There was NPR's lisping Ira Glass, thinking he was funny, sending NPR listeners into a panic. Possibly they should leave the humor to Alec Baldwin in the future? They did themselves no favors with Glass' running bit about 'thieves.'
Who's stealing from NPR?
Listeners. According to Ira Glass, listeners who don't donate are stealing.
Does it seem strangely familiar? In 2000, The Simpsons' "Missionary Impossible" episode aired (season eleven, episode fifteen, written by Ron Hauge). Homer just wanted to watch his favorite British sitcom but it kept getting interrupted for a PBS pledge drive hosted by Betty White.
Betty White: If you like great PBS programs like Do Shut Up and Shut Your Gob you'll want to support our pledge drive. If you watch even one second of PBS and don't contribute, you're a thief, a common thief!
Man: Okay, take it easy, Betty.
Betty: Sorry, but these thieves make me so mad. You know who you are, thieves!
That was hilarious. It was also parody. On The Simpsons.
On NPR's recent pledge drives, it was deadly serious.
Vivian Schiller probably could have gotten away with firing Juan Williams if she hadn't cracked jokes about it in public. We're not saying she was right to fire Williams (we opposed the firing and called it out in real time). We are saying that her bad manners and sore winner behavior -- best on display in her public 'joke' that Juan Williams needed therapy -- ensured that that Schiller would be out as CEO of NPR and that Congress would begin to (yet again) question tax money funding NPR. At the start of this month, NPR finally hired a new CEO, Gary Knell. Knell is also president and CEO of Sesame Workshop.
This is part of a new direction for NPR. Keach Hagey (POLITICO) got at some of that in a report earlier this month, "By selecting someone with virtually no newsroom experience but a long history of both defending the federal funding of public media and raising money, NPR signaled that the battle ahead will not be about journalism, but about survival." In terms of fund raising, Gary Knell is outshined by hundreds and hundreds of people (including his own wife Kim Larson).
Hagey noted that efforts to cut funding in the Senate had been stopped by the Democratic majority and that this majority might change after the 2012 elections -- a possibility NPR was preparing for.
But despite having a lengthy (especially by POLITICO standards) article, Hagey missed the point such as in this summary near the end of the article: "During his days at Sesame Workshop, formely the Children's Television Workshop, which he joined in 1989 and has led since 2000, he testified before Congress and made formal appeals for the importance of CPB funding."
Yes, Knell is adequate when appearing before Congress. He's not a super star (possibly because he's smart enough to best way to sway politicians to your side is to make them look good) but he is adequate. Where does he excell? Speaking to friends at the Workshop, we were told he is an "idea person," that he's good with the "big picture," that he has "vision." We're not disputing those claims but we will translate them for you.
The Children's Television Workshop struggled frequently as a non-profit (while producing outstanding program) and attempted to work away from the grant model that it started under. Investments (investments CTW made, not people investing in CTW) helped it in the seventies and eighties but money was always a problem. It's rather amazing how precarious the workshop's financial situation was in the 80s -- a decade known for home entertainment and creating the home entertainment library. Though efforts were made with computer games,somehow the workshop kept missing out when it came to the home video arena.
Knell supported efforts that would make Sesame Workshop independent, efforts which worked less well in the early days, before he was president and CEO. He was a strong advocate for licensing and, with his legal background, very good at structuring contracts so the workshop didn't end up with chump change. That was what repeatedly saw he advance at the workshop. He didn't come up with, for instance, the idea of licensing Elmo for the Mattel doll, but he made damn sure that if the merchandise turned into a windfall, Sesame Workshop saw a large portion of the profits. (Tickle Me Elmo was a best selling toy in 1996 and 1997 and remained a strong seller for many years after.)
By the time he'd advanced up the chain to president and CEO, there were multitudes of toys, videos, games, children's books, snacks, you name it. As a former CTW exec told us, "Not since Gloria Vanderbilt disgraced her family's good name has anyone gone so overboard stamping a brand on everything." And, in the process, Sesame Workshop raked in millions and millions.
We're surprised that POLITICO missed that part of the story because Hagey notes Senator Jim DeMint is an opponent of government funding for public television. But he forgets to note what DeMint is most famous for when it comes to arguing against funding. That would be a column he wrote:
Shows like Sesame Street are thriving, multimillion-dollar enterprises. According to the 990 tax form all nonprofits are required to file, Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $956,513 -- nearly a million dollars -- in compensation in 2008. And, from 2003 to 2006, Sesame Street made more than $211 million from toy and consumer product sales. Big Bird will be just fine without his federal subsidies.
