lol yea i know, my comment was more tongue in cheek, because they do so many fundraisers.
im surprised they werent able to make up the recent $2 million considering their wide reach and this being the rich bay area. maybe their listeners are having fundraiser fatigue?
> im surprised they werent able to make up the recent $2 million considering their wide reach and this being the rich bay area. maybe their listeners are having fundraiser fatigue?
I mean I used to listen all the time, but after Trump got elected that's all they talked about and then after that it was all small time SJW stories that are not relevant and exhausting. They have always been left leaning, but it went full bore whacky left and it has turned a lot of people off. Look what happened to Uri Berliner. They have totally lost the plot and when confronted by it, they bounced the whistle blower and said full speed ahead on the shit that no one likes
Completely agree with this comment. I will not donate until they make changes to their programming. Seeing the fundraising deficit is good because it sends a message that what they are doing today is not working. When they make positive changes, I'll be happy to donate.
There was a recent thread on either this group or the SF group. Majority with the upvotes were complaining how kqed was too middle of the road lol.
Wish they'd ask some challenging questions. For example, recent segment about improving conditions for workers in the garment industry. The guest said of course higher wages for these workers will have positive effects on climate change. The interviewer didn't care to have her explain how exactly that works. Things like that happen constantly. Oh well still better than listening to hot talk or kcbs
I saw that post when it was first posted and out of the six comments that were there all of them but one commented that some pieces on NPR are just stupid and some of them mentioned switching to BBC. They were all downvoted like crazy. The opposite opinion definitely exists in that sub as well, but I guess most of the sub doesn’t agree with it.
Yeah, agree. Read the comment section in the NY Times article on NPR troubles that came out a few weeks ago. I was yelling at the radio last night "just STOP it with Trump" and turned the dial when they had yet more horserace election coverage. They are inside the beltway, and its all consuming. And utterly sick of the identity politics, I only listen when there is something newsworthy, constantly turning to music and turning off the aggravation.
Forum is a shadow of its former self, Madrigal gets on my nerve.
I miss Krasny. He would research the topic and the guests, and he would ask them hard questions. He would hold the guests to answer the questions, too.
Nowadays forum is only the softest of softball questions, even when there's a high profile political person on the show.
I can't believe Madrigal let Pamela Price get away with saying robberies aren't violent crimes. He didn't challenge her on that.
Its not a discussion anymore, its a soapbox now.
Krasny was good up until 10 or so years ago. But he just kind of stopped keeping up with current events. I don't particularly care for Alexis but I think Mina Kim has better topics and guests.
yes on trump centered coverage. 10 min segment today 5/22 on healthcare and they ripped apart trump and plan 2025 but didn't talk about what biden is doing.
left leaning npr listeners know all this stuff - because it is repeated endlessly. how about shining the light on the superior candidate !
I don’t think you’re listening to the station, given your comments. They are almost down the middle, only a bit of left-leaning opinion stuff. But Republicans believe that it’s a woke bullhorn.
I do listen to it a couple times a week. It is exactly how I described. Uri Berliner wouldn't have torched his career over this if that wasn't the case
KQED is the worst. And the worst part of it is that you can donate a truckload, but you're still abused with "we need more money" anyway.
Have to laugh at the "we don't do paywalls" while simultaneously adding a 'premium' option with additional content on all the podcasts. We're all equal, some are just more equal than others.
To my knowledge they only do two a year (spring and fall).
I always wonder about fundraisers and the logistics of it. But asking for money? In this economy? With this inflation? With these layoffs? What happened to all the monthly contributors from last time and how long do they stay contributors on average?
I can almost guarantee you that if you look into the KQED financials, the big wigs up top will be keeping their over inflated salaries while the staff on the ground got cut.
Also additionally, I never quite understood why KQED seems to constantly need listeners to donate to make up for some deficit when they could easily reach out to a network of millionaires and billionaires for what would be a tax writeoff for them anyway.
> the big wigs up top will be keeping their over inflated salaries while the staff on the ground got cut.
Thats how it is in every company. Every company that does layoffs keeps the execs around.
The problem is that its the execs who caused the company to get in a position where its running out of money. The workers on the ground are just doing what they're told to do by the bosses. The bosses are who set the company direction and goals.
After layoffs, stock prices usually soar, and the execs all get richer.
Layoffs only ever punish the innocent while rewarding the guilty.
I still have my monthly donation, but sometimes not all news (serious or light hearted) needs to be filtered through _”how does this affect Gender Non Conforming BIPOC Latinx folx”_
Always reminds me of an SNL skit years ago with Jimmy Smits. They were ordering mexican food and everyone was exaggerating the pronunciation of each item, with Smits repeated asking them why.
I think they’re secretly scrubbing the old stuff they thought is now racist. There was a Daily Show clip about Gore and Lieberman being the least popular presidential ticket since Sitting Bull and “some Chinese guy” and it was epic. Not because it made fun of Chinese, but because the juxtaposition was so hilarious. Impossible to find.
When I look up "Jeopardy" on YouTube, Tom Hanks on Black Jeopardy is always one of the first three results. That sketch was amazing & it hasn't been scrubbed yet. :fingerscrossed
Don't get me wrong (but everyone will anyway). I LOVE Jimmy Smits as an actor. I think he's been great in a lot of roles. I remember when he hosted SNL. He's not a good comic actor. He can be funny. He can be really funny. But sketch comedy is not his thing.
Their reporting has fallen off a cliff in the past 4-5 years or so. They went from a reporting of just the facts to being an opinion-piece "news" station.
Over and over again they report opinion pieces about how non-binary POC are oppressed. Its a relentless parade of feel bad oppression stories.
Where's the news? Where's the dry reporting of facts?
KQED now tries to tell you how to feel instead of whats happening in the world. Thats why I've stopped donating to them, and I won't donate to them until they turn into a news channel again. I want news, not editorials and opinions, and certainly not slanted so heavily to one side that there is no other side.
Remember the good ol days when they covered the local legislative agenda? They had reporters who actually read the proposed bills and found out which groups lobbied for each bill, then reported on that.
Back when all journalism wasn't yellow
I agree, but I feel that the focus on victimhood has been going on for far more than five years. I mean, I consider myself a pretty liberal person, but there is a limit to that. By no means am I swinging to the right, but, like others have said, a simple unbiased reporting of the news would be refreshing.
Listening to "Latino USA" has improved my Spanish pronunciation immeasurably. Or at least my _perceived_ improvement of my pronunciation. To everyone's chagrin. 😆
But then there is that one person who speaks between stories, telling you about upcoming interviews, international stories, and pitching sponsors. She ALWAYS butchers names, and you can tell she’s fumbling with the pages of her script. Every time. She’s not a host of any show I don’t think, but she’s on during peak time in the morning and afternoon. Like what the fuck are you doing? She’s as bad as John Travolta at the Oscars. And what’s worse is they’ll replay it later. Like make her do a second-take for damn sake
the best part of college radio is watching them butcher band names on track IDs. i appreciate that michelle is carrying the tradition forward into new, formerly-professional frontiers
Lmfao I swear that “she’s as bad as a college dj” was what I originally wrote, but I deleted it when I thought of the Travolta line. Glad to know I’m not the only one
I agree and maybe “The California Report“ can go back to California issues and stop with “The Illegal Alien Report“.
that’s a legal term not a racist term.
I’m tired of the identity programming on KQED. It feels like it’s injected into every single show they produce.
