INVOKING REAGAN: MCCAIN'S DEBT-CEILING ARGUMENT

posted to Political Buzz by Michael Chihak

By his own admission, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain's strength is not the economy. Yet he discusses it in a way that makes one think he is expert in the field.

Take this interesting exchange he had with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois on the U.S. Senate floor Sunday during part of the ongoing debt-ceiling debate.

McCain asked Durbin to recall the year 1982, which is when they both first were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, in the midterm elections of President Ronald Reagan's first term. In one of their first actions in the new term, McCain recalled, according to the Chicago Tribune: "We cut taxes. ... We had one of the strongest recoveries in recent history of this country because we didn't start spending and add spending without paying for them."

Durbin, according to the Chicago Tribune, parried: "Does he recall what happened with the Reagan tax cuts? Because what happened was we tripled the national debt during that period of time, and President Reagan came to Congress 18 times to extend the debt ceiling. He holds the record. So to argue the Reagan tax cuts led to great long-term prosperity is seriously in doubt, if we are going to use the deficit as a measure."

As many an economist has noted, Reagan's tax cuts did not do what Reagan and his economic advisers said they would do -- stimulate the economy through the "trickle-down effect." In fact, after the cuts, the trickle-down effect was a recession.

THE END IS NEAR?

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

The head of PBS is apparently considering moving underwriting announcements away from the interval between programs, on the theory that if the transition from one show to another is seamless, people won't tune out. But where else could underwriting announcements go? Into the middle of a program, just like on commercial TV. Escaping mid-show commercials is one thing people have always liked about PBS, so if they have to endure underwriting spots in the middle of Nova, that's just one more reason viewers will see little difference between PBS and all the other stuff on the tube. And if they see little difference, they'll be less inclined to fork over their own money to support the service. I'm beginning to think that one of the job requirements for running PBS is getting a lobotomy.

At least over here on KUAT-FM you will not have to put up with underwriting announcements between the movements of a symphony. We have standards.

GREAT RATINGS AND BRIGHT FUTURES

posted to From the General Manager by Laura McKee

August is always an exciting month here at AZPM as we welcome students to the start of the fall semester at the University of Arizona and to the student crew at AZPM. While for many, August is the last of the summer fun, for AZPM and UA we are all about gearing up for a productive fall season!

Radio

The Spring Audience Research arrived for our radio stations and the growth is impressive. Our NPR affiliate KUAZ-AM/FM, increased audience share by 33% since the Winter measurement period and increased by 51.4% over the same period last year. Classical KUAT-FM increased its audience share by 3.2% since the Winter measurement period, and by over 52% from the same period last year. KUAZ is the #5 radio station in the market among all radio stations, the #5 morning drive station and the #1 news/talk format station in Tucson. Both stations demonstrated a healthy average 8.3 to 8.5 hours of Time Spent Listening, per listener, per week.

Speaking of radio, I am very pleased to announce that we have been awarded a construction permit by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a new FM radio station to be built in Pima, Arizona (136 miles northeast of Tucson). This new station KUAE 107.1FM, will extend the program service provided by our NPR and jazz music station KUAZ, and will, for the first time, bring over-the-air NPR news and information programming to listeners in that community. We have three years to complete the fundraising and construction for new transmission facilities there. We also made application and received conditional approval from the FCC for a new full power FM station in Sierra Vista, Arizona, KUAS 88.9FM. We are now working through the steps required to receive approval from the Mexican Government, given this station’s proximity to the border. I hope to have more good news to report on this in the coming months.

May TV Sweeps

Overall, full day viewership for PBS-HD Channel 6 increased by 19% over the same period last year. Top programs were: Keeping Up Appearances (Sat. 8 p.m.), Antiques Roadshow (Mon. 8 p.m.), As Time Goes By (Sat. 8:30 p.m.), Masterpiece (Sun. 8:00 p.m.), and NOVA (Wed. 9 p.m.). Additionally, audiences grew 27% in full daily viewership for PBS Kids compared to last May.

The Best and the Brightest

We are fortunate to have a terrific professional staff at AZPM. One of our most recent hires Gisela Telis, who joined us last fall as our Online Editor in the content production group, recently received a 2011-2012 Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. Gisela’s editorial focus will be to examine mental health in Arizona’s rural, tribal and underserved communities and will be presented starting this fall on several of AZPM media platforms (TV/radio/online). This fellowship program is part of the Carter Center's Mental Health Program, which works around the world to reduce stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses and to decrease incorrect and stereotypical information. Gisela received one of six fellowships awarded to journalists from the United States and two from Romania in the highly competitive pool of applicants for the 15th annual class. We are thrilled for her to be honored with this award and are confident that you will be enlightened by her upcoming reporting.

