Well gosh, I guess I'll just stop listening to and supporting WDUQ. BTW did anyone see that nifty new picture of Pope John Paul II waving from the flames? Do you suppose that Archbishop Oscar Romero got to the Pearly Gates before him? ACCESS DENYED

If my local affiliate in San Francisco were to do something like this, I would certainly stop supporting it financially and stop listening. Hey, all you Pittsburgh area NPR listeners! You can listen to other NPR affiliates on line, and redirect your financial contributions to them. Hit them where it hurts the most, in their pocketbooks.

I have always wondered if they really want "viewers like me."

Now I know. In Pittsburgh they don't.

"Hit them where it hurts the most, in their pocketbooks."

True. Also, what better way to hit them where it hurts than to divest yourself of stock in religion led organizations, polluter stock, war profiteer stock, Big Pharma stock, Big Oil stock, etc. and only buy stock in socially and environmentally responsible companies like Working Assets and others? Their bottom line is usually better than other gambling houses'. Boycotts only work when we act. Complacency is the killer.

I've never been to Philadelphia but I'd bet there's more than one institution of higher learning -- and maybe like Drexel, they're nonsectarian.

Duquesne doesn't seem like the right place for a public station.

Wasn't it George Bush who declared that "elections have consequences."? Well, indeed they do, many of them unforeseen.

The notion we have something called "public" radio, and it can be held hostage to any particular doctrine is an indication that the "public" part has been mis-defined by Washington regulators.

Let's have another election (in 2008) and bring about some different and better consequences. Those "minor" appointments to lead "obscure" federal agencies aren't
really so minor. A lot of people here at CD think that Dems and Repugs are all the same and produce the same results. I think a Dem government will get you better NPR and better other little things too.

I think a Dem government will get you better NPR and better other little things too.

And as Hank Scorpio observed, it's the "little things" in life that really matter, isn't it?

I recently have begun to listen to NPR occasionally, but I find the pleas for donations to by ingenuous, when made alongside underwriter announcements for CARGIL, and other corporate sponsors whose activities run counter to what NPR proposes to represent. To have a contribution of $5,000 returned to Planned Parenthood because some religious fanatics oppose their mission of preventing unwanted pregnancies and caring for the health of women is ludicrous. I mostly listen to and support financially Pacifica/KPFK in Los Angeles, and would never contribute to NPR as long as they take corporate underwriting. As NPR seems to toe the Partyline of the Right, their contributions from the progressive public will diminish and we may lose what they call Public Radio. I'd love to see that money diverted to Pacifica and any other truly listener-sponsored media. I only watch/listen to MSM to see what the latest corporate/administration lie is. The rest I get from the Internet and alternative sources. Though not always reliable, it holds as much credence to me as MSM.

What I am saying is that we as critical thinkers have a responsibility to discern the source of our information and look behind the curtain for the motivation of the diseminators.

And, may I add: if Duquesne want its values reflected by its NPR station, what are they doing about the use of War to solve problems? What did Christ say about war and killing? I don't think he ever advocated killing another human being for his or any other cause. Has Duquesne come out strongly against the Bush Administration's warring on the world and denied access to war profiteers? I'd love to hear that reported on NPR...good luck.

peace,
st john

nightly wrote:

"I've never been to Philadelphia but I'd bet there's more than one institution of higher learning — and maybe like Drexel, they're nonsectarian."

PITTSBURGH! not Philadelphia - they are two culturally completely different cities on opposite ends of a state that should probably be two states.

You can listen, to Carnigie Mellon's WRCT 88.3. They have "Democracy Now every Morning at 8 AM, Free-Speech Radio News every weekday at 5:30 PM and our local local "Rustbelt Radio" on Monday's at 6PM and tuesday at 9AM

But yes, Duquesne is a conservative Catholic school. And WDUQ is the only jazz station in Pittsburgh. But unfortunately, they also broadcast all the annoying NPR programming, from the utterly corporate/war machine sycophantic news programming to the formerly useful, now utterly dumbed-down and useless "Car Talk". NPR is utterly sold-out mouthpiece for capitalist neoloberalism and brutal US foreign policy - That's reason enough withold support.

