As an American who worked for the BBC for eight years, it's interesting to see some of the comments here and say that they aren't entirely accurate. It's not correct to conflate PBS and NPR. Although both public, they are funded with slightly different mechanisms and are different organisationally because Republicans felt that TV was more threatening than radio when the two organisations were being established. NPR has its own central production operations. PBS does not. PBS grew out of educational television, and it shows.
As for NPR being too 'worthy', it really depends. Unlike the BBC with national stations, NPR member stations are pretty diverse. The typical NPR station used to be classical music and news, but that format is losing traction. If you listen to KCRW out of Santa Monica, some of their programming makes Radio 1 look pretty staid. This American Life, one of my personal favouriate programmes, is excellent, laid-back and doesn't have equivalent on British radio. Apart from the classical stations, NPR stations are edgy and indie compared to Radio 4.This is all to say. The US is a big country, and NPR stations are very diverse. The BBC and NPR are products of their own cultures. As for Clay's piece, it's one of the best of a kind. I would say that much of the discussion here is confusing public funding with a business model. Comparing newspapers, which I've worked for the in the past and work for now, to a publicly funded radio and TV network is comparing apples and oranges. The BBC has had a relatively stable source of funding - the licence fee. Commercial newspapers are finding their readership and advertising decline. Unless the licence fee were extended to a public service newspaper (highly unlikely), the BBC doesn't provide that much of a model that could easily be transferred to newspapers. best, k* Kevin Anderson * standard disclaimer about these views being my own and not my employer's applies. On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 11:15 AM, Rob Myers <r...@robmyers.org> wrote: > Dan Brickley wrote: > > journalism as a professional practice might find a home > > within universities. > > That would be disastrous. In the UK this would preclude investigating > anyone who has anything to do with the state in order to avoid > endangering the university's funding. And in general it would turn > journalism from the investigation of truth (or at least matters of > popular interest) into just another academic postmodern solipsism. > > - Rob. > >