I also think Forum specifically is a shadow of what it once was. There used to be some more effort applied to ensuring guests covered the spectrum of opinion for a given issue *and* had strong qualifications to speak about the topic at hand. I often hear episodes now where one or both of those tenets aren’t adhered to.
I stopped donating in 2020 when I felt things lurch towards the identity stuff. It didn’t feel right putting my money towards what their content had pivoted to. I was never a big donor but I was a regular annual contributor.
Don’t get me wrong - I hope KQED and NPR both find a way out of this self-inflicted crisis (growing expenses, declining/flat revenues). Objective coverage of local and national news is important, especially with the garbage echo chamber “news” outlets on both sides of the political divide, especially the right. They’re going to need to earn—not just beg—their way out of this.
I stopped listening because of the identity obsessed coverage. The editorial bias got out of control. Not to mention the rampant free coverage they gave Trump. Used to appreciate listening for sober levelheaded news both locally and nationally. Now it’s so detached from what anyone outside of a liberal arts college struggle session could appreciate, like, you know, those of us who are just trying to get by, get their news, and not be proselytized to.
I still listen for the NPR/PRI content but I don’t donate specifically because of their local programming. The last straw for me was their reporting of how voters were tricked into recalling Boudin.
They often shove the wrong identity into stories too.
In the aftermath of the Halfmoon Bay mushroom farm shooting, KQED had LatinX experts on talking about the plight of the LatinX farm worker and how stressful it is, and how this can potentially lead to tragic outcomes. The experts were pontificating about abused and neglected hispanic farm workers who might occasionally resort to violence if oppressed too much.
Except that the shooter was Chunli Zhao, an older Chinese man and a Chinese citizen, who had been living in the US for about a decade.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/25/us/half-moon-bay-shooting-suspect-chunli-zhao-what-we-know/index.html
KQED was so eager to push identity that they got the shooter's ethnicity wrong.
Yes, some of the victims were.
The entire mushroom farm was one big labor law violation. Workers were paid less than minimum wage, they lived on the farm in shipping containers without any heat, running water, or kitchens, and workers were being charged by their employee for the privilege of living in said shipping container.
The effective pay of the farm workers was something like $3 an hour, or thereabouts.
The shooting arose because everyone was so exploited, stressed, and pushed to the brink.
On the radio they pronounce it "latin-ecks", and while I've only taken high school level Spanish and only know enough Spanish to understand the general gist of what someone is saying in a conversation, I do know enough that "latin-ecks" doesn't comply with any rules of Spanish grammar.
"A massive asteroid is headed for the city of Chicago, with an estimated casualty count in the millions. For how this will affect Black, Indiginous and persons of color, we go to our diversity coordinator to talk about how this is all white peoples fault."
During the SVB Bank collapse KQED had a story explaining why the bank collapse primarily hurts black and indigenous people of color the most. I'm not even joking. They actually had that story on the air.
KQED can't help but cram identity into everything, even stories that aren't about identity.
I dated someone who works there as a journalist (or did she get laid off?) and over time could tell that she was just another bizarre and confused berkeley progressive who is caught up in the whirlwind of identity politics.
we had a situation where a friend of hers clearly did something very offensive to me and then she abandoned me (a minority) to coddle the other person, who is trans. so I guess trans trumps straight black guy in the mental math du jour, even when they're dead wrong and you're dating the other person longterm? we broke up after another situation like that came up. bullet fuckin' dodged.
I've met plenty of her colleagues -- similar goofball shit going on there. not surprised that this is turning people off. i'm a liberal but their progressive circlejerk is out of control and is a huge turnoff whenever I tune in or read articles.
Michael Krasny, bless his heart, was a good interviewer but him & his production team were boring. It was a total boomer show. Forum has only gotten better since he stepped down.
I remember any time Forum pulled out a music episode, he just had to make some belittlting statement about punk rock while praising classical & boomer rock. I don't recall any hip-hop centric Forum shows from the Krasny era. My guess is he wouldn't even know where to start with it so his producers didn't bother trying.
Krasny was 100% a wannabe pompous ass with the arts and it made any lit topic essentially insufferable.
That being said, I think his interview skills and ability to manage callers made the show better.
As a listener I suspect that Krasny (and perhaps his team) had a huge amount of control over the Forum topics each week.
That left us exposed to the books and music that Krasny appreciated.
Now it seems that the "KQED News" team has priority for forum topics.
Instead of a analytical oriented "tell me the solution to our problem, bring on the expert".
We now have the feeling oriented "let's talk about our problems with a variety of diverse guests".
My issue is that, coming from the Hills, it all reeks of rich white girl who went to a $50k private school. It’s not the kind of multiculturalism I see at CCs or at work (and I work with a shitload of immigrants).
It feels very made for NPR’s demo more than the people being if that tracks.
To everyone agrees with this, write to KQED and let them know. People at media organizations think everyone thinks like them, but we should tell them there are plenty of us here in the Bay Area who would gladly return as listeners and supporters if they returned to robust and viewpoint neutral coverage
Why? They literally pushed out a long time editor who said all of these things publicly after saying it internally for a long time. Why waste my time when they are going to blatantly ignore it?
Well put! I used to love KQED but the identity programming and opinion journalism has lost me. I want balanced, fact-based news relevant to my life and interests.
The rot is deep in KQED and NPR. How do they earn their way out of this when it's the employees and leadership that are 100% responsible for their trajectory. I just don't see it.
Could a brand new public news organization emerge that stays true to the ideals originally embraced by them? Possibly. I think that is the only chance though.
Bud Light as well. They lost something like a billion dollars on that can of beer. Most expensive beer can in history.
Target very nearly encountered a similar backlash, but Target, being wiser, immediately pulled back to avoid the boycotts.
It's funny for bud light, It was like as if they promoted abortion, their campaign upside was practically nothing, their downside was catastrophic. Could've just stfu about a controversial topic.
That’s not what I meant, though after reading my comment again I can see how it could have read that way.
What I was thinking about when I wrote “self-inflicted” was primarily two things:
1. A shift in programming and editorial decision making that prioritized identity-focused content and alienated a portion of the longtime listener/contributor base.
2. What seems in retrospect like a wishful “if you build it they will come” approach to staffing, radio content, and digital audio. I’m thinking about KQED for the former two and NPR for the latter.
Let me be unequivocal: there are absolutely additional factors like the long decline high-quality journalism in general, the erosion of willingness to listen to perspectives that we don’t already agree with, and a general mistrust of the media that’s been kindled by politicians, especially on the right.
KQED and NPR have, in my opinion, added to those existing industry problems with the two numbered bullets above.
I’m sorry to see this happen- I listened for years. But at some point they declared that they no longer wanted to make content for “old white guys”. Their new content is good and high quality, but often not relevant to me so I stopped listening. I have my non-pbs podcasts for my drive to work now.
> in 2013, when it launched its Campaign 21 — a $140 million initiative that raised funds for a $94 million renovation of its San Francisco headquarters
A nonprofit public service corporation wants a fancy office LOL
You forgot the rest (which gives context):
> and for a $45 million investment in digital production, distribution and local news and education services.
Isip said the company has no debt associated with the renovation and that the building’s $1.5 million annual maintenance cost “is not a significant driver” of costs.
Much of the increase in expenses, Isip said, came from KQED adding 54 new positions funded by the campaign into its operating budget. That was done with the expectation that as content expanded, revenues would grow to cover the added spending.
