Mitt Romney is on the defensive with his plans to cut government spending.  The Massachusetts Republican had to tell an audience in Iowa that “We are not going to kill Big Bird” when asked about his spending plans, according to the Huffington Post.  Romney wants Sesame Street and other public programming to be paid for by advertisements and not the taxpayers.

He also signaled that under his administration, the National Endowment for the Arts would also be cut, asked to survive on private donations and not taxpayers dollars.

Romney made a statement that basically spells out how he views every program in America.

“My test is, is a program so critical that it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?”

Democrats were looking at his proposals to defund the arts with a bit a skepticism, as the National Endowment for the Arts and National Public Radio have long been a desired treat on the Republican Chopping block.

“The GOP should be less preoccupied with silencing cookie monster and more focused on reviving the economy,” replied Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.).

in 1995, when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, Lowley had invited Bert and Ernie to testify before Congress when Gingrich tried to cut their funding then.

Romney says that when he is President he will cut $500 billion dollars a year from the federal budget by the end of his first term.  While this would be a drastic cut, it still would more than a trillion dollars a year short of a balanced budget if spending continues at its current levels.

Since losing to John McCain in the 2008 Republican Primary, Mitt Romney has been running an aggressive campaign to become the nominee to face President Barack Obama in 2012.  He is currently polling second in most key battleground states.

Watch a video of Romney telling the Iowa crowd his plans for Big Bird.

Mitt Romney: “I Am Not Going To Kill Big Bird” [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Last night NPR fired Lisa Simeone after the radio host attended an Occupy Wall Street rally. Except that NPR didn’t fire Simeone. Simeone wasn’t a reporter for the public radio station. And Simeone’s firing had nothing to do with Occupy Wall Street.

But hey, a good headline is a good headline.

The Washington Post reports that after the inaccurate story broke, NPR sent out a series of tweets to various news organizations asking them to correct the facts.

NPR also linked to an article on the NPR blog with the correct facts. The facts of the story are:

• Lisa Simeone was fired from her job as the host of Soundprint
• Soundprint is an independent public radio program that is not produced by NPR.
• Simeone was fired for her involvement with the October 2011/Stop the Machine protests. Not Occupy Wall Street of Occupy D.C.
• NPR had no contact with the managers of Soundprint before Simeone’s firing.

Simeone told the Washington Post:

“What I have spent the morning doing is just trying to explain the complicated arcana of public radio, trying to explain to people, so they understand why they got the story wrong.”

Moira Rankin, president of the Soundprint Media Center, said that Simeone broke her freelance contract because she was “not allowed to have any partisan involvement.”

So Simeone broke a freelance contract that was made between her and the people at the Soundprint Media Center. So how did NPR get involved?

Rankin said that Soundprint follows the same ethics guidelines as NPR, just like Newspapers follow the Associated Press guidelines.

What do you think of this whole NPR / Lisa Simeone mess? Has the digital age of reporting ushered in an era where catchy headlines outweigh factual reporting?

NPR Fires Reporter Lisa Simeone For Occupying Wall Street? Not Exactly is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s so inevitable that when a story like this pops up, people get all peeved because they didn’t think of it first.

But you have to admit, the not-illegal although now somewhat frowned upon practice of purchasing dollar coins to earn frequent flier miles and never pay for a plane trip again is ingenious. Clever borrowers with frequent flier miles earning cards have been racking up the points buy purchasing the not-super-common $1 coins from the government, then depositing them (after Uncle Sam picks up the shipping charges) into the bank to pay the credit card bill.

While the scheme is certainly beneficial to those who engage in it- like 35-year-old Jane Liaw, who said she and her husband are traveling to Greece and Turkey this year on frequent flier miles- it has one hitch. The coins are not being put into circulation as much as the government would like due to the practice, and it’s pinged the US Mint’s radar. Mint spokesman Tom Jurkowsky complained:

“Do we feel a little bit violated? Yes, and that’s why we aggressively sought measures to eliminate what we called an abuse… It’s not illegal,” he said, “But it’s an abuse of the system. That’s not what the system was set up to do. The system was set up to promote the use of dollar coins and we are simply trying to do the right thing here.”

