Posts tagged radio
Just like Boulder city Council US House Votes to End Money for NPR, and Senate Passes Spending Bill
Mar 18th
Readers of the Daily Camera overwhelmingly supported the end of free speech in Boulder. It is now coming to an end in the US house and Senate. this is a sad day for boulder and America
from NY Times: WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to cut off financing for National Public Radio, with Democrats and Republican fiercely divided over both the content of the bill and how it was brought to the floor.
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Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, praised the spending measure and said that over 10 years, $10 billion in cuts over all would amount to $140 billion in savings.
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SENATE VOTE 44
Passes Stopgap Budget
HOUSE VOTE 192
Approves Ban on NPR Funding
Ask the reporter a question on the move to defund NPR – which is almost certain to fail in the Senate – via Twitter. She will answer by video on Friday on The Caucus blog.
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Across the Rotunda, the Senate approved a short-term spending measure passed earlier in the week by the House that would keep the government financed through April 8. Members of both parties and chambers said the move, which once again averted a government shutdown, should be the last of its kind. The measure, which cut spending by $6 billion for this fiscal year, passed the Senate 87 to 13, with nine Republicans, three Democrats and an independent voting in dissent.
As in the House, some of the Senate’s more conservative members voted against the spending measure, known as a continuing resolution, arguing that its cuts were insufficient. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, offered his own plan, which he said would balance the federal budget in five years by eliminating the departments of education and energy, among other measures.
Senate Republican leaders backed the stopgap measure, praising the $6 billion in cuts that came on top of $4 billion in reductions contained in the current budget bill, which expires Friday. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said that over 10 years, the $10 billion in cuts would amount to $140 billion in savings. “All in all, a good day’s work,” he said.
But Senator Daniel K. Inouye, the Hawaii Democrat who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said the continued cutting was bound to harm federal agencies. “How much more can we cut before we have no funds to pay employees to monitor our borders and ports?” he asked. “How much more before we have to cancel the construction of dams, bridges, highways, levees, sewers and transit projects and throw thousands of private sector workers onto the street?”
The NPR bill, sponsored by Representative Doug Lamborn, Republican of Colorado, would mean that stations could not buy programming from NPR or any other source using the $22 million they get from the federal government.
“The time has come for us to claw back this money,” said Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee.
This was the second time that the House has moved to defund NPR; a rider was attached to a short-term spending bill passed last month by the House but rejected by the Senate. Thursday’s measure, which House Republicans rushed to the floor before a one-week recess begins, passed 228 to 192 ; all the Democrats who were there and seven Republicans voted against it and one Republican, Representative Justin Amash, voted present.
The bill, should the Senate even bring it to the floor, is almost certain to fail in that chamber. Democrats control the Senate, where members of both parties have expressed skepticism about cutting off NPR because it remains popular among many of their constituents.
The organization, in the crosshairs of Republican lawmakers for years, came under intense fire recently with the release of a video that showed one of its fund-raising executives criticizing members of the Tea Party, and the hasty firing of the commentator Juan Williams for remarks he made on Fox News about Muslims.
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican majority leader, said recently that the revelations of the video, made by a conservative advocate who posed as a potential donor to the entity “makes clear that taxpayer dollars should no longer be appropriated to NPR.”
Democrats said it was politics, not fiscal austerity, that drove the bill. “Why are we wasting valuable floor time on an ideological battle?” said Representative Louise Slaughter of New York.
The House debated the bill, and the procedure by which it was brought to the floor, for several hours Thursday. Republicans argued that NPR should be able to sustain itself through private donations, and Democrats countered that the cut would have negligible impact on debt reduction or the nation’s fiscal problems. They also accused Republicans of ignoring joblessness in lieu of attacking “Car Talk” and picking on Elmo.
Mr. Lamborn said that while he personally enjoyed NPR, “I have long believed it can stand on its own.” He added in a speech on the floor, “I want NPR to grow on its own, I want to see it thrive. Just remove taxpayers from the equation.”
Democrats objected to how the bill was brought to the floor. On Wednesday, the House Rules Committee held an emergency hearing to expedite the bill, and it went to the floor under a so-called closed rule, which does not allow for amendments, counter to the promise of more openness made by Speaker John A. Boehner. Republicans pointed out that the content of the seven-page bill had already been debated when it was part of the larger spending bill.
NPR expressed grave concern in a statement today about the impact of the bill on the entire public radio system, saying it was a direct effort to weaken it that would ultimately choke local stations’ ability to serve their audiences.
“At a time when other news organizations are cutting back and the voices of pundits are drowning out fact-based reporting and thoughtful analysis, NPR and public radio stations are delivering in-depth news and information respectfully and with civility,” Joyce Slocum, interim chief executive officer of NPR, said. “It would be a tragedy for America to lose this national treasure.”
Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
Jann Scott Live 9:00 pm (almost) nightly http://www.jannscottlive.com call in talk TV guest interview hot topics
Nov 15th
Jann Scott Live 9:00 pm nightly http://www.jannscottlive.com or justin.tv/jannscottlive. Janns new fall nightly live cali in guest interview TV show.
Jann’s back annoying the comfortable and comforting the annoyed. It’s all front page driven talk TV with callers exclusively on the internet.
Jann Scott started in talk back in 1987 so he’s an old pro at causing trouble…
NPR won't back down: puts funding on chopping block. Williams gone Fox wins Dumb
Oct 23rd
NPR fires Juan Williams
(NECN: Jim Braude) – Fallout continues from the firing of Juan Williams. It’s turning into a major PR headache for public radio.