The link goes to PolitiFact which finds that DeMint's numbers check out but wants to argue that doesn't mean "some services" might not be cut if they lost public funding. That reminds us an awful lot of a scene from Black Widow featuring Debra Winger as Alex, an FBI agent, and Theresa Russell as Catherine, a woman who marries rich men and kills them (script by Ronald Bass, directed by Bob Rafelson).
Alex: You really like those things?
Catherine: (Eating a purple mangosteen) My second husband was addicted.
Alex: Second husband? How many have you had?
Catherine: Lots. That's how I got rich.
Alex: Once wasn't enough to get rich.
Catherine: Rich is hard. You never really figure you're quite there.
Apparently not.
And Gary Knell got the message out to sell hard this pledge drive. But NPR's audience really isn't the same as the core audience for the Home Shopping Network. And someone should have thought to use a light touch.
Not Ira Glass who was smacking his lips in that annoying was to punctuate his lisps and gave NPR listeners shocking insight into what their 'friend' really thinks of them. "Don't chose the wrong side in this war!" barked NPR's own Tony Randall.
The war, Ira wanted you to know, was over whether you support NPR or not. And you could only be a supporter if you were a financial supporter. E-mails poured into The Common Ills all month noting this garbage. His Bully Boy dualism of you're-either-with-us-or-against-us was considered offensive in the best of times but outrageous with the country in the midst of The Great Recession.
And what was especially offensive were the phone calls Ira was making and playing over the airwaves. In one spot, he's told about this guy who said he was going to contribute to NPR and didn't.
He told NPR he was going to contribute? He made a pledge and didn't honor it?
No, he mentioned to one of his friends -- who turned out to be a kiss-ass fan of Ira's -- that he was going to contribute and didn't.
So Ira calls him and hounds him over the phone. Ira wants him to know that it takes money to do shows like This American Life. Actually, NPR could save a lot of money by not carrying those shows (PRI actually distributes This American Life -- on air, Ira refers to it as "NPR" and does the same with Terry Gross and other shows that a former NPR ombudsperson insisted to us should not be called "NPR programs"). That would certainly reduce the huge salaries people like Glass and Terry Gross currently receive. Strange that Ira didn't want to tell the man how much he made -- the man he was demanding money from.
In another spot, Ira was feeling sorry for Scott Simon (NPR reporter) and telling you that Scott needed money and if you didn't contribute Scott would be covering traffic and not news. It was one threat after another. And there's something deeply troubling about a request for money from an enterprise that already gets millions in which they're telling you if you contribute, they'll do the exact same thing they're doing now. In other words, "Give us your money. Or we'll stop working."
But the spot that really ticked off listeners was when Ira accessed a station's donor list, found out that someone hadn't donated since 2002 and called to harass the man. This did not build trust with listeners. As we noted at the top, when you donate to NPR, they ask you if you'd like to be thanked on air or not thereby implying a confidentiality to the relationship. At least until it turned out Ira had access to donor lists and can out whomever he wants on air.
Gary Knell may be smart about many things but this fundraiser demonstrates he's not smart about all things. NPR and its audience are currently in the rockiest relationship in NPR's history. That has to do with the reason the last CEO left, it has to do with the fundraising meeting that was taped by a conservative outlet and made public, it has to do with the nasty way that some on airs have taken to interviewing certain members of Congress, cutting them off in mid-sentence to toss a different question at them than the one they're trying to answer.
All of those were problems for NPR. And many stations just finished (or are finishing) an October pledge drive where NPR came off not needy but damn greedy. Bad enough their nonsense year after year about how you spend more for a cup of coffee each day (we don't drink coffee) and that money could go to NPR. But this go-round they had Ira Glass telling listeners to fork over their money to NPR because "this is a war" and you're either with NPR or you're against it. They had Ira hounding people who told friends they'd pledge but didn't. They had Ira calling up people who once donated to NPR but had not done so in a few years. It wasn't funny and it did not build trust between the listener and NPR. It was the equivalent of standing on the corner waiting for the traffic light to change and being yelled out by an angry vagrant demanding money. For an entity hoping to increase donations, that's bad business.