Ever since April 1971, National Public Radio (NPR) has been broadcasting across the United States, bringing independently and government-funded news and programming to the masses.
Since then, NPR has been providing educational and culturally enriching programming across the nation.
It is a resource with an underrepresented presence in the Boise State community and should be maintained and protected. If you’re not listening you should be.
KBSX, the local Boise station hosts the president of Boise State on his show, “Reader’s Corner,” where authors from around the nation are interviewed, so English majors take heed.
Students have access to not only to our own NPR outlet Boise State Public Radio, but also the student-run radio station, the Pulse which has a strong emphasis on music.
NPR is a trustworthy, cost-effective and provides enriching and diverse content worth keeping on
the air.
For students it is a good resource for research. Our school has a lot of history with radio that is often unnoticed.
In recent months, NPR, and its television sister, PBS have received a large amount of political attention for its role in the national budget.
In times of recession and economic deprivation, it can be understood on the surface, a public broadcasting outlet might not be worth the tax dollars of citizens that may not listen, but this is greatly overstated.
AM and FM band radio hosts all sorts of private and public outlets of musical, evangelism as well as talk and news stations, but unlike most private or public stations NPR relies on viewer donations nearly as much, if not more than they do on government money.
And they continue to stay operational without advertisements (other than the occasional fund drive).
NPR reported that for the fiscal year 2010 only 4.6 percent of NPR and PBS’s revenue comes from the federal government, while the majority of their revenue comes from individual donations accounting for 46 percent, and another 17 percent from private corporations. This represents such a minimal portion of the 3.7 trillion dollar budget that arguments to dissolve it are absurd.
Mark Memmott, of NPR writing on the public trust of national news found in a survey by the Pew Research Center that NPR was seen in a positive light by 52 percent of those surveyed.
More impressively in regard to the television counterpart of NPR, the Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) a national survey was conducted by Hart Research Associates, The Opinion Research and American Viewpoint in 2011 of 1,815 registered voters who found 44 percent of those surveyed felt it was more trustworthy than other news programs on the air.
Students looking to write a paper need look no farther than public radio for contemporary material which they can trust and depend on to be relevant.
In the past NPR has interviewed incumbent and former presidents of the United States, a host of famous authors, athletes and musicians, as well as foreign members of state, and continues to do so with regularity. Political science majors or anyone interested in reliable news on the US government or issues abroad should always have access to public radio.
There is value in the diversity of NPR’s broadcasting with shows like “Car Talk,” in which two brothers from Massachusetts spout their knowledge of comedy and cars in thick Boston accents, to “This American Life,” one of the most under appreciated outlets of American culture in general.
In the evenings, one can tune in and listen to “BBC World Service,” and expand on the host of American and Canadian talk shows with a
global focus.
In a world where news radio is full of angry talk shows, football and Honey Boo Boo—we need NPR.
