POLITICS PAGE UPDATES

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

By now, you have seen the AZPM Politics Page, right? Well, it just got a little easier to navigate.

The page is full of bills, resolutions, votes and more from the Arizona Legislature. I've just added a small box at the top that has a list of the latest updates. We decided to arrange the bills by number, but it had been hard to see what was updated without clicking on each bill. Now, you can see the updates at a glance.

Check it out!

MORE ON BALANCE

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

After recognizing political polarity in a previous blog on balance, it's time for an update on the latest developments.

The first blog on the topic dealt with complaints from listeners/viewers about giving airtime to our two elected Republican U.S. Senators. Having GOP lawmakers on our air frequently draws the ire of our audience, since (believe it or not) we tend to draw a left-of-center following. That's why I was surprised to see complaints about our recent TV interview with Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Similar to the complaints about the senators, some listeners/viewers felt the questions were softballs and that she went unchallenged.

While one man called Giffords "stylish and dashing," he also accused her of using "dishonest arithmetic" in the health care debate and of being a follower of "Democrat scripting."

We had similar comments about the appearances of John McCain and Jon Kyl (except for the "stylish and dashing" parts), so I guess we're doing the right thing. As the old saying goes in news....If you get complaints from both sides, you must be doing something right.

Here's the interview, if you want to judge it for yourself:

A PERCENT, NOT A PENNY

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

I just got an email from a listener asking us to do a favor while covering the future state sales tax increase vote. He has a valid point.

In all the coverage about the May 18th vote, many of us (including the AP) say the vote is for a penny increase in the sales tax. Admittedly, that's not very accurate, as the question before voters actually involved a one PERCENT increase in the tax rate. That is a big difference. As the listener (who identifies himself only as Rob) says:

"The term penny tax has been introduced into the political jargon as an unfortunate euphemism. This is a semantics game that's being played to work in the favor of those who are in favor of the increase. I ask you to please report the proposed tax increase for what it is: a 1 PERCENT total increase which is a 12.5% increase in the current rate."

Any more suggestions?

ANOTHER COMMERCIAL CLASSICAL STATION GOES NON-PROFIT

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

KING-FM, Seattle's longtime classical radio outlet, can no longer support itself with advertising. But rather than change formats to some more lucrative, audience-grubbing strand of popular music, the station is switching to a non-profit model and retaining its classical programming. I don't know whether this is because the people running the station truly believe in classical music, or because the station has an unusual ownership arrangement:

KING-FM was founded in 1948 by King Broadcasting founder Dorothy Stimson Bullitt. In 1995, her two daughters donated the station to a nonprofit organization owned by the Seattle Opera, the Seattle Symphony and what is now ArtsFund, in the hope of keeping classical-music radio alive in Seattle. Over the years, KING-FM has paid nearly $7 million in dividends to those three organizations. But dividends have declined since reaching a peak in 1999 and this year, for the first time, the station is projecting zero dividends.

You can find the full article here. Whatever the motivation, it's good news that KING will not become just one more classical station playing its own Requiem.

TEACHOUT ON PBS CULTURAL PROGRAMMING

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Even if you have reservations about the politics of the Wall Street Journal, that publication does come through with some interesting cultural coverage. An example is Terry Teachout's recent column about how to fix the cultural programming on PBS. Here's his main indictment:

What went wrong? PBS evolved over time into a viewer-driven, ratings-conscious enterprise and discovered along the way that high-culture programming is (a) hugely expensive to produce and (b) not nearly as popular as "Antiques Roadshow." Hence the slow but steady shrinkage of airtime devoted to the fine arts, and the increasing trivialization of such cultural programming as does manage to make it onto the network.

Teachout outlines what he'd do about it here.

SPRING

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

With the vernal equinox upon us, we're going all out with spring music Saturday morning (and right after the Metropolitan Opera, too). You'll hear the pieces you expect--between 7 and 8, it'll be an excerpt from Copland's Appalachian Spring, Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata for violin and piano, and Schumann's "Spring" Symphony--but we'll also have some comparative rarities, including Respighi's virtually unknown big cantata Spring. For various reasons, however, we will not be playing that hit from Mel Brooks' The Producers, "Springtime for Hitler."