6 ms·

Growing up I though of NPR as a bastion of the left but the older I get the more cynical I become. Your take reminds me of the most infuriating story I heard on

Growing up I though of NPR as a bastion of the left but the older I get the more cynical I become. Your take reminds me of the most infuriating story I heard on NPR about Amazon Seasonal workers. They spotlighted a retiree couple would supplements their income with it in the winter and drives south to gamble in the summer and it just sounded like a profile of a charmed life, somehow I imagine that isn’t the case for most people who work there... They have monthly fundraising drives where they ask listeners to pay up for fearless journalism but a lot of it sounds like it was written by and for entrenched industries. https://www.marketplace.org/2017/12/21/business/holiday-season-fills-rv-campground-amazon-workers/ https://www.marketplace.org/2017/12/21/business/holiday-seas...

java-man 7y ago
I hear more ads on NPR than before. Has their funding mechanism changed?
- colordrops 7y ago
  They only get 16% of their funds from public sources.
- plussed_reader 7y ago
  No, it is still funded from listeners and corporate interests.
- asark 7y ago
  I also get the sense it's increased over the years. If you count all fund-raising time (drives plus the at least tens of minutes on ordinary days they push donations or giving them cars), promoting their own podcasts, and the now-seemingly-much-longer sponsorship messages (straight-up ads) I'm not sure it's any better than commercial radio.
Loughla 7y ago
I hate to pull politics into this, but their coverage of the 2016 Presidential really opened my eyes to their biases. Bernie Sanders was not treated as a serious candidate through then entire race, but they absolutely fawned over Hillary Clinton. The same is happening now for all 230 candidates v Joe Biden. Any story they air treats most candidates as fringe, but Biden as the only serious contender. Honestly, I love NPR, but. . .
- thatoneuser 7y ago
  Honest question, do Hillarys power circles now latch onto Biden? Or are they distinct?
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    Seems they are going Biden and Buttegieg

java-man 7y ago

I hear more ads on NPR than before. Has their funding mechanism changed?

colordrops 7y ago
They only get 16% of their funds from public sources.
plussed_reader 7y ago
No, it is still funded from listeners and corporate interests.
asark 7y ago
I also get the sense it's increased over the years. If you count all fund-raising time (drives plus the at least tens of minutes on ordinary days they push donations or giving them cars), promoting their own podcasts, and the now-seemingly-much-longer sponsorship messages (straight-up ads) I'm not sure it's any better than commercial radio.

Loughla 7y ago

I hate to pull politics into this, but their coverage of the 2016 Presidential really opened my eyes to their biases. Bernie Sanders was not treated as a serious candidate through then entire race, but they absolutely fawned over Hillary Clinton. The same is happening now for all 230 candidates v Joe Biden. Any story they air treats most candidates as fringe, but Biden as the only serious contender. Honestly, I love NPR, but. . .

thatoneuser 7y ago
Honest question, do Hillarys power circles now latch onto Biden? Or are they distinct?
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Seems they are going Biden and Buttegieg