact that they talk with bigger words and in more rational tones while reporting the corporate slanted news does fool some people. But just like everyone though that Obama would ‘fix’ Bush’s policies, people think that by listening to NPR they get ‘truer’ news. Sorry to burst your bubble. That hasn’t been the case.

Though I do like Sesame Street, and Public broadcasting does do a good job with their art and entertainment programs.

But serious news? They are, sadly, just another propaganda mouthpiece with maybe a slightly different slant promoting the corporate news while being disingenuous to the public.

In line with 100% of comments.  Use to listen to NPR on headphones while at work over a decade ago.  Now if I try to listen it is nauseating.  Firstly the delivery is always by some babbling, chinless overly ‘formally educated’ nitwit who is hell bent on bring political correctness to another level.
Reviewing consumer products like ipods and fawning over their pushers and pushing ‘culture’.  Lastly interviewing authors of the likes of P-diddy for goodness sakes, and acting as if an ignorant clown actually has a contribution to literature and knowledge. Sunk in its perpetual culture-mire of fluff.

this is where we are headed http://vimeo.com/20715539

Hmm.  Well, Amy, I like your writing and show quite a lot but I must respectfully point out some problematic issues.

Beginning of Iraq War. Talk of the Nation.  Christopher Hitchens is on saying anyone who does not support the war, supports the terrorists.  Callers call in to object, they are humiliated.  The moderator does nothing to seriously combat Hitchen’s patently absurd bit of sophistry.

The News Hour.  It’s coverage of presidential elections is pathetic. It does exactly what the mainstream media does:  it focuses on the money ponied up and the horse race itself. And restricts its discussions to the usual talking points:  “support” meaning “military aid” for Israel; abortion; defense; and whatever else the Republicans and Democrats have established as the agenda for the campaign.

All Things Considered. Dancing with the Stars coverage?  Uh, sorry.  But I will never pledge money for “news” coverage of television shows.

And both PBS and NPR tend to do what commercial network stations do:  they give the Democrat and the Republican point of view—and they don’t have people on the air regularly who will not stick to the Democrat-Republican storyline. Just one example:  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want to discuss small arms control (that would be landmines, RPGs, SAMs, etc). As a result, those types of issues, which progressives care about a great deal, are never discussed during presidential elections. 

NPR and PBS have a decision to make.  Do they want to continue down the road of appeasing the very political faction that wants to end their funding? Or do they want to start covering issues progressive really care about?  Until they clearly make that decision they will be hanging out with people who want to cut the purse strings, while at the same time alienating the very people who could help refill the purse. 

You are in very tough position, Amy. I wish you the best. Good luck.

I believe it was the Senile One who originally slashed the CPB and forced public
stations to seek advertising, and it has been downhill for them ever since.
Last I heard the Philly Ex Director was making huge sum of annual salary which I
do not care to contribute to
pbs is not a whole lot better than fox anynore and they seem to become more and
more hostile when questioning progressives than ever before.

Perhaps if radio stations would stop paying for NPR programming they could reallocate those resources to their own local communities. It is hardly ever mentioned but cultural oppression is just as serious as political oppression.

Examine this quote from Dec 1, 1993, by Lewis Lapham, called “Adieu Big Bird”:

“They didn’t dwell on public televisions abject dependence on its corporate sponsors, or its eagerness to hustle toys to children through the friendly offices of Barney and Big Bird. They spoke instead about “competition for viewer’s attention”, about relying, perhaps too strongly, on “business underwriting,” about “the lack of adequate funds” that prompts, unhappily, so many stations “to resort to broadcasting/mass appeal programming in order to attract member contributions during on-air fundraising drives.”“

In other words, just because a television or radio station claims to be acting in the public interest, using a not-for-profit shield at that, does not make it so.
As for the above mentioned cultural oppression it is nearly everywhere. From the babbling of Terry Gross etc., to the ridiculous “All Things Considered” to the documentary fiefdom of Ken Burns, with his nonsense about basball, the Civil War, and worst of all, his misrepsentation of America’s original form of music, what he calls “jazz”, I find the idea of any money going to these clowns to be appalling, to say the least. (Please pardon my rant).

