March 29, 2024

Media Decoder: Media Decoder: Adding Local Flavor to ‘The Takeaway’

As public radio stations around the country search for more compelling midday programs and ways to be more local, the producers of “The Takeaway” are pushing to fill that void, with a reformulated show that includes more perspectives from reporters at local stations, instead of presenting a purely national perspective.

At the same time, officials at the New York public radio station WNYC, which produces “The Takeaway” with Public Radio International in Minneapolis, said they will make the show, and other programs WNYC owns rights to, available to stations to cut up piecemeal and use as they please.

“We want to strengthen ‘The Takeaway’ by strengthening our partnership with other stations, and we’re doing it in an environment where stations are searching for new solutions for midday,” Laura R. Walker, chief executive of New York Public Radio, WNYC’s parent, said in an interview by phone.

At a mid-April meeting in Phoenix, nine public radio stations joined an informal coalition to explore new ways to share content and to mix local and national news, starting with “The Takeaway,” which is hosted by John Hockenberry. The New York Times and the Boston station WGBH are also collaborators on the show, which 82 stations carry.

While some public radio stations are happy just to broadcast national shows from NPR and other distributors, local perspectives are becoming more urgent in a digital age when listeners can easily tap numerous news sources on a tablet or smartphone.

“We feel like part of our ultimate winning strategy is to produce and deliver content and experiences that can only be done from where we are,” said Stewart Vanderwilt, director and general manager of KUT radio in Austin, Tex., which joined the coalition.

But he said by phone that localism must not replace a national or global perspective. “I think it’s the integration of those things,” he said, “and it’s why we’re so enthusiastic about the proposed approach that’s being explored here.”

Public television stations have been exploring similar sharing models. Last September, WNET in New York began distributing short arts and culture pieces that other stations could incorporate in their own local arts programs, leading some stations to start new shows.

Discussions about the radio coalition began in November, before NPR announced in late March that it was canceling its 21-year-old midday call-in show, “Talk of the Nation,” effective in July.

NPR also proposed a replacement: an expanded version of “Here and Now,” an afternoon broadcast produced by WBUR in Boston, which will now be competing with “The Takeaway” for time slots.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/business/media/media-decoder-adding-local-flavor-to-the-takeaway.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Airports Resume Service in Northeast After Hurricane Irene

Airlines haltingly began to resume some flights on Sunday in the northeastern United States after the destruction left by Hurricane Irene, but travelers still faced widespread cancellations into Monday and backups well into next week.

Almost all flights were canceled in Philadelphia and Boston on Sunday and the three big airports in the New York area were closed.

In Washington, both Dulles International and Reagan National reopened with no major damage reported from the storm, and flights began leaving early Sunday, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said.

“There are still many cancellations and delays especially on flights to other airports in the Northeast,” said Courtney Mickalonis, a spokeswoman for the authority. “It is going to continue for another day or two. We recommend that people check with their airlines. Some flights are going but a lot are not.”

The Baltimore Washington International airport said flights were expected to slowly resume on Sunday, but more delays and cancellations were expected.

The Philadelphia International Airport said it was reopening at 4 p.m. Sunday. But, it said, no airlines had departures scheduled for Sunday.

In Boston, there were “numerous cancellations on Sunday; normal operations are expected to resume Monday midday,” the airport authority said in a statement.

Phil Orlandella, a spokesman, said Logan airport in Boston had remained open over the weekend but almost all flights had been canceled. He said airlines would resume flights sporadically on Monday but that first “they have to get their airplanes in here.”

LaGuardia was scheduled to reopen at 7 a.m. on Monday for arrivals and departures while Kennedy and Newark would handle arrivals by 6 a.m. and departures by noon, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.

United and Continental had canceled 2,300 flights on Saturday and Sunday and said they did not expect to resume flights from the New York airports before noon Monday “with the time depending on facility conditions and access.”

As a sign that the problems would stretch into the week, further flights would inevitably be canceled Monday, they said.

In the wake of the problems, they and other airlines like JetBlue were waiving change fees for customers with flights in the affected areas. JetBlue, which canceled 1,252 flights over the weekend and on Monday, said it might be operating some flights by Monday afternoon.

American Airlines said it had canceled 1,161 flights over the weekend, mainly in the New York and Washington areas, and had already canceled 89 more so far for Monday. American said it had resumed flights from Washington on Sunday at 9 a.m.

Delta, which canceled about 1,100, or 20 percent, of its flights Sunday, said it would probably resume operations at New York airports and other locations by late Monday afternoon. The big international airlines were also caught up in the disruptions. Air France, for example, canceled flights out of Boston over the weekend and rebooked passengers on flights leaving only at the end of this coming week. Lufthansa said it had canceled 21 flights in and out of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and hoped gradually to resume flights Monday. The airlines are rescheduling flights and rebooking passengers, and logistically spent the weekend moving aircraft and crew they had moved back to airports in the Northeast.