The other NPR Station, WQED, is the only classical music station in the area. I have supported them for their music and especially because they DONT broadcast "Morning Edition" or "All Things Considered; or hardly any other NPR programming.

And, as far as the oh-so annoying fundraising telethons; how can a broadcaster be considered "public" when they rely on private support and call their supporters "members" of the station?

Little Brother,

Yes, those "little" things in government do matter. That's why anyone bothered to write about NPR and why we're all bothering to read it. There are big things, and there are little things, and they all matter.

WDUQ 90.5 FM?
Duquesne University?
Fuck em'!

Doesn't that university heavily favor pro-"free" trade and pro-war corporate hacks?

Are either WDUQ or Duqesne University 501(c)3 tax-exempt organizations? If so, maybe someone should challenge that status because they are behaving as an extension of a religious organization (the Catholic Church) and not as educational organizations.

If they are found to be supporting a religious mission instead of an educational mission, then contributions to these organizations might cease to be tax-deductible for the donors.

If I lived in Pittsburgh, I'd look into it.

I mean, that would be one way to carry out bongofury's imperative...

As time goes on, more hypocrisies will be revealed in those trying to play both sides. This is a great example, take money from large conscienceless corporations profiting from Public Radio exposure. As many other posters have pointed out, where are their principles when it comes to taking corporate money? This double standard here requires an answer from Duquesne.

So ignorant, what else is new ?

Why is a Catholic radio station falsely promoted as a 'public' station?

I was born and raised a Catholic; altar boy,choir, Catholic high school, married in the church. You know, the works. About 20 yrs. ago after some reading and serious thinking I left it all behind with no regrets or doubts. Every once in a while I see or read something which confirms my decision. This small minded action by Dequesne U. is one osf those times. As bongofury above says, .... Oh well, you get the picture.

I quit supporting the Catholic Church when they got heavily into trying to impose their religious belief's upon the American people! If they choose to believe that a blob of gelatinousness material is life that's their business. But, I object to it being forced upon me. I certainly will not give them a dime as long as they are imposing those belief's. So the Catholic Church needs to get their priorities straighten out. They have lost a lot of followers because they wouldn't live in the 21st century. How many more are they going to lose before they finally get the message if they ever do? NPR has always been the only station in the are that I listen to for years. I especially like Morning Edition.

Ah well - so much for the Land of the Free -

How soon until Duquesne receives a large research grant from the Bush Administration? If the Bushies continue to have their way, our great colleges and universities, once havens for a diversity of thought, will become indoctrination centers, religiously advocating the Straussian definition of "reality" to prepare the future leaders of the United States of Amerika.

This nation has become a place where those with the most money control the megaphone -- the exact state of affairs in other countries that the United States once labeled as enemies of freedom.

Here's my email to the station...

National Catholic Radio,

No more money from me! I'm not "aligned with the Catholic doctrine" I'm glad I heard about this before I made my yearly donation.

Maybe you should solicit underwriters that support pedophilia. That would be more aligned with the Catholic doctrine. Then, at least the letters NPR would stand for something meaningful. National Pedophile Radio.

Hypocrite, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

NPR—once accused by President Reagan's State Department lackey Otto Reich of being "Moscow on the Potomac"—has degenerated into a mouthpiece for the power structure. Reagan and his handlers understood The Game and knew how to bring public broadcasting to its knees: Drastically cut government funding and force "public" radio and television to rely heavily on corporate underwriting.

NPR emerged from the eighties a sniveling ghost and by the early twenty-first century has the appearance of "independent" media with the dark undertow of corporate propaganda becoming more and more perceptible.

Did you people miss NPR's coverage of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions (illegal invasions I might add)? They sounded like FOX News Lite.

NPR, and its cast of hacks, is shite!