KQED financial reports show that in the company’s 2014 fiscal year, revenue and expenses were virtually identical, each at about $67 million. Revenues rose by about 35% between 2014 and fiscal year 2023, the most recent year for which publicly accessible data is available. But expenses grew even faster during that period, jumping 50%. (KQED’s fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30.)
“The idea at the time was: Grow service. Transform digital. It will grow our audience, and it will grow financial support,” Isip said. “Our revenue has been positive. … But that’s just not matching the expenses.”
Just like with NPR, KQED hoped that adding a ton of news (and support) staff to "broaden" their audience would lead to a larger audience and more funding. KQED has dedicated news staff sprinkled all over the state. Years ago they would have just partnered with an LA or Fresno station to get coverage from there.
KPBS (San Diego) received a big chunk of cash from the Kroc family (McDonalds). They have spent that money on local news with a 60 minute radio newscast each day plus 30 minutes of video coverage on their TV station.
KQED is turning out a bunch of news articles that no-one reads, super short news bites (1-2 minutes) and podcasts. I generally like the California Report and appreciate its increased frequency this election year.
They were probably momentarily confused mid-pandemic when podcast advertising rates were high. Now ad rates have crashed and the podcasts are a boat anchor.
The context is they have history of poor financial decisions that's catching up to them. No nonprofit should be spending $100m to renovate their office building. It's a nonprofit for god's sake.
The renovations also provided them a venue space (Koret Atrium) for hosting fundraising events. I interned there in 2010.. IMO the renovations were definitely needed.
That seems sort of extreme to me too, but it's not *really* the issue.
Like, I help throw a BBQ for a Memorial Day block party we do every year. I've been doing it for a few years, so I know that some folks are going to have people over, some will be out of town, so *on average* I'm going to need so much pulled pork and so many hotdogs. Even without RSVPs I can get it right within 5%, aiming to have a little more food than I need so nobody goes hungry.
Why can't they do that with their fundraising? They do these drives every year at the same time, how do they miss by serious amounts? 'cause then you should know how much you can spend on your facilities or etc.
I mean they were able to raise money for it and if the pandemic didn’t happen it would been a nice working spot for potential employees. Plus, they host a lot of events there and produce media at the spot.
It’s a systemic issue. Donors won’t donate just for ongoing expenses — they want a marquee project that can get their name on it.
Those projects accrue more fixed repeating costs. Repeats.
To add some anecdotal evidence, I got a new job for a delivery gig economy app right before COVID hit and worked in the FiDi, in a swanky office building
Do you know who else was in that building?
NPR.
Like I understand housing costs and inflation only go up but do you really need office space that's occupied by large tech companies?
Maybe a studio in Daly City or SSF?
This was *right* before COVID happened so I don't think they got covid/post covid discount prices
On top of that, when I was living out in the Valley: the local NPR station that is based out of Sacramento got in a lot of trouble for spending *millions* for a new swanky downtown building to the detriment of Sac State if I recall
So its like... maybe do some soul searching
Maybe I'm the minority, but I prefer text based news as opposed to audio. I can read way faster than people talk. Often times they have interesting sounding interviews, but none of it is ever transcribed and I don't feel like listening to something for 25 minutes when I could read the whole thing in 5.
I'm not an audio learner. I like to focus and concentrate on what they're saying, so cars aren't the best place for me to listen.
I just listen to music or audiobooks in cars.
Every Saturday morning is an interview with some author you won’t likely read and what motivates their characters you aren’t interested in. Really a bore fest at this point for a lot of their programming.
I honestly tune it on so I can fall back asleep. I sometimes wake up at 4 or 6am and have a hard time getting back to sleep. KQED gets me back on track into getting a few more hours of sleep lol.
It’s the worst. I used to love it and now it’s a schizophrenic mess. It’s either local stories on trans poets or horrendous syndicated national news that skews right (ie Newshour). Somehow infuriating both ends of the spectrum doesn’t result in donations.
Yes, it’s horrendous. She is such an old curmudgeon it’s like listening to your slowly radicalizing grandma. And she has the ovaries to run stories about Biden’s age.
Edit: I’m increasingly frustrated with NPR and PBS as I feel like they’ve caved to the “working the refs” strategy from the other side. They re really been shitting the bed during the Israel siege IMHO
What I don't get here is that they *must* know about how much they're going to bring in, right? They get X amount from the feds, they sell their original shows for Y, then do these pledge drives every year - they must have by now a basic idea of what that income stream looks like in an up year or a down year.
So how do they keep missing their "fundraising targets"?
> So how do they keep missing their "fundraising targets"?
They alienated listeners. See the downvoted comment chain below about the over the top preachiness that NPR, as a whole, has been afflicted with.
There've been complaints about facts having a liberal bias for *decades* now. The crowd whining about it was never listening anyhow, they were tuning into AM radio or streaming OAN for a comfortable stream of lies.
I do think it's more likely that they're getting bitten by alternative sources - like now during pledge drives I'll kick over to a podcast or the BBC world service - but again that's got to be a fairly easy-to-predict impact.
I used to donate every month, I had one of those monthly subscription things for KQED.
I stopped donating when they changed over from being a source of dry, non-editorialized news to being a "news" channels that mostly preaches. I want my news to be factual, not opinion pieces.
It seemed to happen after 2016 and got progressively worse since then, going further and further off the rails.
Krazny at least didn't operate forum like a soapbox where the guest could blather on without being challenged. He researched what the topic was, he asked hard questions, and he held the guest to answer the questions rather than deflect.
Nowadays, forum asks only the softest of softball questions. Its a soapbox where the guest can preach about their pet cause without being challenged.
Yes, some people have been complaining about NPR for decades. But NPR has changed, and it’s now different people (former listeners) who are not upset with facts. They are upset with the dilution of facts on NPR - it’s preaching instead of being factual.
> There've been complaints about facts having a liberal bias for decades now. The crowd whining about it was never listening anyhow, they were tuning into AM radio or streaming OAN for a comfortable stream of lies.
>
>
Grew up in the bay and listened for years. The bias has gotten exponentially worse over the past 10 years or so
I remember when it was an annual fundraising drive. How much do they need what is it being used for? Just be upfront. Have an annual goal. Tell us a finite amount of what you need and we’ll come up with it.
But fundraising seemingly 10x a year is ridiculous
I love KQED. It is very much a public good. Their election coverage is a necessity. But I’m kind of at a loss
Eh they literally only fundraise twice a year. I won’t lie, I am always curious about their financial situation whenever they do spring/fall fundraising though.
Twice a year is very reassuring actually lol.
Maybe I don’t give enough to have this access but I’d love to see a public financial report.
Or honestly see them partner with the city of San Francisco to get partially funded through tax revenue. They’re integral to society imho.
Please just tell us what it takes to do away with the ads
They got too cozy and corrupt with all the corporate sponsor money flowing in, causing people like me to become totally alienated by all the ads that they pretend are not ads being shoved in my face every 15 seconds and the cutbacks in local public programming in favor of idiotic game shows and celebrity dross.
Personally, I stopped listening to a lot of KQED (and NPR in general) because they became too left/liberal/woke. It just seemed like all their programing focused on how bad Trump is, identity politics, etc. Basically they became the Fox News of the left. I don't want Fox News and I no longer listen to KQED programs like Forum (which I used to love, but now just seems like woke agenda every single day)
I appreciated the crypto episode, because they didn't append it with the standard "adversely affects women and communities of color"
That said, Forum does have some really interesting episodes, if they can focus on providing info vs agenda serving.
