The Time Of The Year Where NPR Whores Itself

Pledge drive is almost over, thank God.  I find it almost unlistenable these times of the year.

I don't know when I took to National and Minnesota Public Radios.  I know it was after college, because I was talking to one of the people I considered a friend while I was in college, a fellow journalism student, who wretched at his assignment of listening to NPR, and I remember sympathizing with him.  So I guess it's old age that prompted me to turn away from the local Top 40 station after it ran, like, the same goddamn Christina Aguilera song the third time in three hours and listen in on an important story going on in some other part of the world.

But, of course, the difference between public radio and private radio is the way they make their money.  Private radio, like that Top 40 station, advertise.  But public radio doesn't advertise; they solicit donations from "members."  So in a tradeoff for commercial-free news and entertainment, several times a year they do these pledge drives, where they openly solicit cash.  Sometimes donations will be matched by N/MPR's corporate sponsors, and sometimes they offer little gifts as incentive.

I never have donated.  I should, but the asshole in me thinks that once I sign up, they're just going to hound me every pledge drive to donate a little more.  If they promise not to do that, I can give, oh, a dollar a month.  But I think that's something they just won't do.  And if they're not going to leave me alone, I will turn away once they go into their pledge spiel.

And it's kind of weird to see that the people soliciting fronting these drives are the very reporters who deliver the news I hear every day.  It really is jarring to hear, say, Tom Crann or Cathy Wurzer go from talking about the massacre going on in Syria or the debate over Obamacare one segment during the hour to shilling tote bags and thanking new and sustaining contributors over the air.  In fact, I will say it's unbecoming.  It's downright unprofessional for these reporters who put on a dignified air for, say, 340 days of the year, and then once it comes to pledge time, they get all happy and folksy, like they want to put their arms around you and buy you a beer, just so they can get some money from you.  Not only is it strange, it feels incredulous.

Now, I understand that this is the only way National and Minnesota Public Radios are going to survive.  I really do appreciate the unbiased reporting work they do.  But beyond the fact that I don't have money to spare, I find it a little weird to hear people totally change their attitude on-air.  Hopefully, since the fiscal end of the year for MPR is ending on the 30th (I think), this will all be over ... until the next pledge drive, some two or three months from now.

These are just some thoughts about something I noticed.