Is KUFM "privatizing", "nationalizing," or is it just plain stupidizing?
In the 1980's, KUFM was one the best public radio stations in the country, especially considering its size and resources. It was probably the single most important element in Missoula culture, centering around the University of Montana. It had become the network which tied everything else together.
I was so proud to have volunteered and known those people back in 1979, and considered myself their agent and advocate in helping to start KGPR in Great Falls,
Is that about to come to an end? I hope not, but in many ways, it already has. To answer a seemingly overwhelming opposition to the reorganization plan, some of the principals were on the air this morning "explaining" why this is "necessary" or maybe just desirable. No mention of Democracy, Now!, of course, but they are dropping PRI, one of the independent public radio services. I'll have more to say about that later.
At first, I was astonished that most of the staff and even a lot of the comments on their website are "supportive." Surely this is Gotterdammerung for KUFM. More worrisome than that is the fact that few seem interested in even pretending to have "a good answer" for why this is happening. All we know for sure is that the new News Director is taking responsibility, and claims it's all his idea - someone who has been here a few months, at most, after the usual "national search" to replace that national figure, Sally Mauk.
Since Eric isn't from here, but has vast experience and success in his work, he seems to have been appointed dictator or something. Let him try it out. Now, most public radio stations are streamed, so the benefits of a live, local community public radio station are that much more apparent. The only reason to listen to another city's public radio, news, and commentaries is either that they are supremely good and interesting, or because you have no quality station of your own. Of course, if you've never experienced them (as is the case for most of us in Great Falls), you won't miss them when they're gone.
Maybe Eric (the new News Director) is right - KUFM has had a lot of idiot commentators over the years - many of them actual paid lobbyists for the mining and timber industries, not to mention the Trial Lawyers, who are repugnant to the main KUFM audience.
After all, it's PUBLIC radio - they never forget that in their fund-raising and other PR stuff. But we have found, over and over again, that "the people in charge" really don't have much of an idea of what is "in the public interest." As in so many other cases, this might be a "management problem" rather than actual deficiencies or improvements in the KUFM "product."
It's all about "jobs," right? No wonder that most public radio staff and listeners are Democrats, if not something even more totalitarian than that. They've got those "perfect jobs" - what I'd do for free if I were independently wealthy - and it has turned them into the Ministry of Propaganda. It just makes me sick. If people remembered how good KUFM was 30 years go, they'd revolt!
We know how corporations have taken over universities - even (or especially) public ones. After all, they're the biggest taxpayers, so they should run it. It's "their" money.
I was watching the Montana Ag program from MSU Bozeman, and as usual, they're telling us to get rid of "invasive species" by dumping 2-4-D on them (in this case, cottonwood roots, native to the area, which are left in the ground and try to grow again after the tree itself was removed). MSU's complicity with Monsanto and other chemical/fossil-fuel, GMO (now called "bio-tech") agriculture is notorious. They couldn't care less that 2-4-D (AKA Agent Orange) is a carcinogen and is even being used as the "new" herbicide after Monsanto's Roundup (used in conjunction with GMO seeds, patented by Monsanto and sold at exorbitant prices) has proven a disaster to everyone who used it - especially in poorer countries where farmers often drink the poisons when they cannot repay their loans, made on the promise of vast profits.
Since we're still obsessed with the problems of veterans, they're probably thinking something like, "We'll do something for those Agent Orange-poisoned Vietnam vets - make them feel like what they did there, in "Operation Ranch-hand" was a good thing".
Both universities are "radical" in certain ways, but after taking over the "Normal Colleges" and specialized schools like Montana Tech (formerly the world-renowned School of Mines), Montana's two "research universities" they have become utterly conservative and coercive - the nature of predatory monopolies and "rent seekers" (in this case, from the taxpayers).
Is it starting to fit together? William Marcus or whoever was "explaining" the changes to their captive audience (they must think it is, anyway) happened to mention that there have been cuts by the Montana Legislature to the University budget and its funding of KUFM during the past 2 sessions. So, he maybe he's trying to "get even" by gutting the programming. It makes as much sense as any other explanation.
Unfortunately, that sort of passive-aggressive, spoiled 10-year-old's behavior is easily recognized and countered, especially by parents, educators, and counselors - the very people who have always been the main promoters and audience for public broadcasting. Above all, the main purpose of a free and diverse public media is to keep us sane. If all we hear is lies and disinformation, we're going to think and do nothing but the wrong things. It's like programming a computer to self-destruct.