So… is the dollar coins for frequent flier miles scheme a clever travel hack or exploitation of the system?

Frequent Flier Miles and Dollar Coins: NPR Discovers How Many Fly Free is a post from: The Inquisitr

A week after James O’Keefe’s hidden camera “sting” operation targeting an NPR fundraising exec was widely disseminated, the House of Representatives has voted 228-192 to bar the organization from receiving federal funds. (NPR’s CEO was axed the day after the video hit.)

Those who voted in favor of defunding NPR generally shied away from citing the prank or the general content of NPR, often decried as “left-leaning” by opponents, as a mitigating factor. One Iowa congressman, however, seemed to imply it was in part a reason:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) compared to the current move to strip NPR of federal funding to previous battles to strip ACORN and Planned Parenthood of the same, both of which were sparked by sting videos by conservative activists.

“Of all of the data that we’ve seen, we still had not absorbed the culture of NPR until we saw the video of that dinner,” Rep. King said.

House Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) also insinuated the controversy that followed the videos influenced the haste with which Republicans chose to attack NPR:

“The problem is, we’ve seen NPR and it’s programming often veer far from what most Americans would like to see as far as the expenditure of their taxpayer dollars,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) addressed the issue sarcastically on the House floor in the clip below, remarking:

“I’m so relieved that we had this emergency session, that we waived the rules of the House that required 72 hours [notice] so we finally get these guys off my radio.”

One Republican congressman, Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) opted to vote “present” on the bill. Amash explained in a lengthy Facebook diatribe that he really, really wants to defund NPR, but the vote in the House today was “unconstitutional.”

House votes 228-192 to strip NPR of funding is a post from: The Inquisitr

Despite the fact no information reflecting too poorly on the public broadcasting network was revealed in James O’Keefe’s recent bit of ambush “journalism” snaring NPR fundraising exec Ron Schiller, critics of public radio were probably overjoyed this morning to learn that NPR CEO Vivian Schiller has resigned her position effective immediately in the wake of the controversy.

NPR itself reported on Schiller’s resignation, describing the events leading up to her departure in an uncharacteristically bombastic fashion:

This follows yesterday’s news that then-NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation) was videotaped slamming conservatives and questioning whether NPR needs federal funding during a lunch with men posing as members of a Muslim organization (they were working with political activist James O’Keefe on a “sting.”)

Although Schiller (no relation between the parties) immediately condemned the remarks made by NPR fundraising exec Ron Schiller and the comments were not very incendiary in the first place, damage already done by the Juan Williams brouhaha seems to have affected the decision to oust her, and NPR reports she was “forced out.” (Amusingly, NPR says it will have more information on the situation “as it develops.”)

Below is the full statement from NPR Board of Directors Chairman Dave Edwards regarding the situation. Do you feel that the waves created by the likes of James O’Keefe should be impacting people’s careers when it’s been proven time and again the information he presents is most charitably described as spurious? Should any weight at all be given to these manufactured scandals?

“It is with deep regret that I tell you that the NPR Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of Vivian Schiller as President and CEO of NPR, effective immediately.

“The Board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years.

“Vivian brought vision and energy to this organization. She led NPR back from the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years. She was passionately committed to NPR’s mission, and to stations and NPR working collaboratively as a local-national news network.

“According to a CEO succession plan adopted by the Board in 2009, Joyce Slocum, SVP of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, has been appointed to the position of Interim CEO. The Board will immediately establish an Executive Transition Committee that will develop a timeframe and process for the recruitment and selection of new leadership.

“I recognize the magnitude of this news – and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community. The Board is committed to supporting NPR through this interim period and has confidence in NPR’s leadership team.”

[NPR]

NPR CEO out after video controversy is a post from: The Inquisitr

James O’Keefe is a bit like Ashton Kutcher on Punk’d, if the goal of the show was to use scarelore and deceptively edited video to do damage to people who disagree with you politically rather than embarrass celebrities.

O’Keefe became a right-wing hero when he managed to fell ACORN, a group guilty of helping lower-income Americans in socioeconomically depressed areas to exercise their voting rights. (His reasoning? They tend to vote Democrat.) He hit a bit of a snag in his road to serious ambush journalism when he was charged with entering federal premises with the intention of committing a felony while attempting to wiretap Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu, and again when he was revealed to be a total honking pervert during a convoluted scheme to lure CNN reporter Abby Boudreau onto a boat stocked with dildos.

