The Value of Public Radio

Recently, at work, I have been listening to Minnesota Public Radio instead of my iPod. Public radio helps the time to go by quicker because it is entertaining and informative at the same time. I also prefer listening to news from the radio instead of watching the news on TV. There are multiple benefits that radio news can offer over other mediums.

Public radio stations are largely supported by member listeners who pay monthly support fees. Because of thismethod of funding, such stations have minimal bias on the issues they cover. Television stations that broadcast the news are owned by conglomerates whose goal is to make money. Their way of increasing profits is by competing for the highest number of viewers.

The conglomerate news stations lure their audience in by reporting news to get the viewers' attention. Such news typically weighs toward violence rather than the most important news as weighed by more objective measures. These stations also fail to include world news, ofetn limiting their reporting spectrum to the United States. Minnesota Public Radio provides coverage of the world and touches on the most important issues. Depending on the ownership of the stations, news coverage can trend toward propaganda. Conglomerates have helped with the low quality and the lack of reliability among news stations, although the Internet gives even less reliability than TV.

Due to the overwhelming ease by which one creates a web page and distributes information, the Internet is most certainly the worst source of information.

I can only hope that more people find greater worth in Public Radio and consume its news programs to benefit their awareness of the world.