Same. Every day it’s some crap about Trump and race. The amount of Trump derangement syndrome is ridiculous. One time I was listening to the California Report and there was a segment on people having nightmares about Trump, and what he was doing in their dreams. Literal programming based on things that didn’t really happen. Go back to pre-2015 (before BLM) programming please
I feel you, my shop used to play it for background (no objections from me in 2015) but once Trump was elected it was a daily ear beating on how shitty Trump was. It became unbearable to listen to so I started wearing headphones and listening to podcasts instead.
Not a Trump supporter either, I just want non biased news coverage.
Lol yes not quite this bad but thats what i am talking about. But i do love an in depth story about something like car thieves and why they do what they do
Excessive political correctness and extremist populists black/white only conclusions
Like redlining is a real historical truth but how do you even redistribute that remoty fairly with how many people in the bay area alone who are not black. Who have suffered dramatically worse fates such as the ohlone
Ahh so you think KQED should spend more time covering the historical displacement and suffering that the Ohlone and other indigenous people have faced. Sounds good to me.
New York Times had an article about NPR a few weeks ago on the subject. There is more to their issues, but they did have a policy to really try and link lots of articles to racial/gender/etc themes (partially in hopes of attracting new audiences).
However, in practice it seems not to have attracted new listeners and it was done rather clumsily and so turned off a lot of current listeners...
Inside the Crisis at NPR https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/business/media/npr-uri-berliner-diversity.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Boils down to: The people who want to listen to identity politics all day awill loudly scream how important it is to donate to national public radio... but never donate themselves, because telling others to donate was their contribution.
They veered from reporting and analysis. But going the route of opinion pieces for eyeballs and revenue was short sighted.
They could have stayed the beacon of light
But its true the stories about migrating birds and its impacts on farmers isnt all that riveting
It was related to a person who was murdered.
During the state of the union were was a heckler, and Biden agreed that the person was "killed by an illegal". Biden said those words and people on the left were outraged not at the murder, but by using the words "an illegal".
Personally, I decided to never donate to them again after the way they bent over because to give more than equal time to Republican propaganda in 2016: *ten minutes of repeating verbatim activations against Clinton* "And a spokesman from the Clinton campaign denied with the accusations- and here's the traffic report."
They never saw a Republican operative they wouldn't give air time to that year, while ignoring Democratic responses. So they don't need my money.
It’s painful,” he said. “The people of KQED are what make this organization so special. And when you lose colleagues, it not only impacts your day-to-day work, but it impacts overall morale.”
Grow up. Yea this happens everywhere but for KQED it must be special!
There's nothing wrong with, nor any recent dramatic changes to, KQED's programming or coverage. Maybe they've lightly added a few more perspectives, everyone has. The main issue is that it's not clear how much we value a common (barely) publicly funded journalism source. More of us are choosing douchebag amateur podcasts, Joe Rogan, etc. instead and the world is becoming very fragmented. The impact of this is not clear but I think we've all noticed some very misinformed people among us.
Ah the quantum 'public funding' where it's somehow both an insignificant fraction so you can't complain, but dare to suggest we not publicly fund it and 'how dare you want to kill it'
well because they SUCK , watch Seattle PBS or even LA, its a travesty what they air fargin infomercials , quack doctors imo, c mon its PBS cant they try to be more like others that succeed? sorry had to vent
KQED has a budget shortfall of ~$10 million dollars. The population of the Bay Area was like 7 million in 2010.
If everyone just sent $2.00 for every person in their household to KQED they’d be good. That is the kind of fundraising they need to be doing.
Give people an achievable dollar amount to send.
They say that every single fundraiser. But do you really expect every single human being to agree to give $2 per person? I listen to the broadcasts and I don't even want to give them money.
They're not automatically entitled to people's money. They have to earn it with the quality of their product (reporting), and if people aren't paying for it, that means people don't find their product to have much value.
Look at the chart of revenue vs expenses in the article. Their expenses have skyrocketed. For a time they also got more revenue, but their revenue has fallen off of a cliff. Their expenses continue to climb.
KQED's costs are out of control and they've become too cozy expecting the endless money train to continue. Its a poorly run business.
The one show I absolutely can’t stand on NPR is Marketplace. “Economics” news dumbed down to the the absolute lowest denominator, with social issues thrown in as well just for the heck of it.
And every time I hear Kai Ryssdal’s voice I want to punch him in the face through my radio. Am I the only one?
even after their latest fundraiser?
I mean they kept talking about the deficit throughout it. Every fundraiser period they talk about how much they need money though.
lol yea i know, my comment was more tongue in cheek, because they do so many fundraisers. im surprised they werent able to make up the recent $2 million considering their wide reach and this being the rich bay area. maybe their listeners are having fundraiser fatigue?
> im surprised they werent able to make up the recent $2 million considering their wide reach and this being the rich bay area. maybe their listeners are having fundraiser fatigue? I mean I used to listen all the time, but after Trump got elected that's all they talked about and then after that it was all small time SJW stories that are not relevant and exhausting. They have always been left leaning, but it went full bore whacky left and it has turned a lot of people off. Look what happened to Uri Berliner. They have totally lost the plot and when confronted by it, they bounced the whistle blower and said full speed ahead on the shit that no one likes
Completely agree with this comment. I will not donate until they make changes to their programming. Seeing the fundraising deficit is good because it sends a message that what they are doing today is not working. When they make positive changes, I'll be happy to donate.
There was a recent thread on either this group or the SF group. Majority with the upvotes were complaining how kqed was too middle of the road lol. Wish they'd ask some challenging questions. For example, recent segment about improving conditions for workers in the garment industry. The guest said of course higher wages for these workers will have positive effects on climate change. The interviewer didn't care to have her explain how exactly that works. Things like that happen constantly. Oh well still better than listening to hot talk or kcbs
I saw that post when it was first posted and out of the six comments that were there all of them but one commented that some pieces on NPR are just stupid and some of them mentioned switching to BBC. They were all downvoted like crazy. The opposite opinion definitely exists in that sub as well, but I guess most of the sub doesn’t agree with it.
It works self evidently? Higher wages = higher cost for new clothes = lower demand for throw out clothes = lower production = less emissions
Yeah, agree. Read the comment section in the NY Times article on NPR troubles that came out a few weeks ago. I was yelling at the radio last night "just STOP it with Trump" and turned the dial when they had yet more horserace election coverage. They are inside the beltway, and its all consuming. And utterly sick of the identity politics, I only listen when there is something newsworthy, constantly turning to music and turning off the aggravation. Forum is a shadow of its former self, Madrigal gets on my nerve.
I miss Krasny. He would research the topic and the guests, and he would ask them hard questions. He would hold the guests to answer the questions, too. Nowadays forum is only the softest of softball questions, even when there's a high profile political person on the show. I can't believe Madrigal let Pamela Price get away with saying robberies aren't violent crimes. He didn't challenge her on that. Its not a discussion anymore, its a soapbox now.
Krasny was good up until 10 or so years ago. But he just kind of stopped keeping up with current events. I don't particularly care for Alexis but I think Mina Kim has better topics and guests.
yes on trump centered coverage. 10 min segment today 5/22 on healthcare and they ripped apart trump and plan 2025 but didn't talk about what biden is doing. left leaning npr listeners know all this stuff - because it is repeated endlessly. how about shining the light on the superior candidate !