O’Keefe most recently set his sights on the big baddies at NPR, who try to brainwash the country via reasonable reporting on low-profile terrestrial radio stations with jazz-infused soothing monologues. Conservatives strongly want to silence NPR’s voice- not due to what’s viewed as a liberal slant, of course, but because it wastes valuable government cash that could be going to fund further wars.

NPR is a constant target of conservatives, who wish to see “news” reduced to Glenn Beck’s foaming at the mouth, and O’Keefe has managed to again cast and organization doing good things in a distorted and unflattering light, provoking a disproportionate and unfair response. He recently used a hidden camera with NPR fundraising exec Ron Schiller, purporting to be with the “Muslim Brotherhood of America,” a fake organization, and repeatedly offering a non-existent $5 million to NPR.

Although Schiller declined the large chunk of cash each time, the right wing has seized on the call, claiming Schiller’s statements about the Tea Party being mostly “racist” and the lack of media representation for Muslims were elitist and offensive. Schiller also confided, not too inaccurately, that many Americans see the Republican Party as anti-intellectual.

Experts in Journalism and Journalism ethics point out that the rise of such tactics are a grave threat to objective reporting in the US right now:

“My inclination is that cutting off federal funding to NPR might be a good thing, since this kind of political interference is not healthy for the media in general,” says Tom Edsall, a professor at Columbia Journalism School.

Stephen Ward, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, had this to say to the Christian Science Monitor:

“I don’t think any of this helps the survival, let alone the quality existence, of public broadcasting in the United States,” says Mr. Ward. “You can argue that these comments … don’t reflect the grander importance of public broadcasting, but in a world of agenda-setting journalism, these are perfect examples for people who dislike or oppose public broadcasting to use for political purposes.”

A rep for NPR said the organization is “appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for.”

Political prankster James O’Keefe at it again, targets NPR is a post from: The Inquisitr

NPR has fired longtime news analyst Juan Williams after controversial remarks he made on Bill O’Reilly’s show regarding fears he has about flying with people in “garb” associated with Muslims.

The New York Times quoted Williams, who made the statements in response to remarks by O’Reilly. Williams said:

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Williams also commented on the man arrested for attempting to bomb Times Square:

“He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Mr. Williams said.

On NPR’s website, the dissolution of Williams’ contract was disclosed in the third person:

NPR said it had notified Williams that his contract was being severed. The statement says Williams’ remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”

Williams, who has tussled with NPR in the past over remarks he has made on Fox programming, has not yet commented on the remarks or their aftermath.

NPR axes Juan Williams after remarks about Muslims on Fox News is a post from: The Inquisitr

Daniel Schorr, a veteran journalist who worked for decades in Washington with CBS News, CNN and NPR, has died after a “short illness.”

93-year-old Schorr passed away this morning in a Washington hospital, and NPR posted a lengthy analysis of his distinguished career with a link to his bio page on their site. Schorr rose to prominence for his reporting during the Cold War, but later came under fire for refusing to reveal a source for a controversial FBI/CIA story he leaked to the Village Voice during the 1970s:

This led to his suspension by CBS and an investigation by the House Ethics Committee in which Schorr was threatened with jail for contempt of Congress if he did not disclose his source. At a public hearing, he refused on First Amendment grounds, saying that “to betray a source would mean to dry up many future sources for many future reporters… It would mean betraying myself, my career and my life.”

The House ethics committee voted 6 to 5 not to cite Schorr for contempt of Congress, but he ultimately left CBS after the controversy. He spent the bulk of his later career at NPR after a stint with CNN, and worked on segments All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, and provided commentary on live coverage of breaking news.

[Image]

Veteran journalist Daniel Schorr dies at 93 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Louis CK, who is probably the funniest comic out there right now, may have gotten NPR’s Fresh Air banhammered in the state of Mississippi.

CK appeared on the show on July 7th, and chatted a bit about sex scenes on his new FX show, Louie. Here is the commentary that supposedly lead to the banning of the NPR program:

Louis CK: But if I’m with a woman and she wants to be with me, she must like me. I definitely have sex with my T-shirt on, always. I haven’t had sex without a shirt on, God, since I was about 23.”