California Ray is ambivalent . . . at best.
NPR seems to have become a megaphone for the Pentagon.
Or at least it had when California Ray stopped listening back in 2003.  The
media had just completed the task of silencing the anti-war movement, and
NPR was busy pushing stories about the lofty professionalism of U.S. troops
and the nobility of their suffering families.
Then came the story in June 2003 called “Interrogation Music,” which broke the
story about U.S. torture, and played it strictly for laughs. When the NPR
ombudsman’s office failed to respond to California Ray’s objection to
“Interrogation Music,” California Ray pulled the plug.
These days, California Ray occasionally channel surfs in the car and lands on an
NPR station, often to receive a bulletin about how capitalist innovators are
working to improve society.
Hey, let’s do the numbers!  If the number is zero tax dollars, California Ray will
not object.

Why was this moved from the FRONT PAGE of TD and hidden?

TD Idiots!

Can’t wait for your Huffington moment, huh?

NPR has been changed significantly by the demands of the Right. NPR has become just another branch of the Main Stream Media, and their commentators and broadcasters come from all points on the political spectrum, but occasionally NPR airs perspectives not heard in the Main Stream Media.

The fact that stations affiliated with NPR are airing Democracy Now makes them worthy of support. It should be obvious to all that Republicans in the Congress are attempting to silence alternative voices.

NPR and PBS were big jingoes back when the U.S. was invading Iraq and Yugoslavia, as well.  That’s when I gave up listening to NPR (I had already thrown out my TV).  Apparently you don’t have to be selling something to be right-wing.

I have heard it said that NPR stands for National Pentagon Radio, and this characterization is arrived at from their feeble attempts to explain and justify the totally insane and disastrous war and occupation of Iraq, along with their continuous excuses to justify the Zionist expansion of Israel, by stealing even more land that does not belong to them.

This kind of rot did not stay confined within the United States. In that great era of civilization which brought us “shock and awe”, the BBC succumbed to the imperialist juggernaut, and pretty soon thereafter there wasn’t much difference in their empirical slant reports. I still laugh when I see the words “BBC America”.

As far as the funding goes (as it is always said, it always gets back to money) I think it is disingenuous to believe that National Public Radio or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are as vital to the public as their participants want me to believe. I would prefer to see much more non-affiliated public media not tied to Washington, left or right, where people in their own geographic cultures decide what is relevant… not some bone heads in suits who think all of life orbits around that national city-state sewer.

I agree with mrfreeze - NPR, although better than MSM, is nothing like it was.
NPR sways to the political winds.

I’m very thankful for Democracy Now!, TruthDig, Alternative Radio and the like
for the role they play. Although often a bit too “bleeding heart” they do offer
many perspectives not found anywhere else. I have supported them financially
in the past and I encourage everyone to do the same.

The reason I’ve stopped (financially) supporting them, for now, is their lack of
coverage of two of the three most important “stories” of our times. World
overpopulation and resource limits (i.e. the end of growth and the effects
downstream). In addition to global warming, which is covered well, these other
two are both tied to and a major cause of the climate change we are
experiencing.

Although I often agree with the far left leaning views in a world of declining
resources even the best intentions will get plowed over in the panic ahead.
What is needed now is a comprehensive “power down” of modern society. I
highly recommend “The Post Carbon Institute” (http://www.postcarbon.org/)
for they have very well researched and presented information. I do financially
support them currently.

I spend enough time in Europe and listen to enough “alternative” radio here in the States to know the difference between corporate propaganda and news. The news media of 21st Century America are nothing but high-tech gossip outlets or, worse yet, propaganda machines. Gone are the days when the Media was a “service.” Anyone with have a grain of common sense knows that almost all news media today is nothing more than “a business.”

Even NPR (to which I’ve listened since 1979) has become a mere shadow of it’s earlier self. It’s still better than almost everything out there. My local affiliate (KUOW, Seattle) broadcasts some of the best programming out there. Unfortunately the Washington DC NPR has become watered-down and “balanced.”

I simply don’t trust the Media to provide me with the truth anymore.

How about strengthening the laws against broadcasting false and misleading information?