WXXI SHOULD MOVE BEYOND ‘MERE SAFETY’
I hope WXXI Radio vice president Jeanne Fisher
carefully read Jennifer Weiss’s article on Democracy Now! (“Democracy… Later,”
June 9). The strong support Democracy Now! receives in other communities was
clearly mirrored in the strong support it received from the media-savvy
audience at Louise Slaughter’s media forum on March 9.
I
appreciate that NPR’s Morning Edition is relatively free of corporate,
offend-no-sponsor censorship, but it is afflicted with a cautiousness and
controversy-avoidance that allows only news and views that are safe and
“mainstream.” Part of WXXI’s challenge is to be stimulating and
thought-provoking as well as to provide material not covered by commercial
stations.
It is clear
to me that WXXI Radio could better fulfill its mission by including an
award-winning and first-breaking-news program like Democracy Now! in its
lineup.
The
question is, will WXXI Radio respond to the community, or will it continue to
claim objectivity, balance, and neutrality while airing Kurt Smith? I am
personally optimistic that with enough listener input, WXXI Radio will find the
courage to move beyond mere safety in its offerings.
John Keevert, Westfall Road, Brighton
While conservative politicians and the corporate media
portray NPR as left-wing radio, analysis of programming shows this to patently
false. In fact, studies by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the media
watchdog group, reveal just the opposite.
A 2003 FAIR
study recording every on-air news source from NPR’s four principle news
programs (2,334 sources in 804 stories) shows that 64 percent of the sources were
government officials, professional experts, or corporate representatives.
Republicans outnumbered Democrats 61 percent to 38 percent, with third parties
represented in only a single story during the entire month. Women were grossly
under-represented — a mere 21 percent of all sources, and a paltry 18 percent
for political-issue stories.
In a second
study of think tanks and commentators appearing on NPR, right-wing think tanks
outnumbered those on the left more than 4 to 1, with women accounting for only
10 percent of all sources and people of color 3 percent.
A third
study by FAIR, done in the week prior to the beginning of military actions in
Iraq, looked at the three major networks and the Lehrer NewsHour
for representation of viewpoints about the impending military action. Of more
than 390 sources given voice, only three were anti-war.
Locally,
WXXI is representative of this conservative slant. It airs business programming
nightly (Marketplace) in a prime slot, while labor issues remain virtually invisible.
It airs the conservative BBC Business News and conservative commentators but
cannot see fit to bring Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! program to the airwaves,
despite large community support.
The claim
of NPR presidents past and present that NPR is the “voice of democracy” simply
does not hold up under close scrutiny.
Greg Newton, Gregory Park, Rochester
WXXI should explain what it means to have
“objectivity” in its news coverage and “neutrality” in its
hosts. For example, WXXI’s Morning Edition covered
Secretary of State Powell’s speech before the UN Security Council in February
2003. But the show’s analysis simply repeated parts of Powell’s presentation
and discussed various points of emphasis. No critical viewpoints were presented,
and no explanation was given as to why most of the international audience found
Powell’s argument unconvincing as a rationale for war.
In the
months before Gulf War II, Morning Edition never interviewed or mentioned Scott
Ritter, a prominent American weapons inspector who had worked in Iraq
and publicly discredited many of the Bush Administration’s claims justifying
war.
When
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in Haiti
last February, NPR joined the commercial media in reporting that Aristide had
“fled” the country and “resigned,” repeating verbatim the claims of the State
Department. In fact, Morning Edition continued these characterizations for
weeks, even as it recognized that a number of observers, including members of
the US Congress, supported Aristide’s claims that he was forced from the
country in a coup abetted by the Bush administration.
In the past
year, Democracy Now! has hosted individuals from every perspective and
viewpoint on the Iraq
occupation, from Defense Policy Board “neo-conservative” Richard Perle, to active-duty and retired soldiers and their
families, to activists and independent journalists. Ms. Goodman’s guiding
principle is the “Fourth Estate” concept of classical liberalism, enshrined in
our First Amendment. Simply put: journalists should act as a check against,
rather than a mouthpiece of, political power.
Does
“objectivity” require journalists to be mere stenographers and
spokespersons for government and corporate leaders? Polls show that the
American public is reevaluating the war in Iraq,
and wondering how it could have been so misled on the existence of WMDs and meaningful links between Iraq
and Al Qaeda. WXXI should follow other NPR (and PBS
television) affiliates that are picking up Democracy Now!,
and bring to its Rochester
listeners a program that gives voice to all viewpoints.