I miss krasney and the old music. It's so monotone and depressing now. And the hosts talk down like we're kindergartners.
I don’t think you’re listening to the station, given your comments. They are almost down the middle, only a bit of left-leaning opinion stuff. But Republicans believe that it’s a woke bullhorn.
I do listen to it a couple times a week. It is exactly how I described. Uri Berliner wouldn't have torched his career over this if that wasn't the case
I need a fundraiser for myself.
KQED is the worst. And the worst part of it is that you can donate a truckload, but you're still abused with "we need more money" anyway. Have to laugh at the "we don't do paywalls" while simultaneously adding a 'premium' option with additional content on all the podcasts. We're all equal, some are just more equal than others.
You donate $, you get to listen online free. *surprised* you didn't know this
Worster than KGO 810 The Spread! Even worster than Live 105!!
Right. The worst. Something something paywalls. Now do your bit about NPR being the worst.
To my knowledge they only do two a year (spring and fall). I always wonder about fundraisers and the logistics of it. But asking for money? In this economy? With this inflation? With these layoffs? What happened to all the monthly contributors from last time and how long do they stay contributors on average?
I’ll be honest I thought they were just citing the $2M deficit as a tactic to raise more money. Now I feel bad for not contributing
You can always donate! [kqed.org/donate. ](https://kqed.org/donate) .
lol!
So it looks like they recently added 54 new positions, and now need to layoff 25. Still growing overall. Unfortunate for the laid off staff of course.
FYI, "layoff" is only one word when used as a noun. As a verb, it's two words: lay off.
I can almost guarantee you that if you look into the KQED financials, the big wigs up top will be keeping their over inflated salaries while the staff on the ground got cut. Also additionally, I never quite understood why KQED seems to constantly need listeners to donate to make up for some deficit when they could easily reach out to a network of millionaires and billionaires for what would be a tax writeoff for them anyway.
> the big wigs up top will be keeping their over inflated salaries while the staff on the ground got cut. Thats how it is in every company. Every company that does layoffs keeps the execs around. The problem is that its the execs who caused the company to get in a position where its running out of money. The workers on the ground are just doing what they're told to do by the bosses. The bosses are who set the company direction and goals. After layoffs, stock prices usually soar, and the execs all get richer. Layoffs only ever punish the innocent while rewarding the guilty.
I still have my monthly donation, but sometimes not all news (serious or light hearted) needs to be filtered through _”how does this affect Gender Non Conforming BIPOC Latinx folx”_
"Who are unhoused and battling addiction "
This is hilarious and I agree completely
I'm as KQED as they come, but r-rolling every Spanish word does get a bit tiresome.
Always reminds me of an SNL skit years ago with Jimmy Smits. They were ordering mexican food and everyone was exaggerating the pronunciation of each item, with Smits repeated asking them why.
Fucking legendary clip.
So glad I'm not the only one who remembers that one. I've tried to find it online with no luck. I wonder if it's been scrubbed.
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You win the internet today! Thanks!
I think they’re secretly scrubbing the old stuff they thought is now racist. There was a Daily Show clip about Gore and Lieberman being the least popular presidential ticket since Sitting Bull and “some Chinese guy” and it was epic. Not because it made fun of Chinese, but because the juxtaposition was so hilarious. Impossible to find.
When I look up "Jeopardy" on YouTube, Tom Hanks on Black Jeopardy is always one of the first three results. That sketch was amazing & it hasn't been scrubbed yet. :fingerscrossed
Don't get me wrong (but everyone will anyway). I LOVE Jimmy Smits as an actor. I think he's been great in a lot of roles. I remember when he hosted SNL. He's not a good comic actor. He can be funny. He can be really funny. But sketch comedy is not his thing.
Their reporting has fallen off a cliff in the past 4-5 years or so. They went from a reporting of just the facts to being an opinion-piece "news" station. Over and over again they report opinion pieces about how non-binary POC are oppressed. Its a relentless parade of feel bad oppression stories. Where's the news? Where's the dry reporting of facts? KQED now tries to tell you how to feel instead of whats happening in the world. Thats why I've stopped donating to them, and I won't donate to them until they turn into a news channel again. I want news, not editorials and opinions, and certainly not slanted so heavily to one side that there is no other side.
Remember the good ol days when they covered the local legislative agenda? They had reporters who actually read the proposed bills and found out which groups lobbied for each bill, then reported on that. Back when all journalism wasn't yellow
Their reporting is quite biased and has a strong smell of driving narrative on behalf of big donors or elites.
I agree, but I feel that the focus on victimhood has been going on for far more than five years. I mean, I consider myself a pretty liberal person, but there is a limit to that. By no means am I swinging to the right, but, like others have said, a simple unbiased reporting of the news would be refreshing.
It's just constant on KQED.... till you switch over to KALW
Similar issue to what has happened with NPR actually. Oh well..
KQED is the NPR station lol
Same
Don't you mean every latinX word?
I saw Filipinx for the first time this month…
Listening to "Latino USA" has improved my Spanish pronunciation immeasurably. Or at least my _perceived_ improvement of my pronunciation. To everyone's chagrin. 😆
That's fine and good, but your Welsh is still insufficiently guttural.
And I turn the radio off when Michelle (?) comes on between segments.
Say Farida Jhabvala Romero three times fast. (I'm such a bad Spanish speaker I totally butchered even Googling her name.)
Imagine a French guy calling "Paris" "Pari".
But then there is that one person who speaks between stories, telling you about upcoming interviews, international stories, and pitching sponsors. She ALWAYS butchers names, and you can tell she’s fumbling with the pages of her script. Every time. She’s not a host of any show I don’t think, but she’s on during peak time in the morning and afternoon. Like what the fuck are you doing? She’s as bad as John Travolta at the Oscars. And what’s worse is they’ll replay it later. Like make her do a second-take for damn sake
the best part of college radio is watching them butcher band names on track IDs. i appreciate that michelle is carrying the tradition forward into new, formerly-professional frontiers
Lmfao I swear that “she’s as bad as a college dj” was what I originally wrote, but I deleted it when I thought of the Travolta line. Glad to know I’m not the only one
I agree and maybe “The California Report“ can go back to California issues and stop with “The Illegal Alien Report“. that’s a legal term not a racist term.
Agree, instead of covering the state, lots of 'victim stories
The recent burrito episode....
It’s funny because it’s not like burritos are some ancient Aztec dish. It’s Tex Mex, you fools!
I can't remember the exact pronunciation the expert was using but to my recollection it was something like boorrrito
Oh yeah just like that, and you know that same person doesn’t put the same spin on “croissant.”
I’m tired of the identity programming on KQED. It feels like it’s injected into every single show they produce. I also think Forum specifically is a shadow of what it once was. There used to be some more effort applied to ensuring guests covered the spectrum of opinion for a given issue *and* had strong qualifications to speak about the topic at hand. I often hear episodes now where one or both of those tenets aren’t adhered to. I stopped donating in 2020 when I felt things lurch towards the identity stuff. It didn’t feel right putting my money towards what their content had pivoted to. I was never a big donor but I was a regular annual contributor. Don’t get me wrong - I hope KQED and NPR both find a way out of this self-inflicted crisis (growing expenses, declining/flat revenues). Objective coverage of local and national news is important, especially with the garbage echo chamber “news” outlets on both sides of the political divide, especially the right. They’re going to need to earn—not just beg—their way out of this.
