wrote:
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:42:32 -0400, Bob LeChevalier
wrote:
Jona Vark" wrote:
"Alex Bird" wrote in message
egroups.com...
Of course it's practically impossible to get total impartiality,

true. Sad but true.

but
the bbc is paid fairly directly by the people, and is answerable to the
British people.

As are some of our publicly funded media.

Actually not. Only about 2% of NPR finances come from the government
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR
NPR makes some of its funding information public. According to the NPR
Ombudsman, currently NPR makes just over half of its money from the
fees it charges member stations to receive programming. About 2% of
NPR's funding comes from bidding to government grants and programs
(chiefly the Corporation for Public Broadcasting); the remainder
comes from member station dues, foundation grants, and corporate
underwriting.

Over the years, the portion of the total NPR budget that comes from
government has been decreasing. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the
majority of NPR funding came from the government. Steps were being
taken during the 1980s to completely wean NPR from government
support, but a major funding crisis in 1983, which almost led to the
demise of the network, brought about more rapid shifts in NPR's
funding setup. More money to fund the NPR network was raised from
listeners, charitable foundations and corporations, and less from the
government.

In 2003 the widow of the founder of McDonalds left $200 million to
NPR, which is about two years of its budget. You thus could say that
the last 2 years of NPR were NOT publicly funded but indirectly paid
for by McDonalds, and be more accurate than saying that NPR is "paid
fairly directly by the people".

McDonalds is not the government.

Indeed. That was my point.

The widow is a member of the public.

Yes she is. But the phrase "paid fairly directly by the people" in
referring to the BBC does not mean "funded by donations by
corporations or wealthy members of the public". The last I heard, BBC
is funded largely by a per household license fee (i.e. tax), so the
phrase in question means government-funded.

Donations by members of the public is PRIVATE funding in American
terminology, not public funding

lojbab
--
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org