This whole issue is not worth fussing over. The owner of the radio station refused to accept a donation. Big deal. If I were a donor to Planned Parenthood, I'd be angry that they put $5000 of our donations into an NPR station rather than it's programs anyway.

WDUQ is a typical NPR station and the only full-time jazz station in the area. There is nothing reflecting its owners in it's programming aside from the useless NPR programming that interrupts too much of the music.

PJD

You sound like a complacent tool. Sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled head-in-the-sand programming. Jesus Christo. NPR used to be a force to be reckoned w/ now it is a joke and device for Manufacturing Consent. So, why don't you take your jazz-loving ass somewhere else. CommonDreams is a place where people actually think and care about things beyond inconvenient music interruptions.

The issue isn't whether or not NPR is useless; it is about the bigger picture, as in the slow but sure dismantling of the rights of women to decide what happens to their bodies and the creeping stranglehold of the MSM and the Fascist movement to destroy any semblance of independent media.

When it was founded, NPR made much noise about doing what no "commercial" station could do. Now, in a fever of pop psychology, they try to make their declining numbers of listeners feel guilty about listening! And their few real news reports are merely copies from the usual news services, or just the Washington Post.

Yes, it has become just another pathetic joke as our government and our culture descend into Washington Beltway Slime.

Sad.

So now Duquesne joins the University of St Thomas (which originally canceled a speaking engagement by Bishop Desmond Tutu) in foisting Catholic thought control onto the public. This NPR station must be separated from Duquesne immediately; Duquesne is clearly not fit to "own" a pubic radio station which receives some taxpayer support. No discussion, no dithering: sever the station's ties with this unfit university NOW.

Theocracy is no substitute for democracy. Dogma is not reality - be it Catholic, Christian or neocon.

Bush & Co. want to turn NPR into another faux news. El Presidentes appointments to CPB have been aimed at stifling even the faintest hint of criticism or critical analyst. If the Catholic or others want a sectarian dogmatic press let them support it with their own funds.

Some of you need to take a deep breath. The whole idea behind Public Radio is that it doesn't have to be censored by corporate advertisers, and is therefore at liberty to present programming and to express views which may not be part of the mainstream. The station can then be supported by individual listeners who appreciate the programming and agree with the views. If the NPR station in some locality presents jazz and you don't like jazz, don't listen, and don't send your money. If they oppose abortion and you believe that abortion should be freely available, don't listen and don't send your money.
The decision of WDUQ to refuse contributions from Planned Parenthood is not evidence of a failure of the concept of Public Radio: on the contrary, it proves that they are free to do as they wish. Listeners' decisions not to support WDUQ, even if it resulted in the closure of the station would not prove that Public Radio "doesn't work:" in fact, it would show that Public Radio works just the way it is supposed to.
BTW to Clark Kent: Religious Organizations are also tax-exempt and are free to operate radio stations and express their views. If I don't like their views, I just push the button and switch stations.

if ms. fare thinks that money and news content aren't related, how about the names of the two "calls of concern", one from a cabinet member, the other from a university supporter. geez, we're all so dumb.

I have two words for this:

Internet Radio.

Whatever you want to listen to, and when.

felix4321,

Let me repeat. you are creating a brouhaha where none exists. This was NOT censorship against Planned Parenthood. WDUQ censored nothing or nobody - they simply returned a cash contribution. And, If the mission of Planned Parenthood is to help women, particularly poor women, then why the hell are they sending their hard-earned money to an affiliate of the yuppie, war-mongering NPR. GET IT???

BTW, I hate Jazz, but I recognize it as an important part of our culture, closing the station would be just one more insult to Pittsburgh's African Americans.

As I wrote in the earlier post, we have have plenty of truly progressive programming available - Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio News, Rustbelt Radio, The Allegheny Front, Counterspin, on other stations in Pittsburgh, so we don't give a damn about this WDUQ matter. So, you rich liberal outsiders shouldn't either.

BTW, what real progressive programming so you have in your town?

and Village Elder - NPR already is just a yuppie version of faux news. Their gleeful military propaganda of the US military thugs murderous destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 5 years has been sickening.

