Media

IPAS is a locally-based international women's health and reproductive rights organization. The following message came today:

IPAS has been sponsoring WUNC and we have a short announcement that is read on-air. Recently, WUNC decided that the phrase 'reproductive rights' which we use in our announcement was in violation of FCC regulations because it advocates for a particular position that is not universally endorsed. They admit that this is a conservative interpretation of the regulations, but nonetheless they will not let Ipas use this phrase in its on-air announcement.

I have been arguing with them to make the case that reproductive rights is not a euphemism for abortion and that, indeed, the whole point of rights is that they are universally held, e.g. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I doubt that my arguments will be successful.

I know that many of you are supporters of WUNC and I think some questions from listeners on this policy might help open their eyes to this issue.

I heard that 'The State of Things' would be discussing local elections today at noon. Check it out, you can even call in during the show at 877-962-9862 (toll free).

I want to give a quick shout out to WUNC for finally archiving their shows online and adding an MP3 stream to their online broadcast. Both of these things make their programs more accessible, although it would also be nice if they would provide archives of some of their previous programs as well (hint).

I'm also glad to see that WUNC added a very insightful show, On Point to the daily schedule. If you are already paying a lot of attention to news and are growing tired of repetitive national headlines, this show offers a deeper listen into what's going on. I enjoyed their pre-debate analysis of the presidential candidates and interviews with fundamentalist christians at the GOP convention.

The Chapel Hill News is replacing long-time editor and publisher Ted Vaden with Brenda Larson ("business development analyst for The News & Observer's community newspapers") who will also act as the publisher of the Cary News. The loss of Vaden is bad in itself, but replacing him with someone who is not from Chapel Hill and won't be focused on Chapel Hill sounds like a disaster to me. I hope I'm wrong!

Before joining The N&O, Larson was director of new product development for York Region Newspaper Group, a group of Canadian community newspapers north of Toronto. In addition, she served as editor-in-chief for seven newspapers in that group, which is owned by Metroland.

Larson also will become publisher of The Cary News, another N&O community newspaper, and will split her time between Cary and Chapel Hill.