Terry Gross: Is that true?

Louis CK: Yeah, I just don’t think that’s fair. I mean, you know, let her think she’s with somebody decent, you know? … I do have sex sometimes on the show, and there’s a rule that I have to be on my back.

Terry Gross: Why, because your stomach flattens?

Louis C.K.: Well, no, God, no. I’m not laying back in that bed thinking, “I look awesome right now.” It’s because I think I should always be the victim of the sex. I don’t think anyone wants to see me looming over her. I think that’s an upsetting image. And then also, the mother-dog stomach that I get when I’m … you get the point.

Which, if you’re familiar with CK’s routine, is pretty tame. Fresh Air says that no one at Mississippi Public Broadcasting has confirmed the reasons behind the ban:

We were sorry to hear that Fresh Air was removed from the MPB schedule. However, we recognize and respect the principle that programming decisions are made by stations, not by the programs they carry. As far as the “inappropriate content” – we don’t know specifically what is being referred to, since there has been no communication with us on the matter. Of course, we are following the speculation on different blogs, but to comment further would just be speculation on our part. In any event, we hope that we are back on MPB soon.

Although NPR puts me to sleep and makes me want to scratch my eyeballs out simultaneously, some progressive Americans are a bit het up about this. What do you think- is the banning fair? Was anything in the transcript banworthy? To contrast, below is a NSFW bit from Louis CK’s stand-up special Shameless:

Did Louis CK get NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ banninated in Mississippi? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Public-supported news, or as the news industry would have us believe – state run propaganda machines, is a hotly contested sore point in the US. Of course not all countries look at this way as evidenced by the BBC in England or the CBC in Canada. Even within the US there is the often looked down upon NPR which as an organization has to continually defend itself from attacks not just from their peers in the industry but also the government.

The argument used against these types of publicly-supported news agencies is that no matter how hard they try they will always have to kowtow to the government of the day. You will also hear the argument that publicly-supported news agencies don’t have to compete on the same ground that other non-public (big business) run news businesses and that gives them an unfair advantage.

If this is the case then one has to wonder why the BBC of England has been able to continually grow in this new media environment while big business run news agencies are floundering. Not only is the BBC growing but it is seeing its ad revenues triple in the last year an are expecting to double in the next year. In fact business is so good because of foreign visitors to their news site that they will be launching a US site at BBC.com to meet the need.

Even the US’s own NPR is continually striving forward always finding ways to use new media and new technologies to provide a better service while at the same time you have the big names in the news industry talking paywalls and subscriptions.

Given all this it was interesting to read an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University and First Amendment scholar, where he questions this idea that publicly-supported news agencies are inherently biased and dangerous to journalism.

Interestingly, Bollinger contends that our largest threat to journalism isn’t from government abuse but the corporate sector. “To take a very current example, we trust our great newspapers to collect millions of dollars in advertising from BP while reporting without fear or favor on the company’s environmental record only because of a professional culture that insulates revenue from news judgment,” he argues. “This reinforces the point that all media systems, whether advertiser-based or governmental, come with potential editorial risks.”

He concludes, “In today’s rapidly globalizing and interconnected world, other countries are developing a strong media presence. In addition to the BBC, there is China’s CCTV and Xinhua news, as well as Qatar’s Al Jazeera. [Our] system needs to be revised and its resources consolidated and augmented with those of NPR and PBS to create an American World Service that can compete with the BBC and other global broadcasters.”

Source: Fast Company

It is an interesting argument and one that I believe have a lot of merit. After all one just has to look at the polarization that is happening in the United States and how news organizations align themselves, whether they admit it or not, with those different sides. News has become more and more about the rating, about the mega-dollar advertising deals that sponsor many of these “news” shows that feed into this polarization.

I also find it very interesting to watch the rise, and profitability, of publicly-supported news agencies like the NPR, BBC and other similar “state” news organizations while at the same time the name brand news businesses we grew up with are struggling.

I have never believed that traditional media at its heart was in any danger of vanishing into the sunset. Rather I totally expect it to morph, to grow, to learn from new media, even to blend with it and in the end we will have a stronger and more ethical provider of the news.

