{"id":1166,"date":"2001-10-05T08:15:42","date_gmt":"2001-10-05T13:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2001-10-05T08:15:42","modified_gmt":"2001-10-05T13:15:42","slug":"tanstaafl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/05\/tanstaafl.html","title":{"rendered":"TANSTAAFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

I listen to public radio. Listening to National Public Radio<\/a> on Colorado Public Radio<\/a> (AM 1340 in this area) is a regular fixture of my drive in (Morning Edition) and drive home (All Things Considered).<\/p>\n

I want to support it. I do. I know that the “public” part is about 5% of their budget, at most. The rest is from donations.<\/p>\n

Donations which mostly come through … (shudder) … Pledge Drives.<\/p>\n

These are similar to public TV pledge drives, but less interesting. They basically consist in the content you want to listen to being replaced by the same CPR announcers yammering about the same statistics, the same guilt-inducements, the same mind-numbing script over, and over, and over.<\/p>\n

I cannot tell you how much I hate Pledge Drives on CPR. With a passion undying. I start quoting Melville. It’s that bad.<\/p>\n

It’s so bad that I refuse to donate. I cannot in any way, shape, or form, support such activities. I would sooner cut off my hands, poke out my eyes, and go diving into a swimming pool full of broken glass.<\/p>\n

No. Frickin’. Way.<\/p>\n

But I feel guilty. I enjoy it. I make use of it. I should support it. And the only way to support it …<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

And I did, once. I donated something. And they spent at least three times that much over the following five year period sending me mailings to try and guilt me into donating more.<\/p>\n

Besides which, CPR is like the Borg of Public Radio. They’ve extended their empire from the Denver Metro area up and down the Front Range, and across the I-70 Corridor to western Colorado. It’s hard to find an NPR affiliate any more that is not part of the CPR Empire. Which has meant that a lot of local voices have been stilled. Which sucks.<\/p>\n

Don’t want to support that. No way.<\/p>\n

But …<\/p>\n

I do enjoy the shows. I do make use of them, listen to them, except during Pledge Week, when I’ll actually flip on other local drive-time yammerers to avoid it. And, to be fair, this particular drive the CPR interruptions have been much shorter. Five minutes of yammering, ten minutes of show, five minutes of yammering, ten minutes of show … Movng from the Utterly Awful to only being Wildly Annoying.<\/p>\n

Still …<\/p>\n

(Still … couldn’t they have held off on the Fall Pledge Drive for another week ….)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I listen to public radio. Listening to National Public Radio on Colorado Public Radio (AM 1340 in this area) is a regular fixture of my drive in (Morning Edition) and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-moguls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":298,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/06\/driving_me_craz.html","url_meta":{"origin":1166,"position":0},"title":"Driving me crazy","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-May-03 8:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not the best of ways to end the work day: Despite being ready to leave early, I realized that I needed to do my out-of-office messages for tomorrow, which meant...","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":301,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/06\/tuesday_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":1166,"position":1},"title":"Tuesday","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-May-03 1:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Thus it's the right date (miraculously) for this week's This-or-That Tuesday: the Media Edition....","rel":"","context":"In "Personal Q&A"","block_context":{"text":"Personal Q&A","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/personal-qa"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1090,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/17\/the_irony_gods.html","url_meta":{"origin":1166,"position":2},"title":"The Irony Gods Strike Again","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Oct-01 7:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Off driving to dinner tonight, I was caught on traffic on the Schuykill (pronounced \"Skoo-kill\") Expressway and fumbled around on the radio, looking for NPR. 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