Page 298 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Nat onal Publ c Rad o |

(1987): 113–27; Rich, Frank. The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth
From 9/11 to Katrina. New York: Penguin, 2006.
James VanOosting

national PuBliC radio
The news and public affairs programs of National Public Radio (NPR) have
been showered with awards. Its affiliated stations provide the sole outlet for non-
commercial radio programming in many communities. To the majority of the
American public, National Public Radio is public radio. Yet the system has faced
many internal and external challenges throughout its history, and it is arguable
as to how “public” NPR remains today.
Public radio in the United States was formally inaugurated in 1970 with
the creation of NPR (replacing National Educational Radio) and the earmarking
of federal funds for the production of programming. NPR’s founders hoped
that renaming the system “public” would have greater appeal than the often dry
and amateurish “educational” system it replaced. However, the name change
raised several implications that were ignored at the time of NPR’s founding
and continue to nettle it to the present. First, a “public” broadcasting system
implies ownership by the public. Yet National Public Radio and its television
counterpart, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), as well as many public
radio and television stations, are privately owned and operated on a nonprofit
basis, which raises significant barriers to public participation. A second prob-
lem concerns its contradictory mission. Public broadcasting was designed to
promote national identity through broad appeal; at the same time, it was in-
tended to represent public diversity by giving a voice to those who are over-
looked or ignored by commercial broadcasters. Finally, public broadcasting
differentiates itself from commercial broadcasting on grounds of “quality.” Yet
“quality” cannot be defined objectively, involving as it does both innovation
and a canonical approach to culture, and sophisticated production values ver-
sus rough-hewn “authenticity.” Given its often-contradictory mission, public
broadcasting in the United States operates in a highly uncertain environment.
It is a fractious coalition of diverging interests, ranging from government
funding entities (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting), national organi-
zations (NPR and PBS), stations, and independent producers, each of whom
seek leverage over the others.
Public radio has attempted to cope with these uncertainties in several ways.
First, it has increasingly sought to develop a “brand” by standardizing program-
ming in a manner similar to that of commercial broadcasters. Public radio sta-
tions seek “core” audiences that will provide them with funding; therefore, these
stations devote more and more of their airtime to programs produced by NPR
and other services in order to build a consistent audience base. These programs
attract upscale audiences who will contribute financially to stations, yet they
squeeze out local innovation, public involvement, and service to minorities—
all of which are central tenets of public broadcasting’s mission. Second, public