August Programming

On the programming side, please be sure to check out PBS-HD Channel 6 on Wednesday, August 10th starting at 8 p.m. and enjoy the ‘smartest night on TV’ with “Big Dreams, Cosmic Journeys”. This is a blockbuster of an evening with back-to-back local and national, award-winning programs that begin a new era in the search for signs of life on our neighboring planets; Phoenix Mars Mission: Ashes to Ice, NOVA: Is There Life on Mars, 400 Years of the Telescope and Phoenix Mars Mission: Onto the Ice.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes returns to our daytime TV schedule this month, Monday through Fridays at 3 p.m. Certain to keep you out of the heat and humidity and bring you first-rate drama and mystery, we start off with the “Armchair Thrillers”; ten episodes, including The Sign of Four Parts I & II and The Hound of the Baskervilles Parts I & II.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not publicly acknowledge the departure of Steve MacCarthy, the University’s Vice President for External Relations, who departs from UA at the end of the month to move to the University of Pennsylvania as its new Vice President for Communications. AZPM reports through Steve’s office to the University and it has been my privilege and good fortune to work with and for such a talented professional. You may recognize Steve’s name from his many appearances on our various fundraising campaigns. Steve has been a tireless advocate, fundraiser and champion of public media and AZPM. He will be missed.

As always, thank you for your viewership, listenership and continued support of Arizona Public Media.

Jack Gibson

3-IN-1 POLITICIAN, WITH ECONOMIC CHOPS

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

In politics, plenty of people have charisma. Plenty of people have intelligence. Plenty of people have good ideas. Unfortunately, those are all different people.

Few in politics possess all those qualities. And even those who do possess them aren’t always able to make them work -- not only for themselves, but for the constituencies they represent.

Lo and behold, the Arizona Public Media TV crew I traveled the state with earlier this month found a politician who seems to be making things happen.

She’s Flagstaff Mayor Sara Presler. Presler is energetic, well spoken, obviously intelligent and in possession of basic economic know-how and an understanding of the public sector’s part in the economy.

Consider just one comment she made in our interview, about the status of Flagstaff’s city budget: “The only reason government does better is because business does better.”

We found out that Flagstaff is all about business -- the business of tourism. And thus Presler is all about the business of tourism. She fully recognizes that business leads, government facilitates and, as she said, does better if business does better.

The proof is that Flagstaff for the last several years of recession, with Presler as mayor, has led Arizona and the Western region in tourism growth. That’s been important in Flagstaff, as Presler pointed out. Half of the city’s sales tax revenues comes from tourism, so tourism deserves fostering.

Flagstaff does just that. During the recession, the city pumped $350,000 over two years into tourism marketing. It worked. The area saw a 3 percent decline in tourism spending over two years, while the rest of the state struggled with double-digit declines.

It was evidence that Presler could pull together business and government, still letting the private sector lead.

Only 31 years old and completing what she says will be her last term as mayor next year, she is someone to watch on Arizona’s political landscape.

REDISTRICTING INVESTIGATION ONGOING

posted to Political Buzz by Andrea Kelly

Arizona's Attorney General, Tom Horne, continues to look into two allegations that the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission may not be doing business on the up-and-up.

His office received a complaint that the commission had violated open meetings laws and that it didn't follow a proper procurement policy when hiring contractors, including the company that will assist in drawing the congressional and legislative district maps.

Horne said today he's continuing to look into the complaints.

"There's a lot of public interest in this so I've asked people to give it a priority and do it as soon as possible," Horne said.

"We are going to be investigating the documents the minutes of the executive session and interviewing the commission members and doing whatever else we need to do to ensure there have been no violations of open meeting laws or procurement laws. If we find no violations, I think people will be relieved to find that out. If we do find violations, then we'll have to pursue them," Horne said.

Last week, Ray Bladine, the executive director of the redistricting commission, said in an interview the commission followed the state procurement policy for hiring its contractors. That policy requires meetings to be held in executive session, not accessible to the public.

PEARCE OPPONENTS EMERGE

posted to Political Buzz by Andrea Kelly

Two Mesa-area Republicans stepped up this week to run against Republican Russell Pearce in his recall election.

Olivia Cortes and Jerry Lewis have filed paperwork with the state to launch their campaigns. They join independent candidate Tommy Cattey, who is also hoping to be on the recall ballot. They’ll each need to turn in signatures from voters in the Mesa legislative district before they qualify for the ballot. Pearce doesn’t need to do that, the recall process means he’s already on the ballot.

Any number of candidates can run in this recall election. Whoever earns the most votes in the election will be the next Senator in legislative district 18. The term expires next year, so the winner would serve just one year, and could run for reelection in 2012.

One other candidate filed to run for the seat, but it's unclear at this point whether Democrat Robert McDonald is entering the recall race, or readying for a 2012 campaign.