Monday, November 13, 2006

In Re The National Capital's Trench Warfare Between Public Radio Classical Music Humanists And Public Radio Republocrat Maximizers And News Junkies

"Anew report from the National Endowment for the Arts blasts public radio, saying it fails to fulfill its obligation to provide music that commercial stations won't touch. The NEA says public radio -- once dominated by classical, jazz and other minority forms of music -- is retreating ever further from that mission, choosing to focus on news and talk.

National Public Radio pleads guilty to using its new resources to build a stronger news operation, but rejects the NEA's notion that public radio is abandoning its cultural mission. Rather, NPR maintains, it plans to use the Web and other emerging technologies to introduce a new generation of listeners to music you can't hear on the radio.

The NEA study, prompted by the dramatic decline in classical programming, hits public radio especially hard for the practice of duplicating news programming on multiple stations in a single city. Washington is the prime example of that phenomenon, with formerly classical WETA (90.9 FM) airing the same NPR News programs at the same time as WAMU (88.5 FM).

"There appears to be a tendency for public stations to discourage music programming in favor of news/talk broadcasts as a way to draw larger audiences," the NEA study says. But because it receives tax dollars, "public radio has an obligation beyond maximizing audiences." ...

Marc Fisher "To the NEA, News-Laden NPR is Making a Classical Mistake" Washington Post November 13, 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2006/11/10/AR2006111000286.html


















Coming soon as guest soloists (or guest conductors) to an American Symphony Orchestra League Symphony Orchestra nearest you, National Public Radio Car Talk's 'The Magliozzis'!

The Descent of Man: Under the NEA's tutelage, the NEA's New Music America and PBS's Alive From Off-Center morph into NPR's Car-Talk Every Hour On the Hour.

Photo credit: www.current.org/people/peop511cartalk.html. With thanks.

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