That’s pretty funny, right? Good ol’ Peter Sagal poking a little fun at Asheville and State Senator Jim Forrester, of blessed memory, for our latte drinking ways. I can get behind that kind of pledge drive. Then again, I can get behind pretty much any one of WCQS’s pledge drives, not only because I pretty much only listen to public radio but also because the pledge drive is an indicator to the community of the overall health of philanthropy in this town. If the pledge drive does not go well, people assume fund raising is not going well for anyone. And we want people to assume fundraising is going well.
So I get a little bit tired of hearing the people on public radio – especially Ira Glass – complain about the pledge drive. The pledge drive brings the community together. The pledge drive pays the bills. The pledge drive gives public radio a chance to remind people why this resource is important to them. The option is what, a government funded yet independent news media outlet? Something like, say, the BBC? Well now, that’s no shabby outfit itself, is it?
Of course not, but it is extremely vulnerable at the moment. Granted, the Beeb has made grave errors which have opened vulnerabilities. The greatest of those vulnerabilities may be that the organisation has one source of funding: a tax on tellies. My friend who lived in Scotland found the admonition to pay the tax laughable, because how will that be enforced? Nevertheless, it’s worth £5 billion to the BBC, and for the first time in a long time, they are having to justify it.
Which is something our public radio station has to do twice a year. Maybe that seems like a pain in the touchas for the Mountain Air Network, but it keeps them in fighting trim, does it not? We have a constant reminder that this valuable community resource is not something to be taken for granted. We have the opportunity to ensure that it is not dependent upon or beholden to any one source of funding. So I think public radio should embrace the pledge drive. It keeps the medium strong in all sorts of ways, including financially.