HONEST OPEN MEDIA -- NOT NPR

from Michael Ossipoff

I've just been deliglhted to find your organization's brochure in at the information-table at the Fort Pieirce Main-Branch library (by the marina). It's good to hear that there are so many progressives in this area. What is the number of members? What is the number of participants (whether members or not)? To introduce myself: My name is Michael Ossipoff. I reside in Fort Pierce. I've long been one of the more active participants in the Internet discussion of voting-systems. I've written many articles for democracy Chronicles, an Internet democracy advocacy and news magazine/newspaper. It's at: http://www.democracychronicles.com I agree with the purposes stated in your brochurre. Looking at the page headed Some Progressive Issues: Responsible Media is the 3rd item in the list ther. It's crucial for any kind of other improvements. One of the Founding Fathers, maybe Jefferson, pointed out that democeracy is the thing on which all other rights and improvements depend. But it's also been pointed out that democracy isn't possible without genuine and free public access to information. Of course we don't have that now, or even anything close to it. Any advocacy of any reform or improvement has to first be discussed, and it's necessary to know that other progressives want that too, and that, in fact, there _are_ other progressives. That's why media are crucial. It's astonishing that, all around the country, NPR (Nonrepresentative Propaganda Radio) is what passes for progressive media. NPR propagates the usual corporate-mass-media positions and premises. Within those narrowly-circumscribed premises, it includes "debate" between the Democrat and Republcan versions of the media-permitted Republocrat agenda. There are things that Americans complain about and object to. Such things as the excxessive richness of the rich, and the poverty at the bottom of the income and wealth scale; the lack of a progressive tax structure that fairly taxes the rich; the moving of jobs oversseas, in order to avoid paying a living wage here; the widespread unavailability of full medical care (unmatched in the industrial world). Pretty much every one of our wars are unwanted by the public at the time when our government starts them. In general, the public are more progressive than their "representatives". When Clinton said that national free medical care isn't "politically viable", Noam Chomsky said something like, "Sure, it isn't politically viable, because only the people want it." Though NPR consistently promotes the official line, when it mentions issues at all, it actually spends little time on the things that people are concerned about. It has all sorts of fluff-pieces and space-fillers, such as a remarkably detailed chronicle of the fictitious Lake Woebegone. When I asked why all points of view aren't heard, a show-host told me that it's because they only cover what their audience is interested in. But NPR needs to be told that the public _are_ interested in concerns such as I listed above. In fact much of NPR's audience consists of progressives, and their concerns, particulary, aren't aired at all in NPR's one-position-advocacy programming. So I suggest that NPR would be a good place for us to start. That's what this posting is actually about. No, trying to improve NPR would probably be quite futile. They already know that their positions are at odds with those of much of their audience, and with the interes and expressed wishes and concerns of the public in general. So, I'm suggesting something more modest: Let's ask WQCS, Fort Pierce's college radio station (around 88, at the low end of the FM dial, with studio and transmitter at the Indian River State College (IRSC) in Fort PIerce) to drop NPR from its programming. As I understand it WQSC is actually paying for the privilege of having NPR. Let's tell them that we don't want it. Let's tell them that we'll withold our contributions to WQCS until they drop NPR. _That_ is the biggest and best thing that we could do for an honest, agenda-free and participatory media. Then let's encourage other progressives around the country to do the same in their own communities. Of course, with NPR out of WQCS, the one-position, official-agenda, NPR news and commentary could be replaced with new and commentary that are actually inclusive, honest, and participatory, with program-personnel from the student-body, and from the public. It isn't unheard of for a college or university radio station to do that. For example, the radio station of the University of California at Santa Cruz has long been a _genuinely_ ppen, honest and participatory local FM station. No NPR there. Just local programming, with student and community program personel What if we can't get WQCS to drop NPR? Then we could begin an effort to start a new local FM station. A genuinely progressive station. Those are my suggestions, and I thank you for listening to them. Michael Ossipoff