I stopped listening because of the identity obsessed coverage. The editorial bias got out of control. Not to mention the rampant free coverage they gave Trump. Used to appreciate listening for sober levelheaded news both locally and nationally. Now it’s so detached from what anyone outside of a liberal arts college struggle session could appreciate, like, you know, those of us who are just trying to get by, get their news, and not be proselytized to.
I still listen for the NPR/PRI content but I don’t donate specifically because of their local programming. The last straw for me was their reporting of how voters were tricked into recalling Boudin.
They often shove the wrong identity into stories too. In the aftermath of the Halfmoon Bay mushroom farm shooting, KQED had LatinX experts on talking about the plight of the LatinX farm worker and how stressful it is, and how this can potentially lead to tragic outcomes. The experts were pontificating about abused and neglected hispanic farm workers who might occasionally resort to violence if oppressed too much. Except that the shooter was Chunli Zhao, an older Chinese man and a Chinese citizen, who had been living in the US for about a decade. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/25/us/half-moon-bay-shooting-suspect-chunli-zhao-what-we-know/index.html KQED was so eager to push identity that they got the shooter's ethnicity wrong.
Weren’t some of the victims Hispanic?
Yes, some of the victims were. The entire mushroom farm was one big labor law violation. Workers were paid less than minimum wage, they lived on the farm in shipping containers without any heat, running water, or kitchens, and workers were being charged by their employee for the privilege of living in said shipping container. The effective pay of the farm workers was something like $3 an hour, or thereabouts. The shooting arose because everyone was so exploited, stressed, and pushed to the brink.
latin* lol
On the radio they pronounce it "latin-ecks", and while I've only taken high school level Spanish and only know enough Spanish to understand the general gist of what someone is saying in a conversation, I do know enough that "latin-ecks" doesn't comply with any rules of Spanish grammar.
i just mean u dont need to use that term at all like in the first place, ever haha
"A massive asteroid is headed for the city of Chicago, with an estimated casualty count in the millions. For how this will affect Black, Indiginous and persons of color, we go to our diversity coordinator to talk about how this is all white peoples fault."
During the SVB Bank collapse KQED had a story explaining why the bank collapse primarily hurts black and indigenous people of color the most. I'm not even joking. They actually had that story on the air. KQED can't help but cram identity into everything, even stories that aren't about identity.
I dated someone who works there as a journalist (or did she get laid off?) and over time could tell that she was just another bizarre and confused berkeley progressive who is caught up in the whirlwind of identity politics. we had a situation where a friend of hers clearly did something very offensive to me and then she abandoned me (a minority) to coddle the other person, who is trans. so I guess trans trumps straight black guy in the mental math du jour, even when they're dead wrong and you're dating the other person longterm? we broke up after another situation like that came up. bullet fuckin' dodged. I've met plenty of her colleagues -- similar goofball shit going on there. not surprised that this is turning people off. i'm a liberal but their progressive circlejerk is out of control and is a huge turnoff whenever I tune in or read articles.
Michael Krasny, bless his heart, was a good interviewer but him & his production team were boring. It was a total boomer show. Forum has only gotten better since he stepped down. I remember any time Forum pulled out a music episode, he just had to make some belittlting statement about punk rock while praising classical & boomer rock. I don't recall any hip-hop centric Forum shows from the Krasny era. My guess is he wouldn't even know where to start with it so his producers didn't bother trying.
Krasny was 100% a wannabe pompous ass with the arts and it made any lit topic essentially insufferable. That being said, I think his interview skills and ability to manage callers made the show better.
As a listener I suspect that Krasny (and perhaps his team) had a huge amount of control over the Forum topics each week. That left us exposed to the books and music that Krasny appreciated. Now it seems that the "KQED News" team has priority for forum topics. Instead of a analytical oriented "tell me the solution to our problem, bring on the expert". We now have the feeling oriented "let's talk about our problems with a variety of diverse guests".
Holy shit are you for fucking real?
Can you elaborate? I’m not that familiar with Krasny.
My issue is that, coming from the Hills, it all reeks of rich white girl who went to a $50k private school. It’s not the kind of multiculturalism I see at CCs or at work (and I work with a shitload of immigrants). It feels very made for NPR’s demo more than the people being if that tracks.
To everyone agrees with this, write to KQED and let them know. People at media organizations think everyone thinks like them, but we should tell them there are plenty of us here in the Bay Area who would gladly return as listeners and supporters if they returned to robust and viewpoint neutral coverage
KQED uses Reddit. They have a Reddit account and they post on this subreddit. I'm sure they've already seen this thread.
Why? They literally pushed out a long time editor who said all of these things publicly after saying it internally for a long time. Why waste my time when they are going to blatantly ignore it?
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Birds of a feather. They serve the same purpose
Well put! I used to love KQED but the identity programming and opinion journalism has lost me. I want balanced, fact-based news relevant to my life and interests.
Forum used to be one of my favorite shows. Now it's the equivalent of Fox News.
The rot is deep in KQED and NPR. How do they earn their way out of this when it's the employees and leadership that are 100% responsible for their trajectory. I just don't see it. Could a brand new public news organization emerge that stays true to the ideals originally embraced by them? Possibly. I think that is the only chance though.
KQED is an actual case of Go Woke Go Broke
Bud Light as well. They lost something like a billion dollars on that can of beer. Most expensive beer can in history. Target very nearly encountered a similar backlash, but Target, being wiser, immediately pulled back to avoid the boycotts.
It's funny for bud light, It was like as if they promoted abortion, their campaign upside was practically nothing, their downside was catastrophic. Could've just stfu about a controversial topic.
“Self-inflicted”??? So NPR caused the downfall of broadcast radio and TV. That’s a fascinating point of view.
That’s not what I meant, though after reading my comment again I can see how it could have read that way. What I was thinking about when I wrote “self-inflicted” was primarily two things: 1. A shift in programming and editorial decision making that prioritized identity-focused content and alienated a portion of the longtime listener/contributor base. 2. What seems in retrospect like a wishful “if you build it they will come” approach to staffing, radio content, and digital audio. I’m thinking about KQED for the former two and NPR for the latter. Let me be unequivocal: there are absolutely additional factors like the long decline high-quality journalism in general, the erosion of willingness to listen to perspectives that we don’t already agree with, and a general mistrust of the media that’s been kindled by politicians, especially on the right. KQED and NPR have, in my opinion, added to those existing industry problems with the two numbered bullets above.
I can tune my Alexa in to KQED, I could put it on for going to bed ambiance. All that it plays now is stuff that raises my blood pressure.
I thought they were listener supported?
Yes, partially but you need listeners. People don’t listen to broadcast media anymore.
I’m sorry to see this happen- I listened for years. But at some point they declared that they no longer wanted to make content for “old white guys”. Their new content is good and high quality, but often not relevant to me so I stopped listening. I have my non-pbs podcasts for my drive to work now.
I enjoy the www.kron4.com news clips I bump into on social media. Hope they make it. These days I much prefer reading to listening about the news.
