A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio

Disaster

Morning Edition celebrated its first anniversary in the same week that voters chose Ronald Reagan to be the fortieth president of the United States. For NPR management, Reagan’s election was ominous because Pat Buchanan and other ideologues were part of the Reagan team. When he had served on the Nixon White House staff, Buchanan had been the point man in a successful campaign to kill public television’s attempt to launch a national news production house. Public television was still trying to realize its potential beyond arts performances, children’s programming, and cooking shows. The National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT) was launched in hopes of making public TV a force in news programming. Buchanan and cohorts saw it as the one part of the media mix they could destroy. Public broadcasting was still heavily dependent on federal funds in those days. By marshaling opinion against NPACT and threatening a presidential veto of money appropriated by Congress, Buchanan could intimidate public broadcasters into dropping the project. He portrayed NPACT correspondents Sander Vanocur and Robert MacNeil as Nixon-hating liberals who were being paid $100,000 and $65,000, respectively. Buchanan figured working-class voters would be appalled at such sums, though they were extremely modest by network news standards even then. Buchanan’s propaganda was outrageously false yet effective. NPACT didn’t last long, and public television has never had a national news D I S A S T E R 74 A V O I C E I N T H E B O X production house to do for public TV what NPR has done for public radio. The Buchanan crowd in the Nixon White House left NPR alone. I don’t think we were significant enough then to be on their radar screen in the early 1970s. By the time Buchanan returned to the White House with the Reagan administration in 1981, we were a very different NPR. Millions listened to us and knew our broadcasts had integrity. Morning Edition had raised NPR’s profile. Commuters could now start their workday hearing NPR news on their drive to the office and again on All Things Considered while driving home. Buchanan knew about us, and given his history, there was reason for NPR, still heavily dependent on federal funds, to be paranoid. There was no way to insulate NPR from political attack or attempts to intimidate us, but NPR management felt something could be done about the reliance on government subsidies. The law allows nonprofit organizations to engage in profit-making ventures provided the profits support the nonprofit activities. NPR president Frank Mankiewicz announced that NPR would “enter every profession except the oldest one.” NPR would make money leasing excess satellite capacity to broadcasters and other commercial users. Partnerships were formed with companies developing satellite paging systems and a device that would program a radio to record programs in the way a VCR taped TV programs. (In 1981, these were technological marvels still in our future .) These are the projects I remember, but there were others. While launching these business ventures in 1983, Mankiewicz also greatly expanded news and arts programming. The plan was for NPR to grow bigger and stronger, the growth to be financed by the revenue from the commercial ventures. It’s the nature of journalists to ask questions, and the journalists whoworkedforFrankMankiewiczaskedmanyquestionsofhimatstaff meetings called to explain and “celebrate” the launch of the new ventures . Had he or any member of his management team had experience in the business world? Wouldn’t these ventures require some capital investment by NPR? Where would NPR, an organization limping along on a budget of several million dollars, get such funds? What was NPR’s liability if the ventures failed? Don’t most start-ups have to endure a 75 D I S A S T E R few years in the red before recovering their investment and turning a profit? If so, where were the reserve funds? Was there a backup plan if the ventures tanked? Would the failure of the new businesses affect our traditional broadcasting of radio programs? We reporters were not business geniuses; our questions were fundamental and based on curiosity , prudence, and a bit of nervous anxiety. Managers of NPR member stations asked these same questions and more. All our questions got the same answers. The ventures would pay for themselves; they could not fail and there was no risk...