New Congress draws first blood; NPR folds

[Mac1337]

After three months and a long investigation NPR finally realized they were wrong in firing Juan. Of course, it took them only days to fire him. No investigation needed. Now that they are scared shitless for their honey getting dried up they promise openness and diversity. Williams said last night that Weiss was the thought police-in-chief. I would cut PBS funding in a heartbeat. You like their programming? Subscribe.

[cbelt3]

Uhm...... I got the flavor that Ellen, who has spent all of her career at NPR, took one for the team, and has atoned for her effup in handling William's firing. It was handled very badly. You don't want him ? Just hang his butt out to dry with no more airtime, and don't renew his contract when it comes up. He just ... fades away.

Punishing NPR for her effup is foolish.

Face it... NPR and PBS Haters are homophobes who don't like Bert and Ernie, and believe the whole 'gay' rumor. :confused:

[Mac1337]

Who is punishing NPR?

[john dough]

I do not fault you anymore for the garbage you post. You are told what to think/say/do by people that you listen to, so you are not entirely to blame. When asked simple questions, you never answer them as you do not have the capacity to answer them.

Tonight is pizza night! Looking forward to that.

[Carnos Jax]

Beer...

Dak says stupid things so often, that I wonder if it's deliberate, but then a scary feeling inside tells me that he's genuine in his idiocy. I hope not...

So I assume Dak doesn't support public eductation then? By his logic, he would terminating all funding for it in a 'heartbeat'?

Argueably, NPR (and it's counterparts like BBC) are the least biased (by orders of magnitude) news sources in the world...and therefore invaluable.

Asking to cut-off their funding based on one instance of error (assuming that it were even true) is like saying one should stop buying a particular fighter jet because of one accident due to a small defect despite that jet having 99.999% accident free flying hours. Good thing you aren't in the military...

[OWC Jamie]

I wouldn't cut NPR nor PBS funding, but ( hey the endowment funding would be the majority of thier operations and they have too much influence in programming and content as it is) it's about time they admitted they over-reacted.

This whole 'we're in charge and you can tell because we react decisively' meme needs to go.

The parrot heads seem to be pacified with it.

[$tevie]

NPR's board of directors hired a law firm three months ago to review how the termination was handled. Juan Williams refused to participate in the review, incidentally.

Ellen Weiss agreed to resign under pressure after the board received a verbal report from Weil, Gotshal & Manges. There is no written report nor record because it was felt that people would not be forthcoming if they thought their comments or emails could be made public.

http://www.npr.org/about/press/2011/0106...ation.html

[Jimmypoo]

Interesting how people who don't look very deeply before making decisions of significance (let's just
cut NPR!) - don't realize that there are many states that offer courses in their major cities that are taught
at their prime campus universities, and the course is piped over Public Television, so that people in other
cities can get the same level of education as those on campus.

This is one (just one) reason why so many NPR and PBS stations are based within the University Systems.

In some states, the elementary school system is brought programming every day via PBS and the teachers
have regular weekly advanced training (or enhanced training) via those same channels for a mere 30 minutes
per day when school is out - so they need not actually attend a university, but instead, be taught the information
by either someone from the university or a nationally known / recognized expert on education, etc.

I don't see how anyone could find value in the infrastructure, let alone the content. After all, their news
organization is SO LEFT WING that Jim Lehrer is quite often the debate host, because both parties know
that he's going to stick it to the right wing candidate.

Of course - there is always this, back in the beginning days - and even my political idol, Mr. Nixon, was
after the PBS grant. Mr. Rogers decided to talk to them about what a leftist cult leader he is, and how
he wanted to brainwash all kids to become leftie/commies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrv8qtK00Go

[Acer]

Hannity and NPR are available on my drive home. I listen to either, depending on the day. Guess which one is more even-handed, level-headed and fact-based, and which one is 90% rhetoric, hyperbole and one man talking.

[Mac1337]

Anytime you bring up NPR funding, people pull out the usual red herring that you want NPR to go away. You can't be singing the praise of NPR and what wonderful programming they have and then say they can's support themselves. Last month I subscribed to Sirius. I pay 15 bucks a month and don't take shit from anyone. Congress can cut their funding all they want. In fact, if there was a case to be made for public funding, satellite radio makes much more sense. The diversity of programming is astounding. Why should Sirius beat the pavement everyday and NPR get a check in the mail by calling couple of congressmen?