Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: Should NPR Stop Promoting Its Own Podcasts and NPR One App On Air? (boingboing.net)
A new "ethics" policy from NPR details new rules to stop promoting NPR One and its podcasts on the air, to ultimately please local station managers who pay the largest share of NPR's bills.
Chris Turpin, V.P. for news programming and operations, writes: As podcasts grow in number and popularity we are talking about them more often in our news programs. We are also fielding more and more questions from news staff and Member stations about our policies for referring to podcasts on air. To that end, we want to establish some common standards, especially for language in back announces. Our hope is to establish basic principles that are easy to understand and allow plenty of flexibility for creativity. These guidelines apply to all podcasts, whether produced by NPR or by other entities. No Call to Action: We won't tell people to actively download a podcast or where to find them. No mentions of npr.org, iTunes, Stitcher, NPR One, etc.
Basically, NPR won't promote "the lauded, loved app that is basically the future of NPR" to listeners who would be most interested in it. How do you feel about NPR's new policy?
Chris Turpin, V.P. for news programming and operations, writes: As podcasts grow in number and popularity we are talking about them more often in our news programs. We are also fielding more and more questions from news staff and Member stations about our policies for referring to podcasts on air. To that end, we want to establish some common standards, especially for language in back announces. Our hope is to establish basic principles that are easy to understand and allow plenty of flexibility for creativity. These guidelines apply to all podcasts, whether produced by NPR or by other entities. No Call to Action: We won't tell people to actively download a podcast or where to find them. No mentions of npr.org, iTunes, Stitcher, NPR One, etc.
Basically, NPR won't promote "the lauded, loved app that is basically the future of NPR" to listeners who would be most interested in it. How do you feel about NPR's new policy?
This might be part of their ethics policy, but that's not where it belongs. As much as people have wined and complained about it being unfair for companies, like Google, to advertise their own products there's nothing unethical about it.
It's a competition issue. NPR gets a significant chunk of its money from radio stations. That's why not all NPR broadcasts are available as podcasts. This whole thing is merely about appeasing those radio stations who are worried about competition from podcasts that are more convenient and available.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Obviously you never listen to local PBS radio stations.
If you did you would note the wealth of... wait for it... LOCAL NEWS
Local news is something important to people that want to know what is going on in their local community, city and region.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
NPR/PBS leans leftwards ... somewhat.
However if you're claiming 'Far from fair' you're discounting how many conservatives they have on air, entirely conservative based shows like Tucker Carlson, The Editorial board of the WSJ, the 60%-80% conservative panel of the McLaughlin group, Religious programming, local politics, et al. And that's before even talking about the number of conservative guests and think-tanks on the 'Liberal' shows.
So
A) NPR/PBS bends over backwards to make sure conservatives have a voice
B) When's the last time you heard NPR/PBS cut someones a conservatives mic because they were winning the argument?
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media