To Current's home pageOriginally published in Current, July 8, 1996. Tolan contributed a similar commentary to the New York Times op-ed page on July 16.
By Sandy Tolan
For a while there, NPR News liked to call itself, unofficially, "The New York Times of Broadcasting.'' That always struck me as an unnecessary comparison. NPR built its reputation not from emulating commercial media, no matter how good, but by following its own path.
The network's course has long been charted by people who believed in the core values of public broadcasting. "We didn't regard the listeners as a market--we regarded them as curious individuals,'' recalls Bill Siemering, president of the International Center for Journalists, who wrote the mission statement for All Things Considered in 1971. "We wanted to reflect the pluralism of America.''
Twenty-five years later, Jay Allison, in accepting the Edward R. Murrow Award at this year's Public Radio Conference, echoed those values: "There was a sharp hook in the way the mission was described. It was that language about giving voice to the voiceless, casting light into shadows, generally behaving like humanitarians, and public servants, and artists. I believed it. Believed in it. Still do.'' Together, we--stations, independent producers, public radio staffers--have made this system into what producer Larry Josephson calls "a secular church,'' fulfilling a "moral contract'' with listeners. People trusted us because we weren't selling anything, except at pledge time.
For better or worse, the new game in Washington has changed that, and now public dollars mix with cash from jewelers, brokerage houses, rent-a-car companies, global food conglomerates and purveyors of flavored coffees. Slowly, steadily, these corporate contributions have chipped away at the public in public radio ("Call 1-800-GTGLOBAL!''). But this is not 1967; no doubt shifting reality makes us bed down with some folks that, in the best of times, we'd prefer not to even have flavored coffee with. And despite this drip, drip of corporate underwriting, despite the overbearing oversight of Congress, despite Cokie Roberts's handsome fees from speeches to corporate heavyweights, NPR manages to cling to a mantle of independence. Listeners somehow trust that the public mission still comes first. That NPR, after all, is not for sale.
Until now.
Now, we are told, NPR must sell its name to survive. Or in marketing jargon, it must "leverage its outstanding brand image.'' Perhaps reality makes this so. In a world where global commerce quickly paints over the idea of a common public good, selling your name brand name is perhaps the only means of survival. But how do you go about peddling something whose reputation was built on its public character? Whose independence was won because it was never for sale? Now, that is almost sure to change. And already, the suitors are lining up.
"We'd be happy,'' Liberty Media President Peter Barton said in keynote speech to the PRC, "to lend a helping hand.'' But what does that mean? Liberty is part of TCI, a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate whose president, John Malone, has been compared to Darth Vader. As Barton, Malone's envoy to the PRC, looked down from the podium to the sea of somewhat befuddled faces, he wasn't actually licking his chops. But he did admit that Liberty and other distributors are "very hungry.''
There's been no deal struck with TCI, NPR's Chief Operating Officer Peter Jablow points out. And if there ever is, he says, it won't be like the deal TCI made to purchase two-thirds interest in MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, including the NewsHour. "That's not necessarily the kind of relationship we want, because we don't want to be owned by anybody,'' Jablow told me. But Barton's on-stage embrace of NPR President Delano Lewis, not to mention the reported $50,000 Liberty donated to NPR's 25th anniversary bash at the PRC, made a lot of people nervous. Barton spoke sweetly to the assembled public radio folks about "preserving a national treasure.'' He used the same language in courting public television managers at another conference the next week. Clearly, "treasure'' is the operative word here. Barton, Liberty, TCI and unknown other suitors are interested in using NPR to gain "public interest'' credibility. In this way, mission becomes commodity, all toward the end of enhancing stockholders' positions. As Barton writes in a letter to potential investors, "Liberty Media is focused on just one thing: creating shareholder value.'' National treasure, indeed.
