Lehrer Says News Hour Money Woes Are Worst Ever
Monday, May 19th, 2008
Lehrer Says News Hour Money Woes Are Worst Ever
I wish PBS had a facility for direct sponsorship because I’d rather give money directly to the shows I watch than to local PBS stations.
In late April, Mr. Lehrer, who turns 74 on Monday, had aortic valve replacement surgery. He said he was recovering nicely and expects to be back on the air toward the end of June. But the nightly newscast’s funding situation could take longer to heal.
I can’t imagine the world without this show or without Jim Lehrer. This guy has been in my life since 1975 when my parents watched him and Robin MacNeil. The rest of his team is great, but Lehrer is the one.
Lehrer:
“I’ve always said, ‘I’ll do this until one of two things happens: it’s not fun any more or I start drooling on the air,’ ” he said. “As we speak, neither is happening.”
Jim Lehrer Speaks At National Museum Of The Marine Corps:
The entire public television/public radio funding model is broken. My local public radio station has longer and longer pledge drives several times a year. They are painful and basically I tune out during those times. I’ve told them numerous times that I’d rather have an auto-renewing membership via credit card without pledge drives!!! Adapt to a new model or die along with your aging audience. And have you seen pledge “week” on public TV??? Seriously embarrassing madness (nothing but dancing, gurus and A Mighty Wind like bands!). Ugh!
But I agree about Lehrer. I love the show. That and Washington Week with Gwen Eiffel. But it is strange that the major funders are a defense contractor and a mining organization. Doesn’t seem to quite fit the audience profile I imagined.
Andrew: Right you are. My wife and I were amazed that ADM would underwrite NewHour and they obviously are desperate for anyone.
And, I also agree about giving money to PBS or Thirteen. Years ago I gave some money to Connecticut public TV and I still get spam from them to this day. I’d love to give to thirteen but will not until they change their model.
You may find this interesting and it supports your model change: About five years ago I got a call from a woman who runs the development office in the art and architecture school at the U of Oregon where I got a number of degrees and taught for many years. I went to school with this woman so we knew each other well. Her name is Karen.
She was looking for a donation to fund a scholarship program in the name of one of my late professors, a guy I really liked and worked with for many years. That led us to talking about the whole alumni donation thing and the fact that we were getting calls around dinner time from undergraduates when they were doing their drives, and those calls pissed me off.
I said: “Karen, I tell you what, you get the University general fund off my back, and get the AAA school (essentially her) off my back and I’ll give you my credit card number and you can take a yearly donation for this scholarship forever.
I don’t want to hear a thing from the University of Oregon having to do with fundraising. If you can do that, I’ll donate every year.
However, if I get a call, it’s off.
She was quite honest and said that she wasn’t sure she could pull it off but she’d look into it and get back to me.
A few days later she called back and told me it was done. I gave her the card # and I’ve been donating yearly ever since with not a single word from her or them or anyone.
She did email me and tell me that she’s now offered this “donation process” to others and it’s quite popular.
A very good friend of ours is the head of corporate funding for Thirteen in NY. I told her this story and said I’d donate every year to Thirteen if she could do same. She said immediately that she couldn’t.
And there you have it. I don’t give to Thirteen. But I’d love to.
I also dumped my ACLU membership because every time someone in congress farts they come after me for more money.
I gave some money to Russ Feingold when he voted to censure Bush and now I can’t get him off my back.
ARGH!
Dang, why can’t these folks learn?
Great success story! Someday the others will get it once they realize the world’s changed. And yes, the dinner time calls from schools are annoying as all get out. We no longer answer between 6 and 8, ever. Next time I’ll try your idea.
I gave some money to Barak a few weeks ago. I was reluctant to do so since my experience with political giving is similar to your frustrating examples (however, my desire to see him in office was stronger). In fact I did receive a couple of additional emails, but each one had a link at the bottom to unsubscribe. I did and that was that. I wish all spammers were this honorable!
Andrew: Luckily, Connecticut passed a law that allows us to get on a no call list and if we’re on it solicitors can’t call, ever. So, those calls ended a few years ago. However, they don’t cover political campaigns and so, we’re getting calls from Hillary Clinton.
I too have given many small donations to Barack and I too get the emails but somehow, because I’m interested in the campaign I didn’t unsubscribe because I wanted to see how they were spinning each win or loss along the way.
What Barack’s site needs is Oneclick a la Amazon so that each time I give I don’t have to fill out the form. At this point it’s easy to do as my browser auto completes it for me, but the site should allow me to remain logged in, let me pick a number and hit a button and be done with it. It should also show me all of my contributions so I can see how close I am to the limit. I wrote Axelrod about this but alas, never heard back.
Given that we just watched the end of the FDR biographical piece on American Experience, I’ve been recommending that Barack do weekly “Fireside chats” like the speech he did on race, except rather than radio he should use YouTube. Not in front of a rally but in a nice office, just like FDR looking and sounding calm as he lays out his plan to get us out of Iraq or broker a solution in the Middle East, or work on petroleum dependency. I do think the next President is going to face some serious issues, not unlike what FDR faced when he first took office.