Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

cpb.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 646 posts

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#311

Post by thisisit »

smithkl42 wrote: post #76

> Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country,” Harrison said. If that was true, losing the CPB would be a travesty. But as a loyal NPR listener for decades, I've found their stuff lately to be unlistenable. It's Fox, but for the Left, and with a bit more of an…

I am always confused by this narrative. People extolling the virtues of old media organization as if those people weren't toeing the government line and were cold robots with no bias.

It is the rise of media org like Fox news where these kinds of comments have started surfacing. Because for Fox news is more commentary than facts. And then the narrative trick from Fox and other conservative media outlets have constantly pushed an agenda - "others do it too".

It has led to comments like these and this is fine.

> It's Fox, but for the Left

But then when you start adding stuff like this:

> and with a bit more of an intellectual spin. What makes it most annoying is their utter blindness to their own bias. The Fox hosts know that they're taking one side of a story. I've never gotten the impression that any of the NPR hosts are even that self-aware.

It becomes clear you are regurgitating RW talking points and both side-ism. And because Fox is worse, the only saving argument is that Fox at least knows their bias. God help this country if this is level of intellectual spin people can give to reinforce their points.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#312

Post by radiofreeeuropa »

heavyset_go wrote: post #172
atonse wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree overall that this is not a good thing for also furthering a knowledge gap between rural and urban areas. But in the age of internet streaming, wouldn't rural areas still have access to stream public radio? Genuinely asking. I tried looking for sources on station audience sizes, alternatives they might have, etc. But it was difficult to find.

Local reporting is basically dead outside of metro areas. Sure, you can stream, but the content will be focused on another locale or won't address local issues.

When I'm not busy worrying about everything else, I worry that there's assuredly an explosion of local corruption, especially outside of cities large enough to still have something resembling actual local news media, that we can't even begin to get a handle on because it's... well, it's invisible now, that's why it's (surely—I mean, we can't possibly think corruption is dropping or even remaining steady, with the death of the small town paper and small-market TV news rooms, right?) happening in the first place.

I think it's, quietly and slowly, the thing that's going to doom our country to decline if something else doesn't get us first (which, there are certainly some things giving this one a run for its money). The Internet killed a pillar of democracy, replaced it with nothing that serves the same role, and we didn't even try to keep it from happening, so here we are, we doomed ourselves by embracing the Internet quickly and not trying to mitigate any harm it causes.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#314

Post by [deleted] »

deadbabe wrote: post #308
tptacek wrote: post #296

This is a giant thread full of people lamenting the demise of public broadcasting so it seems like someone should write the comment that points out that CPB doesn't do PBS programming. They don't develop content. They're a grantmaking organization that manages the distribution of the congressional PBS appropriation. The actual PBS and NPR shows you're familiar with are generally developed and produced privately, and…

I mean you kind of made it sound not too bad at all.

[deleted]

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#315

Post by hyperpape »

tptacek wrote: post #296

This is a giant thread full of people lamenting the demise of public broadcasting so it seems like someone should write the comment that points out that CPB doesn't do PBS programming. They don't develop content. They're a grantmaking organization that manages the distribution of the congressional PBS appropriation. The actual PBS and NPR shows you're familiar with are generally developed and produced privately, and…

This is useful, though it leaves open the question of what it means in practice that the grant-making organization is disappearing.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#316

Post by legitster »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #250
TheCondor wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a specific example of the left-leaning bias you can mention?

The show had six guests on- 2 left, 1 right, 2 neutral(?) and 1 CIA deep state mouthpiece. The show gave mostly balanced coverage of every issue covered, but declined to dig into the Epstein issue beyond "Trump+Epstein", gave the deep-stater seven minutes to defend the CIA without meaningfully pressing into any of the other questions raised by the latest declassifications (such as HRC & DNC involvement in orchestrati…

> such as HRC & DNC involvement in orchestrating Russiagate

I'm not trying to be dismissive of your viewpoint, but why should anyone bother speaking to this? Absolutely nothing new was divulged. It's not the media's responsibility to give airtime over every government press release.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#317

Post by saguntum »

radiofreeeuropa wrote: post #233
nemomarx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large groups voting for "tear it all down, we don't trust institutions" wasn't a sign for you back in 2016? what were your priors before this year?

My "holy shit, we're in for... interesting times, and like, soon " moment was when Trump suggested his supporters might shoot Hillary if she won ("If she wins, I can't do anything about it. But the 'Second Amendment people'...."), and didn't see a huge hit to his popularity, and supporters in his own camp distancing themselves, immediately. Norms are dead, you can just suggest assassination of your opponent and still…

I'm in my mid 30s and have definitely noticed a gap in perception between people in their early 20s who haven't experienced much of pre-2016 politics and the older folks. The younger folks are much less alarmed because they weren't familiar with the "normal political discourse" that occurred when they were children.

It makes it hard to be optimistic that there is any plausible roadmap back to some form of normalcy in the medium term.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#318

Post by dh2022 »

leviathant wrote: post #272
MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

smithkl42 says that NPR is leftward, and you say that it's rightward. Maybe we're all operating from different baselines.

No. If that's what you took from my post, I've miscommunicated. NPR has turned rightward. The entertainment shows are, without a doubt, liberal, on the American political spectrum. There are countless discussions and papers about the role empathy plays in successful entertainment. The editorial content has turned rightward - and the leadership has turned rightward. This has been ongoing for at least two decades, prob…

NPR was not rightward this past election, for sure. I don’t think NPR missed to report a single Kamala endorsement last fall.

Re: Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

#319

Post by vel0city »

tptacek wrote: post #296

This is a giant thread full of people lamenting the demise of public broadcasting so it seems like someone should write the comment that points out that CPB doesn't do PBS programming. They don't develop content. They're a grantmaking organization that manages the distribution of the congressional PBS appropriation. The actual PBS and NPR shows you're familiar with are generally developed and produced privately, and…

> and then purchased by local PBS stations

If those stations go off the air, who is buying that content?

It's like arguing it doesn't matter if the stream dries up the plants don't get water from the stream, the plants get the water from the ground. Where did that water in the ground come from? The stream!

You're right, these shows aren't going off the air tomorrow. But this does affect the funding for the shows produced by PBS and NPR.

Post reply on HN