Ok, right from the start here, I'll lay out the disclaimer.. I really dislike our local PBS station. And most of you know why. If you don't know what my exact reason is, but you live in the Syracuse area, you may know part of it. WCNY has developed a bit of a bad rep in the past two years.

But first, let me say, I grew up on PBS. I lived in a household that supported its local PBS station yearly, and attended its community events. I, (or rather- we as a family,) strongly believe in public television, and its connection to the community.

Now I've known for a long time, that WCNY was planning on going "pledge free". At first I thought this was an interesting idea. In fact, very interesting that a PBS station could be self sustaining without the financial support of the community it serves. But then I thought.. what a bad idea! See.. in my opinion, and the opinion of many others, its the members who ultimately run (or should run) the station. The perfect PBS affiliate is very involved in its community, and the community in it. This was the case with my hometown affiliate, WVIA. And it was this way with Wisconsin Public Television in Madison.

WCNY.. not so much.

Forget "Central New York's Own".. lets call it what it is, "Corporate New York's Own"

So yesterday I got a phone call, and according to the caller ID, although it said "unknown caller" it did display a phone number outside of this area code. The call went a little bit like this...

"hello"

"can I speak with Carla?"

"speaking"

"hi, I'm calling on behalf of WCNY.."

"um, before you go any further.. the caller ID says this is not coming from my area code, where are you calling from?"

"Oregon City, Oregon"

Oregon.

The one 2,000 miles away.. soliciting me to support WCNY.

Three days before "Pledge Free on September 23".

And if you read the statement on their site, "pledge free" is total misnomer, because they still need the community's financial support. They just won't be interrupting programming for pledge drives. I guess instead they've hired a marketing firm on the other side of the country to call me during dinner?

I have to say, I personally, looked forward to pledge weeks. Who doesn't love a whole night of Dame Judy Dench on Britcom night? Or goodness, as a Deadhead, I practically counted down the weeks until Grateful Dead night (even though I own the dvd that they're airing!) I treated the "intermission" where the pledge drive actually took place, as a nice break to get up stretch my legs, get a snack, whatever. I'm more irritated by getting a call from Oregon than I was with George and Liz begging for pledges.

So what this tells me is that the original notion of going "pledge free" has failed since they apparently still need member support via pledges.  Not really pledge free is it? You'd think they might forget that whole idea, and embrace their volunteers, right? You know.. stick with tradition. Well when local talk radio personality, Jim Reith goes on air and begs his listeners to give some time during a WCNY pledge drive, since WCNY is falling short, you know theres a problem.

What I do know is that I've met a lot of people since moving here. And few continue to support WCNY.

"Pledge Free on September 23"

Not really. They just want you to think that.

Around a year ago on this day..

• I lack the mental energy to come up with a title for this.. - 2006