Thursday, April 25, 2024 | St. Lawrence County, NY
To the Editor: Vermont PBS Thank You for having Democracy Now! on for the Democratic National Convention! Please make use of the four channels available to you and keep Democracy Now! on the air. We …
This item is available in full to subscribers.
To continue reading, you will need to either log in to your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.
If you are a digital subscriber with an active, online-only subscription then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Please log in to continue |
To the Editor:
Vermont PBS Thank You for having Democracy Now! on for the Democratic National Convention! Please make use of the four channels available to you and keep Democracy Now! on the air.
We need real journalism that covers matters of war, peace, and rights of the people.
It is a sad turn of events that PBS News Hour has joined forces with NPR in special coverage of both conventions. The quality of journalism just keeps declining over time and joining of PBS and NPR just solidifies the narrow, repetitive, corporate news that saturates the airwaves and has given rise to the two major party candidates that most people either hate or vote only against.
I watch three PBS TV stations with an antenna: Vermont 33, Plattsburg 57, and Watertown 18. I am part of a group of citizens that has been lobbying North Country Public Radio, NCPR, in Canton for decades to air Democracy Now!
Many people have stopped listening and contributing to the NCPR because of the lame mainstream corporate oriented news originating from Washington D.C. Our NCPR station Manager, Ellen Rocco, refuses to air Democracy Now! and claims it is "advocacy journalism;" and does not fit in with NPR format.
There is no such thing as advocacy-free journalism. NPR and PBS in general advocate for corporations and neoliberalism and not for the people, citizens, of this nation.
Even Democracy Now! has yet to air a story of the exclusive Democrat and Republican domination over the Commission for Presidential Debates.
How can the land of the free host a presidential debate and not include the 5-10 presidential candidates running for president? Who gives the parties the right to exclude? The people watching (cheering?) such an exclusive show are complicit in censorship by omission and enjoying an ever-narrowing view that excludes third parties.
I call on North Country Public Radio, NCPR, and both Plattsburg and Watertown PBS stations to pick up the ball and air Democracy Now!
This will attract and educate listeners for an increasingly complex world we must govern together.
Richard Paolillo
West Stockholm