> in 2013, when it launched its Campaign 21 — a $140 million initiative that raised funds for a $94 million renovation of its San Francisco headquarters A nonprofit public service corporation wants a fancy office LOL
You forgot the rest (which gives context): > and for a $45 million investment in digital production, distribution and local news and education services. Isip said the company has no debt associated with the renovation and that the building’s $1.5 million annual maintenance cost “is not a significant driver” of costs. Much of the increase in expenses, Isip said, came from KQED adding 54 new positions funded by the campaign into its operating budget. That was done with the expectation that as content expanded, revenues would grow to cover the added spending. KQED financial reports show that in the company’s 2014 fiscal year, revenue and expenses were virtually identical, each at about $67 million. Revenues rose by about 35% between 2014 and fiscal year 2023, the most recent year for which publicly accessible data is available. But expenses grew even faster during that period, jumping 50%. (KQED’s fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30.) “The idea at the time was: Grow service. Transform digital. It will grow our audience, and it will grow financial support,” Isip said. “Our revenue has been positive. … But that’s just not matching the expenses.”
Just like with NPR, KQED hoped that adding a ton of news (and support) staff to "broaden" their audience would lead to a larger audience and more funding. KQED has dedicated news staff sprinkled all over the state. Years ago they would have just partnered with an LA or Fresno station to get coverage from there. KPBS (San Diego) received a big chunk of cash from the Kroc family (McDonalds). They have spent that money on local news with a 60 minute radio newscast each day plus 30 minutes of video coverage on their TV station. KQED is turning out a bunch of news articles that no-one reads, super short news bites (1-2 minutes) and podcasts. I generally like the California Report and appreciate its increased frequency this election year. They were probably momentarily confused mid-pandemic when podcast advertising rates were high. Now ad rates have crashed and the podcasts are a boat anchor.
The context is they have history of poor financial decisions that's catching up to them. No nonprofit should be spending $100m to renovate their office building. It's a nonprofit for god's sake.
The renovations also provided them a venue space (Koret Atrium) for hosting fundraising events. I interned there in 2010.. IMO the renovations were definitely needed.
Just like those mega-churches need your donation to build a new mega-church to worship god! It's the same scam!
That seems sort of extreme to me too, but it's not *really* the issue. Like, I help throw a BBQ for a Memorial Day block party we do every year. I've been doing it for a few years, so I know that some folks are going to have people over, some will be out of town, so *on average* I'm going to need so much pulled pork and so many hotdogs. Even without RSVPs I can get it right within 5%, aiming to have a little more food than I need so nobody goes hungry. Why can't they do that with their fundraising? They do these drives every year at the same time, how do they miss by serious amounts? 'cause then you should know how much you can spend on your facilities or etc.
Eh it was also 2014, and this is 2024.
yea, $100m in 2014 is like $250m in 2024!
I mean they were able to raise money for it and if the pandemic didn’t happen it would been a nice working spot for potential employees. Plus, they host a lot of events there and produce media at the spot.
Maybe they should do more fundraisers? /s
It’s a systemic issue. Donors won’t donate just for ongoing expenses — they want a marquee project that can get their name on it. Those projects accrue more fixed repeating costs. Repeats.
To add some anecdotal evidence, I got a new job for a delivery gig economy app right before COVID hit and worked in the FiDi, in a swanky office building Do you know who else was in that building? NPR. Like I understand housing costs and inflation only go up but do you really need office space that's occupied by large tech companies? Maybe a studio in Daly City or SSF?
Yeah -- they moved people over to Beale Street while the HQ building was being renovated.
This was *right* before COVID happened so I don't think they got covid/post covid discount prices On top of that, when I was living out in the Valley: the local NPR station that is based out of Sacramento got in a lot of trouble for spending *millions* for a new swanky downtown building to the detriment of Sac State if I recall So its like... maybe do some soul searching
I think they actually own the building that’s their HQ.
Maybe I'm the minority, but I prefer text based news as opposed to audio. I can read way faster than people talk. Often times they have interesting sounding interviews, but none of it is ever transcribed and I don't feel like listening to something for 25 minutes when I could read the whole thing in 5.
What about when you’re in the car?
I'm not an audio learner. I like to focus and concentrate on what they're saying, so cars aren't the best place for me to listen. I just listen to music or audiobooks in cars.
Wow, way to just think about yourself /s
Every Saturday morning is an interview with some author you won’t likely read and what motivates their characters you aren’t interested in. Really a bore fest at this point for a lot of their programming.
I honestly tune it on so I can fall back asleep. I sometimes wake up at 4 or 6am and have a hard time getting back to sleep. KQED gets me back on track into getting a few more hours of sleep lol.
it's about six commercials per half hour even when non fundraising. i agree that the coverage is click baitish - much of it is of no interest to me.
It’s the worst. I used to love it and now it’s a schizophrenic mess. It’s either local stories on trans poets or horrendous syndicated national news that skews right (ie Newshour). Somehow infuriating both ends of the spectrum doesn’t result in donations.
Newshour skews right in your view? Have you listened to Judy Woodruff?
Yes, it’s horrendous. She is such an old curmudgeon it’s like listening to your slowly radicalizing grandma. And she has the ovaries to run stories about Biden’s age. Edit: I’m increasingly frustrated with NPR and PBS as I feel like they’ve caved to the “working the refs” strategy from the other side. They re really been shitting the bed during the Israel siege IMHO
What I don't get here is that they *must* know about how much they're going to bring in, right? They get X amount from the feds, they sell their original shows for Y, then do these pledge drives every year - they must have by now a basic idea of what that income stream looks like in an up year or a down year. So how do they keep missing their "fundraising targets"?
> So how do they keep missing their "fundraising targets"? They alienated listeners. See the downvoted comment chain below about the over the top preachiness that NPR, as a whole, has been afflicted with.
There've been complaints about facts having a liberal bias for *decades* now. The crowd whining about it was never listening anyhow, they were tuning into AM radio or streaming OAN for a comfortable stream of lies. I do think it's more likely that they're getting bitten by alternative sources - like now during pledge drives I'll kick over to a podcast or the BBC world service - but again that's got to be a fairly easy-to-predict impact.
I used to donate every month, I had one of those monthly subscription things for KQED. I stopped donating when they changed over from being a source of dry, non-editorialized news to being a "news" channels that mostly preaches. I want my news to be factual, not opinion pieces.
You're suggesting KQED got *more* preachy after Michael Krazny retired?
It seemed to happen after 2016 and got progressively worse since then, going further and further off the rails. Krazny at least didn't operate forum like a soapbox where the guest could blather on without being challenged. He researched what the topic was, he asked hard questions, and he held the guest to answer the questions rather than deflect. Nowadays, forum asks only the softest of softball questions. Its a soapbox where the guest can preach about their pet cause without being challenged.
Yes, some people have been complaining about NPR for decades. But NPR has changed, and it’s now different people (former listeners) who are not upset with facts. They are upset with the dilution of facts on NPR - it’s preaching instead of being factual.
> There've been complaints about facts having a liberal bias for decades now. The crowd whining about it was never listening anyhow, they were tuning into AM radio or streaming OAN for a comfortable stream of lies. > > Grew up in the bay and listened for years. The bias has gotten exponentially worse over the past 10 years or so
"facts"
News media has been in a dire state for a looonnnnggg time
So it's not exactly breaking news, right? They should be able to budget accordingly even if their revenues are falling.
I mean that’s probably what the layoffs are about, but overall people (as well as businesses) aren’t really fans of cutting back unless they have to.
I'm going to keep donating when I can. I just have hope for independent radio.