Similar cuts have happened in Great Falls to everything from the public swimming pools, ice-skating facilities (which have produced several Olympians, along with Butte, which produced Judy Marz) to public libraries, museums, etc. The School District (which gets its money from Helena, according to "average number belonging" i.e., attendance and graduation rates), always manages to cut the most essential positions (elementary arts and music education, and even math tutors, if you can believe that!), in hopes of getting the cuts restored. I don't know how many times I've written, commented, or complained about this, but no one seems to want to understand that fooling the public for their own job security is a bad idea.
It doesn't work because that's what the tax-cutters want - they want the system to fail. They want to prove that "socialism doesn't work" and the K-12 public education system (along with whatever remains of our public health-care infrastructure and services) is the only thing we have left of the socialist vision of a century ago, unless you count the military.
In the same way, public broadcasting is "media socialism", or it was supposed to be. The fear was that public broadcasting would be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the state, supported by any and every party except the devolutionists and decentralists (of which I am one). No doubt, the state must have its own "public" or "state" broadcasting system (Montana's would seem to be a hybrid), but I object strenuously to it being tco-opted by corporate crime syndicates and their agents, the Democrats and Republicans. And I object to using their monopoly position and "authority" to prevent any sort of independent, local, and "controversial" programming. Here in the nuclear garrison town, they have managed to suppress vital information (like the nuclear issue) because it is a "national security" issue -defined by those who support the nuclear arms race and the power it gives to local boosters to suppress dissent and even "socialism" or anything else thought to be "subversive."
When was the last time an elected Montanan opposed the nuclear arms race? I don't know that even Lee Metcalf did so, of if he did, it was "behind the scenes." I just heard Jon Tester again saying that "the nuclear Triad is essential to deterrence." That's like saying a high-powered pistol is essential to murder. PBS's Newshour even had a former missile launch officer, who is now at Princeton, telling us we need to dismantle our nuclear arsenals for all the right reasons, but they had a former Bush Administration official (sounding just like our Senators and Representatives) fear-mongering and telling us we need to rebuild the whole arsenal, which might cost up to $1 trillion.
I don't think that will happen, even though Pres. Obama and the Republicans seem to be in agreement on that. Guess what? Even if it does, the "Triad" won't happen, and Montana's nukes will be removed at the earliest opportunity. With the recent publication of a study which found Great Falls to be the most bigoted city in the State (and this has much to do with the preponderance of Southern and small-town military retirees who are so important "to the local economy," here), along with religious apocalyptos, praying for "the Rapture" and being elevated into heaven by aliens, any sane federal policy will pull our teeth before we have a chance to use them.
20 years ago (and for a century before that), most Montanans recognized that the two major parties represent the same interests, and it isn't us. Now, they give Congress something like a 12% approval rating, yet continue to elect the same party hacks just because "they have more money."
This is what public broadcasting is supposed to be there to prevent, but their jobs and budgets are on the line. The last great independent journalists worked for public broadcasting or other non-corporate entities. There is no longer a place for them on NPR, and PRI (which I just learned KUFM is dropping) remained the most irreverent and thought-provoking public radio system. This American Life, where Montanan Sarah Vowell rose to fame, is part of that. Of course, she is from Bozeman, not Missoula.
It seems PRI cost $30,000 a year, but it is proportional to the station's ability to pay, and all the fervent soap-selling pledge drives only up the price. That is the sort of thing that our pledges are supposed to support, not the lifetime jobs of the station executives.
How much, exactly, does William Marcus make, as well as the new News Director? I believe they're paid out of our pledges, aren't they? They're not "faculty members" like they used to be. KUFM is separate from both the J-School (where it started), and from the Arts and Music schools, too. So, that's a big part of the problem - it's no longer even "educational" TV and radio. It's nothing but a mouthpiece for the State and Federal governments, and the senior staff whose jobs depend on pleasing the corporate interests.
How about the "Fieldnotes" and "Plant Detective" (already deleted a year or so ago)? These were highly-educational, entertaining, and popular shows. And In Other Words - that's half or more of KUFM's historical reputation for providing quality programming with a world focus! From the home of Jeanette Rankin, one hour a week of independent women's programming. A terrible thing, right? I hope Eric is gay, because women are going to revile him for the rest of time. Wasn't she a Republican Socialist? That's as bad as being a Green Libertarian, apparently.