This is an earful of a surprise that planned parenthood is giving out 5 grand for airtime while here in las vegas low income women are being turned away because if you don't have $100 when you walk in the door you will be turned away. What a shitty country we live in

PJD, ditto on most of what you are saying, (except that I do like Jazz)
Why not support community (non NPR) radio with Democracy Now, Counterspin, Free Speech Radio News, as well as great local programming (usually, you just have to get used to the down home nature of it).

I don't know what happened to NPR. Fresh Air can be interesting sometimes as well as talk of the nation but the news division seems to be pandering to the shuffleboard crowd in Florida. All fluff and little depth.

Fuck the Catholics and fuck the christians. They are one of the roots of the present unpleasent situation.

Well I see you haven't been hearing the "new" news from our lord Jesus... written some two thousand years ago...o.k. 1500, second or third hand, right? You got to stay on top of things!

"a blob of gelatinous material" It's amazing to me how people who call themselves
"progressive", "liberal" or "sensitive" are so horrific in their utter disregard for the lives of pre-born children. The same people who would condemn the murder of a premature baby of 6 or 7 months gestation, would, with little or no emotion, accept the murder of an as yet unborn child of the third trimester (more than 20,000 per year in the US alone, according to the Guttmacher Institute) because the murder is counched in the terms "women's right to choose" rather than "doctor's right to murder".
Did aonyone ever see pitures of even a first trimester baby?.... with all its fingers and toes, a beating heart, sex organs, liver, spleen, etc.
Recently, a jealous lover attacked his pregnant ex-girlfriend, and successfully killed her unborn child with a stab wound, inflicting relativeily minor infury to the woman. should he not have been charged with murder? Should that young man in California who was convicted of drowning his wife and pre-born son not have been charged with a double homicide? Progressives lose their respectability and downright reasonableness
when they support abortion on demand, which is the equivalent of a Nagasadki-size bomb dropped on the world every day (about 100,000 murders....4400 inthe US alone). think I'm a religious zelot? Then read Nat Hentoff, also a pro-life advocate, and an atheist, considered the guru of the left until he followed obvious logic and came down on the side of basic human rights for the pre-born.
Another relatively pro-life atheist example was Kurt Vonnegut, or Jack nicholson, or warren Beatty.....and women are more pro-life than men.
The truth is, the left was co-opted by the war profiteers of the abortion industry, with Planned Parenthood, which makes 75% of its income on abortion, leading the charge.
Why does Planned Prenthood support and promote promiscuous lifestyles? Why do they open clinics in inner city neighborhoods (more than half the African American babies in NY State are aborted, some states are rported to have even a higher ratio....wanna talk about genocied?)? Why don't they report underage pregnant girls to the police as victims of child abuse, even though they are mandated reporters?? (Studies show that the average age of the father of a 13 year old girl's unborn child is 23)....Why did Consumer Reports show that Planned Parenthood
purposely provides the least effective condoms
to underage kids, practically assuring unplanned pregnancies? read "What I Saw in The Abortion Industry" by Carol Everett or Bernard NAthanson's book on the lies and deceptions of NARAL (he was a founding member)
from their inception......

Pope John Paul had no problem accepting gifts from Vice-President Dick Cheney. The Head Cheif War-Mongerer on the Planet. Sat down and had tea withe Cheney and his wife. Where was the outcry for the 1,000,000 plus that had died from Cheney's actions. Still the same Catholic church, who you are and how much money and power you have always matters.

JoJO you should get some help!

It is public radio and the majority of the public supports birth control.
When they take a donation from a business or person they can not be so sure that entity did not make their money through drugs or some other form of lawlessness.
By not accepting the donation they are taking sides.
It is very non-progressive not to support planned parenthood. I wonder about the rest of their broadcasts.

==Charles J. Dougherty, received two calls of concern about the spots on Oct. 9, one from a member of his cabinet and another from a university supporter.==

Two calls? TWO CALLS are behind all this?