Aaron Micheau, East Avenue, Rochester
To best serve a democracy, the media must represent us and
help us hold those in power accountable. Mass communication has the power to
reflect who we are. When our newspapers, radio, and television do not speak in
a voice that resembles large segments our population, we must ask questions. As
corporate interests trump our public interests, we must demand that we are
heard.
The
founding document for public broadcasting is the 1967 Carnegie Commission
Report. It states that public broadcasting programming “should serve as a
forum for controversy and debate, be diverse and provide a voice for groups
that may otherwise be unheard.” Instead of adhering to this worthy
mission, NPR brands itself for a constituency of the white, educated, and
elite.
Our request
to WXXI officials: realize what an important role you could have in our
community. As a locally owned public radio station, we ask that you recognize
the diversity of this community, that you provide programs for our many points
of view. We ask that you invigorate discussion and debate by pulling your head
out of the sand and giving us programs that are daring and controversial.
Restore our
faith that you are serving the public good rather than being in business to
make money. While our limited air space has become saturated by the monolithic,
corporate perspective of Clear Channel and Viacom, we expect more from you.
Differentiate yourself by truly being public radio.
A good
place to start is to air Democracy Now.
By doing so, you would be respected as a local station that is responsive to
its public. Your constituency would grow to include many outside of your
current target audience.
Democracy
Now’s mission of going to “where the silence is” would help to fulfill your
original mission by giving a voice to the working class, the disenfranchised,
and dissenting voices that are rarely if ever heard on your current
programming.
In the name
of democracy, take a chance and try it for a year. If your
corporate sponsors threaten to pull their funding, stand strong and remind them
of the importance of public broadcasting of, for and by the people. Maybe
you’ll help them discover new marketing niches within our community.
Dawn Revette, Harlem Street, Rochester
A CLEAN SLATE FOR CITY SCHOOLS
Nearly everyone seems to agree that the city
school system and its delivery of services to students continues
to be a failure. Any district with such an abysmal drop-out and graduation rate
should be so considered.
The answer
is almost always “more money.” My hat is off to City Councilmembers
Gladys Santiago and Lois Giess, among others, for not
accepting that proposition as the only answer. Until all the various constituencies
are ready to view the challenge with a clean slate, open to new ideas and
approaches, the system will continue its decline of 40-plus years and stymie
any possibility of long-term growth or improved city-home value.
Why does
the school year require only 180 days of instruction? Can some classes actually
be larger than average?
If the
problem extends to the family, and many of the children come from poor
families, shouldn’t social services get involved in the schools?
With the
relatively low cost of computers, should we consider providing computers at
home for students at the fifth-grade level and above?
How can we
justify a pay increase of 4-plus percent for employees (read, teachers) who are
not performing and who have not offered any responsible solutions other than
asking for more money and smaller class sizes?
Can we get
employers to start a “bring your dad-mom-sis-guardian to school” day?
I’m sure
that the brain trust in MonroeCounty
can ask more and better questions — as were posed by Heidi Zimmer-Meyer when
asked about the possibility of bringing a casino to Rochester
(“Big Gamble,” June 23). The difference? People are talking, people are
listening… no agendas, no recriminations.
Can someone
take that same approach for the future of our children?
Bob Miglioratti, Highland Avenue, Rochester
LOOK OUT, PITTSFORD!
Regarding “Signs of the Times” (Metro Ink, June 16):
Billboards can be kind of fun. I like analyzing them, trying to figure out where
the ad agency is coming from in dreaming up the promotions. Sometimes they are
quiet clever. More often than not, though, they are mundane and repetitious,
hammering out the same old message: buy, buy, buy.
The City of
Rochester has made valiant attempts
to limit billboard placement. The current ordinances list several places where
signs are prohibited: within Preservation Districts and within 100 feet of
schools, churches, and parks, among others.
However,
now we have roving advertisements, the Regional Transit Service being the worst
offender. Once during the bus lineup downtown, I counted 10 buses with a local
car dealer’s face, logo, and automobiles wrapped all the way around the sides
and back. So now advertisers can avoid the City’s prohibitions and take their
message to your neighborhood — in fact, right to your doorstep.
To make
matters worse, riding in these buses is like being in a shipping container.
Sure, there are little pinholes where the windows are, to let the passengers
know whether it’s daytime or nighttime. Looking outside during the day, you see
shadow figures, and shadow cars, and shadow landscapes. They’ve taken the fun
out of riding a bus. Passengers sit inside these vaults in semi-darkness.
