Home Contact Us Sitemap Tell a Friend Search:   Blog Sign In to Vote Volunteer   Home >  Blog >  Blog Details Visits: 50684      Back to Blog  Important "p.s." to Save NPR and PBS Recent press reports chronicle the Bush Administration's move to further strip National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service of their already meager budgets. The greatest country in the history of the world, one that can spend a TRILLION dollars on foreign nations that hate us, can surely find a relative annual pittance on just the interest on a TRILLION dollars to finance an alternative to the soul-sapping commercial rubbish that populates commercial television and radio. I urge Congress to permanently secure public television and radio NOW, not tomorrow. There is an old saying that people respond to others based on what that other person can do to or for them. Ignore our needs and desires at your peril. The HeatMaps at www.daylightforum.org foretell a new age in how We-the-People will express our will. Please consider writing to your Congressman or woman or calling them. And, for those who sometimes find things to complain about on NPR or PBS cut 'em a little slack. They have to please roughly 200 million people. How many of us "get it right" with just our co-workers and families? p.s. This morning, an FOD ("Friend of DayLight") posed the following question: "NPR's endowment is huge. Do they need saving?" Here is my response: In its own way, and multiplied by thousands of other readers the simple act of reading and responding to these blog posts can help make America (and the world) a better, safer, place. I'm looking forward to the day when my team and I can really launch DayLight to the world -- that takes money. Spurred on by your question, I contacted George Lombardi. General Manager of WSHU (Sacred Heart University NPR affiliate). McDonalds heiress, Joan Kroc, donated $220 million to NPR (and $5 million to her local NPR station). Prior to that NPR had about $11 million in its endowment. Its annual operating budget is $118 million. The Kroc endowment yields an 8-10% return half of which (roughly $10 million) goes to the budget and the rest grows the endowment's corpus. That new money is not simply reducing the budget by 10%. It is being applied to two programs: 1.) A nationwide local news initiative intended to improve local news quantity and quality by establishing local news reporters across the country; and 2.) Establishing a more youth-oriented version of NPR's Early Morning Show. Thus, while performance is improving, individual member station dues are not being reduced by the endowment. Bottom line: NPR can use our help. Tell me what you think Posted by ..:: GregO ::.. at    02/10/2007   17:10:44 0 comments  Tell a Friend |  Comment   About Me GregO's Blog Location: New Canaan, CT USA View my complete profile Links Google News Yahoo News CNN News Archives November 2006 October 2006 December 2006 January 2007 Prev Month's Posts Killing Al-Qaeda and Other Fantasies Stand up, Speak out, or its gonna get a lot worse!   RSS Feeds     Instructions     ©2006-07 DayLight Forum. All rights reserved. Terms & Conditions Home  |  DayLight HeatMap  |  XHTML  |  CSS