But what would a deal with TCI, or other content-hungry distributors, mean for NPR? And how would the public mission remain intact? In his keynoter, Barton made it clear that his bunch has no idea what NPR stands for. In his call for NPR to aspire to "English-speaking radio imperialism''--trumpeted without humor, without irony--he wasn't exactly evoking core public radio values. In his admonition to "grab the handle of the sword,'' and gore or be gored, he wasn't quite stirring up memories of Edward R. Murrow, in whose honor public radio annually bestows its highest award. When Barton smiled down at Jay Allison, who'd just accepted the Murrow award, and compared him to media tycoons like Ted Turner, Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch, it was painfully clear that Liberty, TCI and the like just don't get it. As I watched Del Lewis smile at the comparison, I could only hope he was just being polite.
So what would "leveraging the brand'' mean, in practical terms? Noah Adams dolls? Bob Edwards action figures? Nina Totenberg tote bags? Jablow, who comes across as decent and deeply pragmatic, gets a bit of an edge in his voice when questioned about the prospect of cheapening NPR's good name. "We're not going to be selling the next buttmaster on TV,'' he says. "It has to be consistent with our mission. There's no way in we're going to compromise the integrity of what goes on in the newsroom or the brand itself. We can do things without compromising the product.'' Things like music or news compilation CDs, book club deals, providing audio to newspaper online services. If this is how NPR leverages its brand, Jablow asks, what's wrong with it? Maybe nothing. But even if the initial offerings of NPR's name are limited, I hear stomachs growling. And I wonder:
Will a few books and CDs be enough for a "very hungry'' distributor? What happens when a distributor wants more, like "adapting'' All Things Considered to fit a particular market niche? Will NPR be willing to turn over that editorial control to a commercial distributor like TCI? If so, what's to prevent the adaptation from sounding like every other homogenized product out there? And if that happens, won't NPR's name, ultimately, be just like everyone else's? As Barton's comments demonstrate, commercial media, by and large, possess neither the corporate culture nor the sensibility to keep NPR's distinct editorial style intact; homogenization of brand would be nearly assured.
This remains a danger even if NPR, as a company, is never for put up for sale, as Jim Lehrer's NewsHour was. Just the re-distribution of NPR's parts, for a fee, would erode its distinction as something public, with a separate mission from the commercial media. For me, the danger of being subsumed into a great Disney/TCI/Westinghouse food processor is dreary and depressing enough, for it would signal the beginning of the end of a great experiment. Yet I realize moral appeals don't help pay the bills. So instead, consider the long-term effects on the bottom line. If NPR is seen as just another media company out to make a buck, why should listeners make a donation in their end of the "moral contract?'' What would be the point in their continuing this long-lasting affair, one built on the promise of straight-dealing, nonprofit, noncommercial radio? As Larry Josephson told the NPR Board in November, "If we lose that, we've got nothing. If they get the message that we've become a Hollywood dealmaker, it's over.''
Am I pumping up the dangers--making a half-hour documentary out of a two-minute wrap? I hope I am. But I'm not alone in wondering what all this courtship of conglomerates means, and where it may take us. Conversations I've had since the PRC reveal that uncertainty runs deep in public radio now. We don't know where NPR's leadership wants to go--even some board members are deeply concerned--and we know just a couple of bad moves could be disastrous. That's troubling, because this public radio community belongs to all of us. I've spent a good part of my life in public radio. I care as deeply as anyone about the fate of NPR, and the system it anchors. And like many others, I know this strange and beautiful house we've built is made of different materials.
"[P]ublic broadcasting isn't a matter of money and fundraising only--its supporters distinguished by income or occupations solely,'' CPB Chair Ritajean Butterworth reminded us in presenting the Murrow award to Allison. "[P]ublic broadcasting is a matter of community--a matter of the mind, of the heart, and of the soul.''
So when the NPR Board meets in July, to consider a process of new collaborations with commercial distributors, I hope it will be cautious. I hope it will be skeptical. And I hope it will remember that what made NPR distinct--independence from commercial media--is the very thing that can ensure its survival.
Sandy Tolan is executive producer of Homelands Productions, Gloucester, Mass., and has contributed features and documentaries to public radio since 1981.
Earlier news: Peter Barton, of TCI's Liberty Media, offers a "helping hand" to public radio.
Earlier news: Barton's isn't the only overture made by TCI affiliates to public broadcasting.
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Later news: Del Lewis assures NPR Board that he'll make no compromising deals, and that he hugs "everyone."