They talk about PRI costing an "unaffordable" $30,000 a year. But do they mention what NPR costs? I remember a figure of something like $200/hour for ATC, Morning Edition, and the rest. Something over $200k a year, I think it was. But again, it's a percentage of the budget. Less fundraising, and these programs would cost less.
KUFM has never used all that much NPR programming, and there is probably a lot less of it produced, now, than there used to be. Indeed, many argue that NPR shouldn't create any programming at all, but just network and facilitate the the work of the local affiliates, which apply mainly to their own communities, but other similar communities might want to hear. As for national and international news, the model should be the old "Mutal Broadcasting Network," or even the original CNN, which often broadcast major stories which the "big 3" networks wouldn't or couldn't touch.
There are many alternative news services, from Pacifica (which by default is now "hard Left") as well as independent news services. Most public broadcasting overseas or in Canada is freely available to American stations. Indeed, those like Radio Nederland, Deutsche Welle, and the BBC consider that part of their "main mission" - to civilize the Heathen Americans.
Unfortunately, in the realm of national and international news and public affairs, NPR is largely a bust. Although originally modeled on the CBC, NPR never had even 10% of the CBC's funding and other resources, and I'm talking about absolute, not relative terms. Of course, it's partly a matter of organization. CBC's local stations are entirely funded nationally, not by local colleges or volunteers. And it is fairly uniform national programming, always with French-language broadcasts serving every part of the country. The adoption of bi-lingualism and the Metric System in the 1970's has paid huge dividends for Canadians, while we still languish in the illusions of American Exceptionalism.
One of the paradoxes of "public broadcasting" is that jobs (and especially "upper management") depend on political favor. The political pressures are huge, and usually dominated by the usual corporate suspects. In the case of KUFM, all the alleged "liberal" or "radical" commentators were notable mainly for their humanity and professional knowledge and expertise. I don't know how Republicans or honest "conservatives" could possibly object to KUFM's news programming and commentators. Almost never did they actually present a "leftist" or "radical" point of view.
We're all Neo-liberals, now - right? At best, KUFM's content was purely "educational" or advocacy for public interest causes, not "political propaganda" in the usual sense. Conservative and corporate media people have certainly been as much or more successful in manipulating public media for their own purposes than their "liberal" counterparts, or in swaying the public to their views and candidates. Elections speak for themselves.
Our local station, KGPR, (which was NOT started as a "translator" or "satellite station" for KUFM) was not allowed to do its own fund-raising, but its listeners were told to send our "pledges" to Missoula, where it would all be dispensed back "as needed." Of course, with this system, yearly contributions from this area are lucky to reach $40 or 50k a year, and much of that from big underwriters like DA Davidson. If I remember right, that was another big point of contention, and why DA Davidson went to great lengths to keep us from being "independent" of Ian's beloved Alma Mater. There are only so many UM alumni or other educated and sophisticated people to listen, and Missoula has a bad reputation in Great Falls because of its alleged "liberalism" or even radicalism. But anyone who could choose between KUFM and KEMC, Billings, was likely to choose the latter, which may account for KUFM now altering its programming to more resemble KEMC!
UM and KUFM used to have world-class status on account of its famous radicals and revolutionaries - most notably, Leslie Fiedler, and then Richard Hugo, who was "radical" in a laborite sort of way. And familiarity with its Music and Journalism Schools was the main reason anyone in Great Falls ever listened to it. There is still little understanding about why we need real, local, diverse, and responsive public media. We're so brainwashed by the Tribune and local corporate broadcasters that even the possibility of something different and inherently more "public," free, and informative was seen as a threat rather than a benefit.
Just about the only good news I learned today is that Alternative Radio will be broadcast at a better time, when working people will be better-able to listen to it. I think they said Sunday Evening, in place of TED or maybe "On the Media" - a media criticism program from WNYC (which I rarely find informative or useful) AR is from KGNU in Boulder, CO, so Eric must be aware of its value, and when it should be placed in the schedule. I made that point often, too. Just for the record, I went to some meetings and helped organize KGNU before it was established, but I was not there to see it happen, leaving in the Spring of 1978 - heading north with the wolves and bison, so to speak. But I was born and have almost always lived in the Great Falls-Highwood area, and that is what I'm most interested in benefiting, now - by finally establishing the independent, NGO public radio station we've always wanted and deserved.
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