Now we are
to going to be subjected to more entrepreneurship. We have billboard-size ads
attached to the back of “trucks,” illuminated from within and
directed to various strategic locations by global positioning systems. Cool!
Are you
ready Pittsford? You may be next.
Brian Peterson, Rochester
BUS STATION’S NO SALVATION
Forty years ago, MidtownPlaza was hailed as an innovative
addition to Rochester’s bustling
downtown. There were also several large department stores, many small shops,
movie theaters, and restaurants, and a city population of over 350,000 people.
Today, the
supporters of Renaissance Square argue that it will be the savior of our
dormant downtown, and particularly that an opulent, single-use bus terminal is
the key to the project’s success. It seems to be a project that politicians
love, as they plan to spend millions of our taxpayer dollars and hold numerous
press conferences to announce how concerned they are about reviving Downtown
Rochester.
These are
the same politicians who cannot pass a state budget on time, who cannot lower
New York’s tax burden on businesses and residents, who cannot lower the price
of gasoline, who cannot halt the exodus of jobs and people from the area, and
who talk continuously about the need to keep young people in Rochester but
don’t seem to know what will keep them here.
Most young
people I know do not take a bus and will not use a bus terminal. And those who
live downtown would like everyday services such as a supermarket and more
shopping and restaurants, along with good jobs they can easily commute or walk
to.
If you buy
the bus terminal as the key to reviving our decaying downtown, I can sell you a
bridge in Brooklyn, too.
Lucille Baccaro, Demeter Drive, Greece
FIGHTING NUKE POWER
I am sending my RG&E refund to the Nuclear Information
and Resource Service, and I urge readers to do the same.
Recently RG&E’sGinna nuclear plant
was sold to a big, multinational energy corporation, one that along with
several others is betting on a resurgence of nuclear power. Part of the
strategy to increase our dependence on nuclear energy rests on increasing the
output of old plants like Ginna.
About 30
large new reactors are also being planned, and it is likely that these will go
into existing sites such as Ginna’s, because little
or no environmental review will be required at these sites. It’s all part of
the Cheney energy policy, the outgrowth of a task force that met over a dozen
times with the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobby group, before
drawing up the energy bill now stuck in Congress.
Increasing
our reliance on nuclear power is not a good idea. New reactors — even the
so-called “safe” pebble-bed reactor design (which has only one
physical barrier between you and the radioactive fuel instead of the three
barriers of today’s plants) — still produce huge amounts of intensely
radioactive and dangerous spent waste. This waste remains deadly for over
100,000 years.
If
terrorists attack a nuclear plant, the radiation released could make us all
sick today. The same is true of an accident. A couple of years ago, a reactor
on Lake Erie was found with a hole eaten nearly all the
way through the top. Had it failed, radiation would have been released into the
containment building and possibly into the lake.
And there’s
another, more subtle but very real threat. Nuclear power fuel is intimately
involved with nuclear weapons and lethal force. It is dangerous. It attracts
unsavory types who might want to make dirty bombs or atom bombs. Civilian power
reactors were originally conceived of as a way to make fuel for bombs to
protect us from the evil Soviet Union. Power plants and
military uses have been called Siamese twins — inextricably linked.
Civilian
plants must be protected using lethal force. All sorts of civil liberties and
constitutional issues arise, and in the long run we inch closer to becoming a
militaristic, repressive society. We should be moving away from a power source
that quashes individual initiative and liberty. Solar power, bio fuels, wind
energy, and other sources do not erode personal freedom. They also reduce
dependence on foreign oil and foreign supplies of uranium. There are better,
safer ways to make power that will not require heavy taxpayer subsidies for 40
years, as have the nukes.
The Nuclear
Information and Resource Service has worked for many
years to put out information on this secretive, dangerous, and politically
influential industry, a child of the Cold War. I urge readers to send their
RG&E refund to NIRS at 1424 16th Street NW,Suite
404, WashingtonDC20036.
Susan Peterson Gateley,
Delling Road, Wolcott
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester14607.
Our
guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and we ask that you include
your street name and city/town/village. We don’t publish letters that have been
sent to other media. While we don’t restrict length, letters of under 350 words have a greater chance of being published. We
do edit letters for clarity and brevity. And in general we don’t publish
letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces) from the same writer more often than about
once every two months.
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2004.
