My letter to NPR, pass it on!

Dear Vermont Public Radio,

Thank you for contacting me by mail, requesting a donation to support your radio station.

I feel compelled to write back to you and explain why I can no longer support VPR or NPR.

The last election, and the weeks since, have shown me that Public Radio has changed drastically over the last few years. It used to be a place where we could get a “different” or hopefully less biased view of world events than what we hear or read in the mainstream media.

I fear that has changed, and Public Radio has now been adopted by the rest of the corporate media, and alternative views are no longer being presented, at least not on the most important issues of our time.

During the election, I listened to your coverage. I was dismayed to hear your daily reports of the stump speeches by the candidates and the debates. You played soundbytes from both, but rarely, if ever, did I hear any of your commentators say anything when Bush made blatantly false statements. In fact your network was used as a megaphone for Bush lies.

Since the election I have been even more dismayed.

Your lack of coverage of the problems with the election – from voter suppression to the fraud associated with electronic voting machines – is a real mystery to me. In our democracy the integrity of our election is of the utmost importance. It has clearly been called into question, with many experts raising concerns about the voting machines, exit polls, and other related issues. Your coverage passed over this issue like it didn’t even exist. Any time you even mentioned it, it was in the context of a "conspiracy theory" raised by internet bloggers, obviously aimed at discrediting the entire question. This is exactly what we got on the mainstream media.

The problems with the election are real. They are not crazy conspiracy ideas by internet bloggers. Dozens of computer experts, PhD’s, and qualified professionals have been voicing their concerns, but you have refused to acknowledge them or even give them a voice.

Because of your lack of coverage on this vitally important issue, even liberal people who listen to NPR daily are still unaware of the facts and they think our election system is fine. It’s not. And I hold NPR partly responsible for this lack of awareness. When I talk to people about this issue, they invariably respond, "if all this is going on, why don't I hear about it on NPR?"

The integrity of our election system is perhaps the #1 issue in our country today, but you have suppressed the truth by reducing it to a conspiracy theory by internet bloggers. It is becoming more clear to me that NPR is now serving to protect the interests of the corporations who fund it, more than informing the public on the truth.

For these reasons my years of supporting NPR and VPR must now come to an end. I will also be telling everyone I know to stop supporting NPR and VPR for the reasons I have outlined in this letter, which will be posted on many web sites and discussion forums.

I hope that someday you will return to your previous focus of bringing more truthful unbiased coverage to the days events. If and when I see that happening I will reconsider supporting NPR and VPR. You could start by doing a feature series on the problems with electronic voting, and interview some of the experts, like professor Avi Rubin (Johns Hopkins), Dr. Steve Freeman at U of PA, Dr. Webb Mealy, or any of the consortium of PhD’s who have signed the document refuting the exit poll discrepancy explanation given by the networks. Until then I feel obligated to let others know how your organization is failing us and our democracy, and why they should join me in ending my decade long history of sending financial contributions to you.

With deep concerns,
Gary Beckwith

clearly, and given them good suggestions on what they could do to rectify it.

I agree that the failure of NPR (and PBS news) is a major factor in keeping the people who would really want to know about election fraud from being informed.

Thanks.

Awesome job man, thank god someone is taking the initiative and going out and sending them something. I use to love NPR too, but its a shame how low they will go for their fundraisers

Please post the response from the station, if you get one. Thanks for posting this.

Well written and thoughtful. I only hope that it is taken to heart.

along with a copy of this election fraud flyer:

http://www.solarbus.org/election/articles/voting-facts.pdf

and a check for ZERO dollars and ZERO cents.

I hope everyone will do the same. Use your own letter, or edit mine to your liking. Quietly not replying to their solicitations is not enough.

Peace,
gary

check for 0 dollars and 0 cents. Gonna do that. Right, when eliminating a media outlet or product, it's important to tell them why. Excellent letter.

I used to listen to NPR too and thought Juan Williams was good, but NO more. When you've been burned by a relationship of "trust" -- there's a point of no return. Now I scoff in their general direction, and don't even like to hear those chirpy NPR voices anymore. Betrayal.

I have the feeling that NPR stations all over the country are going to be getting something similar in their upcoming member fund drives. NPR is as bad as you say, and I believe the member funding HAS dropped way off since the big boys starting pumping hush money into it. As for me, I rarely listen anymore, I'm an AirAmerica gal all the way.

I'm gonna sit right down and write them a letter.

money talks

when they tried to get money from me

serious about election reform! NOt into dumping my money into a sure loser.

I wonder though, if we're being specific enough in our demands?

I wrote to them, saying that they basically have to fix the election problems or forget it.

Maybe I should have said, you have to:

**propose legislation that requires paper ballots and no DREs. (none of the proposed legislation does this)

**pursue criminal investigation of 2004 election fraud

**talk publically about the problems with the election

Then, maybe I'll think about coming back.

from me till they get serious about election fraud, and how I and many others had been working nonstop since the election on this issue, and how we saw the Greens and libs standing up for our elections, but not our own party, and that they were never going to win another one if they didn't deal with the computer rigging.

The guy on the phone said, "I know." And I said, "You do?" and he said yes. So then we started talking about Dean, and him knowing, and I told the guy how to find Votergate online because he didn't know about it, and then I gave him the link to the solarbus website! And he thanked me.

this is good.

we need to keep hammering at them. the message will get through. especially when we talk money.

sending them to Votergate is a good idea. I've been thinking lately, if I had only one thing to show someone, it would probably be the Votergate movie.

Gary

I'll do the same from now on everytime someone wants to hit me up.

that one year ago december during congress winter break, bush named two new highly conservative people to run npr and pbs?? they were put into place by * and they could not be removed until this december..many of us were praying for kerry..so this could be undone..but we know what happened and now those two people are fully entrenched in npr and pbs...they are radical right wingers..the changes began this past summer at npr when the long running morning host of pbs was fired and replaced.