Since tomorrow is the last day that the BPP will be broadcasting, I wanted to do something special for the awesome people who make the show.
All week, they’ve had a hilarious, heartbreaking series of their regular feature “Best Song in the World Today” focused on the five stages of grief (those would be denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). In honor of that, and in honor of the work of our friends, I give you the BPP Stages of Grief mixtape.
Onward! (Continued)
It’s kind of funny, sometimes, how you can see something mentioned a million times before deciding to pay it any attention, even though it’s something that calls you by name.
Bryant Park Project listener Daniel O’Toole has a can of Gargoyles Spaghetti-Os that’s been sitting on his shelf for God only knows how long a great idea for contacting NPR and driving home the point that the BPP will be missed.
I’m partially just testing our system for something Kerry’s working on for tomorrow, but I also really just wanted to continue to hype a band I thank the Bryant Park Project for introducing me to.
This is a really catchy song, and if you’ll watch the video of this band playing the song on the BPP blog, you’ll discover that the keyboard player is downright foxy.
Personally, that’s not my favorite song on the record. This is:
Ever since last Monday, when we found out that the Bryant Park Project had been canceled, things have been a bit single minded around here. Or, at least that’s how it’s felt.
There was a bit of an update with regards to the BPP today in the form of a blog post from NPR’s CEO. Some good points are made, some bad points are made, and if you take a look at the comments, our very own Matthew has used the phrase “flagrantly stupid”.
But despite the BPP’s demise (and the hilarious and wonderful segments the crew has been putting out in the last week - like the Stages of Grief), the coverage on other NPR programs continues (though, I can’t help but wonder if Emergency Krulwich will feel as special now).
Carl Kassell still comes on every morning to read the news, Renee Montagne is on vacation and away from Steve Inskeep’s awkward forced laughter, and All Things Considered seems to have turned into All Things Olympic. Also, don’t think we haven’t noticed that the Car Talk TV show is still on the air.
I suppose we need to get back to the business of covering all of the coverage, like this very informative story on this summer’s sleeper veggie hit, the squash.
And readers, I promise you that things will get back to normal around here. It’s not like we haven’t been paying attention to the other public media programs we love.
I’m just asking that you stay with us through just a few more days of celebrating the work of our friends at the BPP. They’ve been great to us, and we want their last week to be special.
I find myself thinking about the Bryant Park Project staff at random times. I was rebuilding some furniture I had to dismantle so I could bring it back from Indiana, and and just sighed, wondering what Alison Stewart would tell young Issac about what was happening when he was born.
He’ll probably just wonder what it was like to have media that wasn’t primarily Internet-based.
Ooh, burn!
Seriously, I keep thinking that I’m going to still be listening to them next week (and maybe I might dig back through their music features - I saw the performance video from Headlights, and bought the record and loved it), but no matter what the community does, Friday is it for the BPP as we know and love it.
I still want to get in touch with the higher eschalons of NPR and find out if they hear the BPP community’s grief and suggestions.
Maybe we can still change things.
Maybe it’s all just magical thinking.
It’s Thursday night, and you know what that means - it’s the night that we take a little break from our week-long BPP cancellation vigil and have a little normalcy in the form of Brooke and Bob. Yay!
The episode starts with a clip of President Bush talking about how pleased he is about his brand new warrantless wiretapping law. I’m kind of sad that it’s my recap week - Matthew’s going to be totally jealous. Warrantless wiretapping is one of his favorite things. Er, to talk about. I’m going to leave this part to him, later. Things to note: Obama voted for the new FISA law, only one of our branches of government works, and people hate their phone companies.
Well, not single-handedly.
On his blog, Rob Paterson has at least proposed a solution.
In the new world, we work with our “audience” and with our staff. In this new world, the path to economic success is not clear. If it was we would all go there. But intuitively we all know that BPP has a lot of the new in place. What it is missing is the disconnect from the radio business model. It is not going to be picked up by a whole mass of stations - all of which are themselves reeling from the economy.
I would go public and I would ask for help from the “audience” and the staff to find a way of making this work on the web.
I would make the Bryant Park PROJECT - the community project that would unleash the collective energy of thousands of people.
I like his enthusiasm here, and he asserts that this is a solution not just for the Bryant Park Project, but for NPR - and public media - as a whole.
When he points out that every bit of public media - especially the local stations - is struggling as the nation gets used to a new economy (the web) and a new economic reality (oil-based systems are crumbling), he acknowledges that he doesn’t have the answer, but he knows who does.
By opening public media for comment and ideas, by making public media’s web reality an open-source project of sorts, not only do you get the warm fuzzies of having ‘public’ media become truly ‘public,’ but also the wisdom of crowd-sourcing working in your favor.
But perhaps the most critical question remains unanswered: how are we going to fund this?
I’ve thought for some time that direct donation to specific programs would be a brilliant idea, making more popular programs cheaper for local stations to carry.
Think of it this way: When you buy a Bob Dylan record, Columbia records still gets paid, but your money still goes to Dylan, rather than to Bruce Springsteen. When you buy a Springsteen record, the opposite happens.
But of course, the local stations couldn’t do without the direct donations they receive. So what can be done?