The BBC could very well be that model.

Is public-supported news the real evil that the news industry portrays it as? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Transcripts of shows are a handy thing to be able to have access to but the majority of time these cost you a fair penny to get your hands on, as it was with NPR even though you could download audio of the shows for free. The reason for charging for transcripts is because it costs whoever is providing them money to have a 3rd party company do the transcribing.

NPR decided with its recent site redesign that they would bite the bullet on the cost of having the shows transcribed and make the transcriptions freely available on the NPR site.

NPR took the new website launch as an opportunity to offer free transcripts, according to Laura Soto-Barra, NPR’s Senior Librarian.

"We made a decision to go ahead even though NPR pays a considerable amount of money to produce transcripts on deadline," said Soto-Barra. "Transcripts are posted six hours after the shows air, except for Morning Edition’s transcripts which are posted four hours after the show is broadcast. We have offered free audio for a long time and we felt that free transcripts were long overdue."

As well there is also a Transcript API being made available that provides access to all of the NPR transcripts back to May, 2005

As of today, we are opening up over 80,000 transcripts through this API, and this number will grow with every new radio story we produce. This API contains the same transcripts that are now offered on the new NPR.org.

NPR offers up free transcripts and an API is a post from: The Inquisitr

Earlier today I wrote a post wondering if radio and newspapers joining forces could save them each from oblivion and now I just spotted this post at the New York Times about the NPR, the public radio network, moving to reboot its approach to the web. Unlike like much of their brethren in the business NPR is revamping its web site, NPR.org, to make navigating easier for their users as well as emphasizing written reports over audio reports.

The idea is to raise the level of their journalistic output and at the same time make public radio more widely available. Ms. Schiller, NPR’s president and chief executive, says “We are a news content organization, not just a radio organization”. As well these changes to their web site is intended to make finding NPR news reports easier on a less cluttered main page, or to easily jump to other areas of emphasis like Arts and Life as well as Music.

To make the site more of a news destination breaking news is being posted faster helped along by a merging of NPR’s radio and digital news desks. Further rounding out this change the searching for, sharing and commenting on NPR articles has been made simpler. As well for the first time there will be free transcripts made available.

The Web site changes are part of a strategy meant to increase NPR’s share of the midday audience, between its “Morning Edition” and the late afternoon “All Things Considered,” when listening to NPR stations drops considerably, said Kinsey Wilson, senior vice president and general manager of NPR Digital Media.

Instead of short paragraphs that direct users to click on links to audio reports taken from NPR’s programs, the Web site will now offer fully reported text versions of articles, so users can click from their cubicles. “We think the midday experience is much more text-driven,” Mr. Wilson said.

The Web site will flip “from being a companion to radio to being a news destination in its own right,” Ms. Schiller said.

It will not be as comprehensive as some sites, like CNN’s, are, Mr. Wilson said, but will “concentrate on areas where we can be particularly authoritative.” He added, “We’re not in a battle for share with established players who’ve been doing this for 15 years.”

Source: New York Times – NPR Moves to Rewire Its Approach to the Web

Here is a screen shot of the new look for the NPR site, and I must say they sure have seems to have taken to the new “white” look we are seeing on a growing number of tech blog sites.

Unlike their competitors the NPR rolls with change is a post from: The Inquisitr

National Public Radio (NPR) has announced that it will lay off 7% of its workforce and cut expenses due to broader economic climate.

A total of 64 filled positions have been eliminated and 21 open positions not filled for a total cut of 85 positions. The cuts come across the board including editorial and production areas, station services, digital media, research, communications and administrative support. NPR currently employs 889 people.

Included in the cuts are two programs, Day to Day and News & Notes, although both programs will remain on the air through March 20, 2009.

Despite record numbers listening to its programs, including 26.4 million people listening to NPR each week and 8 million people visiting NPR.org each month, NPR has been in a tight position, not helped by its unique set up. In July, NPR projected a $2 million deficit for fiscal year 2009 but is now projected to run a deficit to $23 million due to a sharp fall in corporate sponsorships.

NPR job cuts: 85 positions to go is a post from: The Inquisitr