Boy, don't we all wish we had that much power? And this as an opener?

==A public radio station here stopped running underwriting messages from Planned Parenthood and returned its $5,000 donation after the station's license holder, Duquesne University, decided the organization was "not aligned with our Catholic identity."==

More properly, what they meant was Planned Parenthood was not aligned with its Catholic theology, not identity.

Since WDUQ now is driven by Catholic theology, it really should lose its public broadcasting status.

rebelnow wrote:

"I don't know what happened to NPR. Fresh Air can be interesting sometimes..."

I don't know how old you are, but I can fondly recall the days up until the mid 1980s, when you could near daily commentary from the late Michael Harrington (Democratic Socialists of America), and Mumia Abu Jamal (Move, Black Panthers), among other genuine leftists on NPR. And, the rightward transmorgification of NPR's Terry Gross and Diane Rehm since the 1980's is like something out of a sci-fi flick. And how dumbed-down it has become! Car-Talk used to actually be about serious technical questions ("hello click and clack - what is the best spark-advance curve for the chevy 327... etc.) from car-hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers.

But even the commercial media has changed in a reactionary way. The old, hilarious, satirical Saturday Night Live skits - savaging Ford, then Carter, then, for a while, Reagan, absolutely could not be done in todays media.

Public broadcasting cannot be "public" as long as it relies on individual contributions - even if most of the contributions weren't coming from big corporations. The best system would be a dedicated, untouchable, tax for public broadcasting. The BBC gets their funding from a dedicated annual tax on all TV's and radios in the UK - basically a users fee. I think such a tax would run into constitutional (first amendment) probelems here in the US, but other taxes could be devised. A one time excise sales tax could be used for a public briadcasting fund, - like we already have on tires and fuel for the highway trust fund.

Yeah, I know - it's pipe dreaming under the current reactionary (and quite bipartisan) political conditions in the US.

jojo October 18th, 2007 5:09 am

If children are people at conception, why haven't the abortion foes been advocating full rights as citizen for these fetuses? All those unborn (including those low income fetuses) should become eligible for all the rights of all citizens, right? What are you going to do if you achieve the goal of fetus rights? If they don't deserve this equal status will they be second class citizens? I never see abortion foes addressing these questions.

As far as this article is concerned, how PP sends it's money is a question for it's administrators and donors. And WDUQ is just hypocritical if they don't vet all their "advertisers" in the same manner. NPR probably sells it's programing to whom ever is willing to pay and leaves the fund raising to the stations.

It seems that media of all kinds should be responsive to the grassroots people, instead of only "from the top," whether that is government, institutions, corporate interests, etc.

Whether we are talking about radio, TV, book publishing or whatever, democracy coming from the bottom up can be helpful.

An interesting example is the current effort by viewers of an HBO TV show to persuade HBO media honchos to be responsive to viewers, as described in the article ...

"Grassroots coalition of TV viewers wants HBO's 'John from Cincinnati' to get second season" (September 27, 2007)

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=38701

When Public Broadcasting was largely funded by public tax money, all these corporate ads did not exist. Like so many of the really useful social programs, the conservatives have been attempting for years to cut PBS funding until it either dies or is brought to heel by the very interests it was set up to counterpoint. Grover Norquist must be so proud.

Abortion should be safe, legal and RARE. As long as we have a Constitution that gives each of us the freedom of our own beliefs, it is simply wrong to forbid abortion. You do not have any right to force your religious beliefs on those of us who do not share either your religion or your romantic notions about a parasitic glob of tissue. If you think abortion is wrong, then don't have one -- or don't get someone ELSE pregnant!

To call the anti-abortion arguments "pro-life" is seriously false advertising. By and large, the anti-abortion activists totally dismiss the value of the woman's life. Who are you to make such a call on someone else you don't even know?