Consider this: Williams’ so-called offense was telling Bill O’reilly he sometimes gets nervous when flying with people in muslim dress. For that, NPR canned him.
NPR’s complaint line was so jammed that it crashed. Even newspapers like the Washington Post said NPR overreacted.
Fox rewarded Williams with a $2 million contract.
So who really came out ahead? Williams re-joined O’reilly last night to trash NPR.
Gone from NPR, Williams begins bigger role on Fox:
BYBRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — As listeners and angry citizens complained to NPR and public radio stations across the country over the firing of Juan Williams, the news analyst kept up his own criticism of his former employer as he began a bigger role with Fox News Channel.
As the guest host Friday night of “The O’Reilly Factor,” Williams, who was axed for saying he gets nervous on a plane when he sees Muslims, mentioned several remarks made by other NPR commentators that didn’t result in firings.
“My comments about my feelings supposedly crossed this line, some line, somewhere. That crossed the line?” Williams said. “Let me tell you what you can say on National Public Radio without losing your job.”
Williams went on to note that commentator Nina Totenberg said 15 years ago that if there is “retributive justice,” former Republican North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms or one of his grandchildren will get AIDS from a transfusion.
An NPR spokeswoman said Totenberg has repeatedly apologized for her comments.
Meanwhile, a number of major stations said they were meeting or surpassing their fundraising goals in the wake of the furor over Williams’ dismissal, despite it being pledge season.
“We find ourselves kind of caught between NPR and the audience,” said Craig Curtis, program director at KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., which won’t hold its pledge drive until next month. He said the station had received about 150 comments on the firing, mostly disapproving, and three people asked to cancel their memberships.
Conservative leaders including Sarah Palin called on Congress to cut off NPR’s federal funding – an idea that was also raised in the 1990s and didn’t get very far.
Williams was fired Wednesday over comments he made on “The O’Reilly Factor.”
“When I get on a plane,” he said, “I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
After his remarks, Fox announced it had re-signed Williams, who has been with the network since 1997, to a multiyear deal that will give him an expanded role.
NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller held a staff meeting Friday and said management was standing by its decision, spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm said. Schiller acknowledged that NPR didn’t handle the firing perfectly and executives would review their process, Rehm said.
Veronica Richardson, 38, a paralegal from Raleigh, N.C., said the firing revealed that NPR had a “political agenda.” She said she would stop listening and donating to her local station, WUNC-FM in Chapel Hill.
“I think it’s unfair to fire someone for a comment that was innocuous to begin with. It’s how many people feel,” said Richardson, who describes herself as a libertarian.
Teresa Kopec, 42, of Spartanburg, S.C., backed the firing, saying, “I thought what he said was kind of offensive. I think it was probably the last straw. He had a pattern of saying things that were not appropriate.” But she said his association with conservative Fox News may have been more troubling, because it damaged NPR’s reputation for objectivity.
At KUNC, an NPR affiliate in Colorado, general manager Neil Best said that Thursday, the start of a pledge drive, was one of the station’s best fundraising days ever. Best said some callers who criticized the firing seemed to be reading from a script since they used some of the same words, such as “totalitarian.”
Rehm said several other stations also reported callers may be reading from a script. In other cases, it was clear the callers weren’t listeners or supporters, she said.
“When people say, `I’m never going to watch you again,’ that’s an indicator,” she said, because NPR isn’t on TV.
Stations in some big cities such as New York, Washington and Philadelphia, all three of which have been holding pledge drives, said fundraising remained strong even as complaints rolled in. In Denver, Colorado Public Radio President Max Wycisk said the episode could boost fundraising. “It might actually help, because it reinforces how seriously public radio takes its integrity,” Wycisk said.
At least one station wants to distance itself from the firing. In Miami, WLRN general manager John Labonia said he was hearing dozens of complaints from angry citizens and loyal donors. He said one called to cancel a $1,000 pledge. The station’s fundraising drive had already ended when the furor erupted.
“We don’t want that negative halo of NPR’s decision to affect us, so we are making it perfectly clear that we were not part of this decision and we do not agree with it,” Labonia said. “It was a short-sighted and irresponsible decision by NPR.”
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he will introduce legislation to end federal funding for public radio and television.
“Once again, we find the only free speech liberals support is the speech with which they agree,” he said in a statement. “With record debt and unemployment, there’s simply no reason to force taxpayers to subsidize a liberal programming they disagree with.”
In June, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., introduced similar legislation in the House. He said the Williams firing will help his bill.
NPR radio stations are independently owned and operated and, like the nation’s public TV stations, receive government funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which got about $420 million this year from Washington.
As for NPR’s headquarters operation, federal grants account for less than 2 percent – or $3.3 million – of its $166 million annual budget. It is funded primarily by its affiliates, corporate sponsors and major donors.
This isn’t the first time public broadcasting has been in the crosshairs of conservative politicians. In 1994, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for an end to all federal funding for public broadcasters.
NPR’s Rehm warned that if Congress cut off funding, “stations across the country would be hurt by that and would have to make up that balance elsewhere. In many places that would be difficult to do.”
Associated Press Writers Dan Elliott in Denver, Jeff Wilson in Los Angeles, Ben Nuckols in Baltimore, Suzette Laboy in Miami, Kendal Weaver in Birmingham, Ala., Ula Ilnytzky in New York City and JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia contributed to this report.