Public Radio Program Directors Kills Link to Maine Public Broadcasting Cuts People & Salaries

http://www.prpd.org/topmenu/home.aspx

Maine Public Broadcasting Cuts People & Salaries 2008-12-19

This link on the PUBLIC RADIO PROGRAM DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION's blog will not open this morning.

One cannot help but wonder why.

Joan Howard writes:

Hi,

I posted a comment to the PRPD site for which you provided a link below yesterday morning. I kept going back to the site to see if my comment had been approved and posted by the moderator, but it never was.

Today, Monday, I have tried to visit the site again, and I now get the message that they’re unable to complete my request and here’s the error code: bX-gr6rtz.

I would like to know whether my comment (see below) ever got posted. I also would like to see if there are any new comments.

Thanks and all good wishes for the new year,

Joan

My comment:

I am appalled at the way the Maine Public Broadcasting Network has treated one of its most popular, and exceptionally creative, freelance radio-show hosts, Robert Skoglund (affectionately known as the Humble Farmer). I have been following the disturbing saga of the censorship of his wonderful show for months and still cannot believe that MPBN’s administrators would show such poor judgment.

While I realize that MPBN is not WERU, I have always believed it was a far more enlightened and progressive source of news and commentary than most other national broadcast outlets. What has happened to Humble has convinced me that I was sadly mistaken.

To make matters even worse, as I was astonished to learn from a recent article in Harper’s magazine, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer prohibits its commentators from using the word "torture" with reference to the Bush administration’s interrogation policies. In other words, if one wishes to appear on that show, one must accept a preemptive muzzling.

It begins to seem, alas, that something is rotten at the core of "public" broadcasting.

December 28, 2008 7:52 AM