> I agree: my general view of the world has *big*
> problems figuring out
> just why it is that publicly-owned media in other
> English-speaking
> countries has managed to maintain both its
> independence and its
> remarkably high quality. Unfortunately, it doesn't
> seem to transplant
> to other places well...
Please consider the Pacifica crisis as well as NPR: I
believe that their problems all boil down to the
desire of these institutions wanting to receive big
bucks from foundations and corporate underwiriting--
that is, for whatever reason, they want to move away
from the state-supported model (in NPR's case) and
into a more corporate-supported model. True, this
isn't exactly being a corporate media outlet, but it's
close. In Pacifica's case, it's going the opposite
direction-- for some reason wanting to move away from
the non-government but public supported structure and
into the corporate and foundation supported model.
Regardless, both institutions are moving away from the
relatively free voice they had before and are
restricting themselves by aligning themselves with the
corporate overlords.
Tim
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