Reader Jaime F., in a comment on the original Forget Ferris post, had some suggestions:
Possibility one - NPR Corporate is convinced that they can’t afford to lose the BPP in terms of future funding AND a nice underwriter is found. I don’t know exactly how underwriting works, but I think it might be the only way for money to go directly to a program.
Possibility two - An NPR member station takes the BPP on in the same way that Car Talk comes from a member station and, I think, get some funding help from NPR Corporate.
Possibility three - Some other company or organization essentially re-creates the BPP under a different name, as it’s NPR’s program (unless, somehow, NPR can sell the program, and I have absolutely no idea if that’s at all possible). So either something like American Public Radio or Sirius?
I really want to hear from somebody high up in NPR about this - I want to know what kind of decisions are being made, whether they’re hearing us raise hell about this, and what of our ideas might work.
Previous Forget Ferris (save the BPP) Project posts: Day One, Day Two.
The Forget Ferris Project (Save the BPP!) forges on in the face of listlessness, hopelessness, hangovers, and biopsies the nation over.
We got name-dropped on the BPP today. Which would feel good under happier circumstances.
Some clarifications of credit are due: The lovely “Save Ferris” watertower graphic is mine, and is to be shared. We did NOT start the “SAVE BPP” Facebook group. I was just an early member.
Yesterday’s News, Updated for Today:
Please repost what follows as you see fit.
The Bryant Park Project has been canceled. This doesn’t make us happy.
Of all NPR programs, the BPP has most actively embraced online media (I hesitate to call it “New Media” anymore; it should be universal). We first found them on Twitter, and their blog is one of two news outlets in my RSS reader.
Their use of social networking and blogging and video has allowed them to create, in just a few short months, the kind of personality and relationship with their listeners that takes other programs years to develop.
If you, too, dislike their cancellation, please call the people at these phone numbers, and let them know (politely) how you feel.
Laura Conaway, the BPP online editor, posted the following on the BPP blog:
A lot of you have asked where you can write to register your unhappiness with NPR’s decision. Here’s the answer: Go to npr.org/contact/. Click on the “I want to contact a program” option and pick Bryant Park in the drop-down menu. I’ve been assured that NPR has set up a special folder for these so they’ll be separated quickly from the rest of the audience e-mail and directed to the right person. Don’t send it to “contact an NPR office/management,” since it will go into the general pool of incoming mail and will take longer to be forwarded.
You can also write to our Ombudsman, Alicia Shepard. She can be reached here.
There is now also a “Save BPP” Facebook Group.
Blog Reactions:
That, thus far, is our call to arms. This post will be updated continually until otherwise noted.
Thanks, and keep ideas and links coming in the comments!
update: this was “Please Distribute the Love,” but it grows as information is added.
Please repost this story and picture as you please.
The Bryant Park Project has been canceled. This doesn’t make us happy.
Of all NPR programs, the BPP has most actively embraced online media (I hesitate to call it “New Media” anymore; it should be universal). We first found them on Twitter, and their blog is one of two news outlets in my RSS reader.
Their use of social networking and blogging and video has allowed them to create, in just a few short months, the kind of personality and relationship with their listeners that takes other programs years to develop.
If you, too, dislike their cancellation, please call the people at these phone numbers, and let them know (politely) how you feel.
Laura Conaway, the BPP online editor, posted the following on the BPP blog:
A lot of you have asked where you can write to register your unhappiness with NPR’s decision. Here’s the answer: Go to npr.org/contact/. Click on the “I want to contact a program” option and pick Bryant Park in the drop-down menu. I’ve been assured that NPR has set up a special folder for these so they’ll be separated quickly from the rest of the audience e-mail and directed to the right person. Don’t send it to “contact an NPR office/management,” since it will go into the general pool of incoming mail and will take longer to be forwarded.
You can also write to our Ombudsman, Alicia Shepard. She can be reached here.
There is now also a “Save BPP” Facebook Group.
Blog Reactions:
That, thus far, is our call to arms. This post is officially dead, but please head to our home page for new updates.
Thanks, and keep ideas and links coming in the comments!
R/S on Twitter
Sad News Day Two: If the BPP can’t make it, how can the rest of us?
Good morning, everybody.
So yesterday, the Bryant Park Project got canceled. I’m sure you heard about that. If you’re just joining us and are wanting to hurl a few pebbles at the NPR Goliath, go here.
Yesterday morning, I heard that BPP was canceled via their Twitter feed and fired off a rather spiteful post after having only been awake for 10 minutes or so. In retrospect, this probably wasn’t the best idea. Matthew had to go and do some damage control and I didn’t feel any better.
As Matthew pointed out, I work in new media. Or, rather, current media. The internet hasn’t been new since 1997. It’s so hard for me not to take this personally and for me not to see the BPP’s cancellation as anything less than a blow to people who understand the marriage of traditional media and the internet. The BPP is great at this pairing - it’s possibly the best thing they do.
I’ve been reading a lot of listener responses today, and one of the recurring themes is how much of a very personal relationship that listeners have with this show. We get tweets from Laura in the morning, sometimes just seeing if anyone else is awake or asking for story tips, sometimes congratulating us on our new jobs, new houses, and new thoughts. We know the hosts by name and know that when we write them, not only do they read it but they often reply.
But if they can’t make it, what does that mean for the rest of us who are struggling to convince our traditional media outlets to embrace the internet?
If anyone has any ideas, I’ll hear you out.