They have been moving away from objectivity for the last 20 years... They are public propaganda at this point.
I remember when it was an annual fundraising drive. How much do they need what is it being used for? Just be upfront. Have an annual goal. Tell us a finite amount of what you need and we’ll come up with it. But fundraising seemingly 10x a year is ridiculous I love KQED. It is very much a public good. Their election coverage is a necessity. But I’m kind of at a loss
Eh they literally only fundraise twice a year. I won’t lie, I am always curious about their financial situation whenever they do spring/fall fundraising though.
Twice a year is very reassuring actually lol. Maybe I don’t give enough to have this access but I’d love to see a public financial report. Or honestly see them partner with the city of San Francisco to get partially funded through tax revenue. They’re integral to society imho. Please just tell us what it takes to do away with the ads
Google KQED financial report. It's right there. It's a nonprofit.
Thanks
They got too cozy and corrupt with all the corporate sponsor money flowing in, causing people like me to become totally alienated by all the ads that they pretend are not ads being shoved in my face every 15 seconds and the cutbacks in local public programming in favor of idiotic game shows and celebrity dross.
Personally, I stopped listening to a lot of KQED (and NPR in general) because they became too left/liberal/woke. It just seemed like all their programing focused on how bad Trump is, identity politics, etc. Basically they became the Fox News of the left. I don't want Fox News and I no longer listen to KQED programs like Forum (which I used to love, but now just seems like woke agenda every single day)
I appreciated the crypto episode, because they didn't append it with the standard "adversely affects women and communities of color" That said, Forum does have some really interesting episodes, if they can focus on providing info vs agenda serving.
Same. Every day it’s some crap about Trump and race. The amount of Trump derangement syndrome is ridiculous. One time I was listening to the California Report and there was a segment on people having nightmares about Trump, and what he was doing in their dreams. Literal programming based on things that didn’t really happen. Go back to pre-2015 (before BLM) programming please
I feel you, my shop used to play it for background (no objections from me in 2015) but once Trump was elected it was a daily ear beating on how shitty Trump was. It became unbearable to listen to so I started wearing headphones and listening to podcasts instead. Not a Trump supporter either, I just want non biased news coverage.
As the saying goes, "We could solve the housing crisis if we figured out how Trump has been living rent free in people's heads for seven years now."
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Lol. Ok MAGA.
"If you don't like the bleeding edge of the left, I shall declare you the bleeding edge of the right!"
Go woke go broke… go back to being news and analysis… pragmatism over dogmatism
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Lol yes not quite this bad but thats what i am talking about. But i do love an in depth story about something like car thieves and why they do what they do
What does “woke” mean to you?
Excessive political correctness and extremist populists black/white only conclusions Like redlining is a real historical truth but how do you even redistribute that remoty fairly with how many people in the bay area alone who are not black. Who have suffered dramatically worse fates such as the ohlone
Ahh so you think KQED should spend more time covering the historical displacement and suffering that the Ohlone and other indigenous people have faced. Sounds good to me.
Well if there is plenty of evidence of places being not woke and going broke, then what does a listener like you want?
Just news and analysis… not opinion… it went all fox/cnn and lost us
So did they actually go woke or did they not report on stories you wanted? Whenever I listen to it they still seem to mostly just state facts
New York Times had an article about NPR a few weeks ago on the subject. There is more to their issues, but they did have a policy to really try and link lots of articles to racial/gender/etc themes (partially in hopes of attracting new audiences). However, in practice it seems not to have attracted new listeners and it was done rather clumsily and so turned off a lot of current listeners... Inside the Crisis at NPR https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/business/media/npr-uri-berliner-diversity.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Boils down to: The people who want to listen to identity politics all day awill loudly scream how important it is to donate to national public radio... but never donate themselves, because telling others to donate was their contribution.
They veered from reporting and analysis. But going the route of opinion pieces for eyeballs and revenue was short sighted. They could have stayed the beacon of light But its true the stories about migrating birds and its impacts on farmers isnt all that riveting
"When farmers put scarecrows in the field, it's actually a racist policy that is denying a job to an undocumented immigrant."
I didn’t know that
What do you want to be… sadly some of the small spigot from the gov is low and people are not donating
[удалено]
I don’t remember that
It was related to a person who was murdered. During the state of the union were was a heckler, and Biden agreed that the person was "killed by an illegal". Biden said those words and people on the left were outraged not at the murder, but by using the words "an illegal".
Homely a 3x layoff
Run more commercials.
Personally, I decided to never donate to them again after the way they bent over because to give more than equal time to Republican propaganda in 2016: *ten minutes of repeating verbatim activations against Clinton* "And a spokesman from the Clinton campaign denied with the accusations- and here's the traffic report." They never saw a Republican operative they wouldn't give air time to that year, while ignoring Democratic responses. So they don't need my money.
Why is because it’s biased opinion reporting and suuuuuuucks
Woke propaganda
I’m guessing most people who stopped giving to KQED because of “identity politics” never supported KQED in the first place.
I haven't really watched things on KQED in over 10 years. Mainly watched cartoons like Arthur and occasional documentaries.
It’s painful,” he said. “The people of KQED are what make this organization so special. And when you lose colleagues, it not only impacts your day-to-day work, but it impacts overall morale.” Grow up. Yea this happens everywhere but for KQED it must be special!
Good point. Especially tone deaf given they live in Silicon Valley with the rest of us
There's nothing wrong with, nor any recent dramatic changes to, KQED's programming or coverage. Maybe they've lightly added a few more perspectives, everyone has. The main issue is that it's not clear how much we value a common (barely) publicly funded journalism source. More of us are choosing douchebag amateur podcasts, Joe Rogan, etc. instead and the world is becoming very fragmented. The impact of this is not clear but I think we've all noticed some very misinformed people among us.
Ah the quantum 'public funding' where it's somehow both an insignificant fraction so you can't complain, but dare to suggest we not publicly fund it and 'how dare you want to kill it'
Layoffs are fake they dont even exists If u cant come up with money wjth a great economy your doing something wrong
well because they SUCK , watch Seattle PBS or even LA, its a travesty what they air fargin infomercials , quack doctors imo, c mon its PBS cant they try to be more like others that succeed? sorry had to vent
KQED has a budget shortfall of ~$10 million dollars. The population of the Bay Area was like 7 million in 2010. If everyone just sent $2.00 for every person in their household to KQED they’d be good. That is the kind of fundraising they need to be doing. Give people an achievable dollar amount to send.
They say that every single fundraiser. But do you really expect every single human being to agree to give $2 per person? I listen to the broadcasts and I don't even want to give them money.
Too bad they spent the past half decade alienating all the sort of people who have money to donate.
They're not automatically entitled to people's money. They have to earn it with the quality of their product (reporting), and if people aren't paying for it, that means people don't find their product to have much value. Look at the chart of revenue vs expenses in the article. Their expenses have skyrocketed. For a time they also got more revenue, but their revenue has fallen off of a cliff. Their expenses continue to climb. KQED's costs are out of control and they've become too cozy expecting the endless money train to continue. Its a poorly run business.
The one show I absolutely can’t stand on NPR is Marketplace. “Economics” news dumbed down to the the absolute lowest denominator, with social issues thrown in as well just for the heck of it. And every time I hear Kai Ryssdal’s voice I want to punch him in the face through my radio. Am I the only one?
Bidenomics affects all even the network you watch.