Radio Studies

Public radio stands as a valued national institution, one whose fans and listeners actively support it with their time and their money. In this new history of this important aspect of American culture, Jack W. Mitchell looks at the dreams that inspired those who created it, the all-too- human realities that grew out of those dreams, and the criticism they incurred from both sides of the political spectrum. As National Public Radio's very first employee, and the first producer of its legendary All Things Considered, Mitchell tells the story of public radio from the point of view of an insider, a participant, and a thoughtful observer. ...

The publication of Listening to America coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of NPR's founding in 1970. Wertheimer, who was present at the creation, is ideally qualified to cull the best interviews and commentaries from each year. Her selections allow us to revisit the major news stories of our time: Watergate, the fall of Saigon, the Iran hostage crisis, the rise of Ronald Reagan, the AIDS epidemic. Here too are vivid illuminations of America's rich cultural life, as when Goodman Ace celebrates Groucho Marx, Vertamae Grosvenor reflects on the murder of John Lennon, and Red Barber meditates on the expression "suck-egg mule." ...

"Ralph Engelman′s history of the growth of public radio and television in America is timely, compelling, and instructive. Very useful for citizens who take seriously the need for public use of the public airwaves, which we need to remember, the people own but do not control." ...

A group biography of four beloved women who fought sexism, covered decades of American news, and whose voices defined NPR. In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the "women's pages." But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges. Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie is journalist Lisa Napoli's captivating account of these four women, their deep and enduring friendships, and the trail they blazed to becoming icons. ...

Public broadcasting has changed dramatically since its founding in 1967. The growing equation of marketplace efficiency with the public interest has, in Tom McCourt's analysis, undermined the value of public goods and services. In addition, political and cultural discourse is increasingly beset by fragmentation. Public radio provides an exemplary site to examine the prospects and problems of contemporary public life. ...

The people who shaped America's public broadcasting system thought it should be "a civilized voice in a civilized community"--a clear alternative to commercial broadcasting. This book tells the story of how NPR has tried to embody this idea. Michael P. McCauley describes NPR's evolution from virtual obscurity in the early 1970s, when it was riddled with difficulties--political battles, unseasoned leadership, funding problems--to a first-rate broadcast organization. The book draws on a wealth of primary evidence, including fifty-seven interviews with people who have been central to the NPR story, and it places the network within the historical context of the wider U.S. radio industry. ...

Though we live in a culture dominated by television, some ten million people listen weekly to a quite different medium - a medium not of sight but of sound, a medium not of flashy visuals but of literate words. Over the past decade, National Public Radio has become a major source of news and inspiration for listeners all across the country: from Alaska to Florida, Maine to Hawaii, eighty-five percent of Americans can now tune in to one of more than four hundred public radio stations. NPR has single-handedly reinvented the art of radio journalism, which pioneers like Edward R. Murrow first created in the forties and which the commercial radio networks all but killed off in the sixties. NPR has become for many listeners the most beloved and important medium in their lives. ...

"Always put the listener first" has been NPR's mantra since its inception in 1970. Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, NPR's programming attracts over 27 million listeners every week. This beautifully designed volume chronicles NPR's storied history, featuring dozens of behind-the-scenes photos, essays and original reporting by a who's who of NPR staff and correspondents, transcripts of memorable interviews, and an audio CD of the most memorable programming throughout the decades. ...

Public broadcasting arrived late in the United States. While most Western democracies developed large national public broadcasting organizations funded by taxes in the 1920s, the United States adopted a privately owned system funded by advertising. Reformers, however, succeeded in establishing a dispersed, minimally funded system of educational broadcasting, devoted to university lectures and other instructional programming. In the 1960s, National Educational Television (NET), the precursor of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), experimented with noncommercial cultural and public affairs programming on a national scale, funded by the Ford Foundation and other philanthropies. ...

There is a very plausible argument that public service broadcasting (PSB), as an idea and a set of institutions, was one of the singular, great creations of the 20th century. In terms of providing culture of all kinds (e.g., drama, music), education, news, current affairs, programming for children, and documentaries, PSB was remarkably successful. Even more to the point, there is no argument as to its being the dominant form of broadcasting globally from the 1920s to the end of the 20th century. Broadcasting that employed a commercial business model, such as advertiser-led broadcasting in the United States, was actually very much in the minority. And yet, PSB has never gained any serious traction in the United States— principally because of political opposition and public indifference—and remains very much marginalized in the production of cultural and journalistic goods. ...