So much of the rhetoric runs contrary to the fact that the average woman having an abortion is white, married, and making the decision WITH her husband based upon their financial circumstances. And let's just ignore the fact that forcing an already disadvantaged minority child to have a child generally condemns both "mother" and child to perpetuate the cycle of misery.

The anti-abortion set never seems to care about the children such a couple is already struggling to care for. For all the noise anti-abortionists make to pass laws putting greater roadblocks to a decision that is none of their business, they almost NEVER show up to support legislation that might make abortion less imperative to struggling women.

Every time conservatives in Congress move to cut funding for programs like WIC, put in place years ago to improve the nutrition of pregnant women and their infants, it's those nasty lefty liberal groups like NOW and NARAL who lead the fight to save those programs. While the conservative anti-abortion set controlled Congress, their salaries climbed as did the cost of living -- but Heaven forbid we should raise the minimum wage! Among the earliest actions of the Bush administration were roll-backs of OSHA rules set up to protect the fetuses of pregnant women from chemical exposure in the workplace. Let's not forget Dear George's many rollbacks of other environmental programs as well, such as his infamous "Clean Air Act" which actually allowed MORE pollution, including larger amounts of the neural toxin mercury, to be released by coal-fired power plants. It would seem the anti-abortion set was far too busy campaigning against clinics where needy women could actually get gynecological health care and personal birth control to put any effort into such "leftist" issues.

Adoption is hardly an answer when so many people work in jobs with no health care and not much in the way of job security. How is such a women to have her pregnancy monitored by a doctor when she has no access and no time off? And, if the doctor says she must no longer work and requires bed rest, then what? Again, we seldom see the anti-abortion set working to improve those conditions.

If human life is so precious, why is it every OTHER developed country considers health care a basic human right? Where are the anti-abortionists on THAT issue? Oh, I forgot... Gotta "keep the government out of peoples' lives." Unless, of course, we're talking about their bedrooms, or very personal and private medical decisions.

Another poster did an excellent job of addressing the reality of far more children than available homes. But for a second, look at how this relates to the immigration issues so many people absolutely froth about. The Gag Rule, which denies money to organizations working in other countries (like Mexico) if they even mention abortion, has also caused a severe cutback in their ability to provide birth control information and services. The result is more desperate people with more mouths to feed, therefore more pressure to cross the border. In other words, a short term anti-abortion victory which continues to create long term human misery, despair and death.

To anyone who is planning to donate in behalf of planned parenthood, please help low income women like myself be able to seek some health care here in las vegas, please donate to the them directly so women can seek some medical help, we have no where to go, las vegas is full of greedy corporations and don't care about health care, so when i needed some care i was told over the phone if i don't have 100 dollars up front I cannot be seen, not to mention other costs, the people in this state are making sure they make big profits in health care and if you need some help your treated like a parasitic cockroach.In a country that is ok with spending 200 billion for annihilation around the planet can anyone tell me why the average person can't get the right to a doctor?

Apparently no none noticed that public radio sold out to the right quite some time ago. I guess that's because no one listens anymore.

Yeah Denny! Baby, You got my support! I've seen Pro lifers actually beat up a girl coming out of a PP for a checkup. One pro lifer guy at my local branch has sexual assault charges on his record and has been in multiple fights with young girls in front of PP. Denny, I hate to say it, leave Las Vegas, if you can.

I wonder what Hanley meant when he said, "To think that not accepting one gift of a few thousand dollars is worthy of not continuing 60 years of journalistic integrity doesn't make sense,"

On the surface it seems as if he is trying to say that his radio station exemplifies journalistic integrity, but he is careful to not actually make that claim because he knows it isn't true. The present dispute has exposed that claim as totally false. On the other hand, assuming that it were true, why would leaving Duquesne NOT continue jounalistic integrity? I really don't see the connection between being at Duquesne and showing journalistic integrity.

What'd you expect having a public station in a Catholic University?

NPR has been rubbish for the past 25 years and the Communications act of 96 put the last nail in the coffin.

Anyone who hasn't learned to stream internet radio or get their news off the net isn't bright enough to deserve better.