According to Steve Lott, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, an industry trade group, another issue was whether local airport employees could get to work without mass transit.

“The Washington area is coming back on line today. By tonight or tomorrow morning, we should be close to normal there,” Mr. Lott said.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6eb15d3081746fd9f734d33e9224b7c2

Boehner Says G.O.P. Is Ready to Act Alone on Debt Deal

Leaders of both parties continued to negotiate over the telephone, hoping to settle the matter before the opening of the Asian markets later on Sunday. That opening is widely feared to be the first real test of the tangible financial market fallout from the debt limit impasse. It was far from clear that such a deal would or could be reached in time.

As the Aug. 2 deadline for lifting the debt ceiling nears, warnings are growing that the nation’s economy may be damaged because of the protracted political stalemate. A downgrade of the nation’s credit rating, which could raise the cost of borrowing, seemed more likely, deal or no deal.

The impasse has further set the tone for the 2012 presidential race, with the debate growing rancorous and the two parties’ visions for the country at odds. The enormous deficit challenges have been clearly articulated to voters, as the parties seek unified control of Congress, where the Republicans are the majority in the House and the Democrats in the Senate.

“My last offer is still out there. I’ve never taken my last offer off the table,” Mr. Boehner said on “Fox News Sunday.” He said that plan included about $800 billion in new tax revenue as well as significant spending cuts.

“The preferable path would be a bipartisan plan that involves all the leaders, but it is too early to decide whether that’s possible,” Mr. Boehner added. “If that’s not possible, I and my Republican colleagues in the House are prepared to move on our own.”

The contours of such a plan were far from clear at midday Sunday. But it seemed likely to take the form of a two-step process, with a short-term increase in the debt limit along with about $1 trillion in cuts, an amount the Republicans said was sufficient to clear the way for a debt limit increase through year’s end. That would be followed by future cuts guided by a new legislative commission that would consider a broader range of trims, program overhauls and revenue increases.

Both sides would also be given another chance to vote on a balanced budget amendment that would set stringent guidelines for future debt ceiling increases.

While the White House remains adamantly opposed to a two-step deal that does not extend the debt ceiling beyond next year’s elections, administration officials expect that the Senate would modify Mr. Boehner’s proposal.

At the moment, the White House is a spectator to the 11th-hour game plan, after Mr. Boehner’s abrupt abandonment of negotiations on Friday night.

While a modified plan might fail to gain the support of the more right-leaning and Tea Party-influenced House members, it could win enough Democratic votes to pass if it is blessed by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. However, if Mr. Boehner were to reject Senate modifications and go with a deal that would pass muster with his Republican conference, the Senate would have to offer a rebuttal, as the clock ticks.

Such a plan has been rejected out of hand by the White House and Senate Democrats as unacceptable; they prefer one that would clear the way for roughly $2.5 trillion in extra borrowing needed to get through 2012, just beyond the presidential election.

Indeed, the so-called grand bargain between Mr. Boehner and Mr. Obama has not been left for dead — as have plans crafted by Mr. Boehner; the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell; and others — because, at the end of the day, the $800 billion in tax revenues and trillions of dollars in cuts amount to perhaps the best deal either party can get, even if it is unacceptable to the base of each.

Mr. Obama has said he will veto any debt legislation unless it extends the ability of the nation to borrow into 2013, the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, said on Sunday.

Mr. Daley, appearing on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” said that world markets and the American economy could not continue with the doubts brought on by periodic fights over the debt ceiling. “The president believes that we must get this uncertainty out of the system,” Mr. Daley said.

Minutes after Mr. Daley promised a veto, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, said on the same program that Mr. Daley’s remarks were “a ridiculous position, because that’s what he’s going to get presented with.”

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner suggested there was still hope for a grand bargain. “They are talking again,” Mr. Geithner said in an appearance on “This Week” on ABC. “They’ve been in touch throughout this time.”

Both Mr. Geithner and Mr. Daley said they believed Congress would figure out a way to avoid default. “The leaders of Congress have said unequivocally that we will meet our obligations,” Mr. Geithner said.

Mr. Daley acknowledged, however, that both sides were still at the brink. “We are now getting to a point where markets around the world will question whether the political system can come together and compromise for the good of the country,” Mr. Daley said.

On Saturday, Congressional leaders clashed as they tried to reach a new deficit reduction agreement that Mr. Boehner told colleagues could cut $3 trillion to $4 trillion in spending over 10 years.

“We are working, and I’m confident there will be resolution,” Mr. Boehner told his fellow House Republicans in an afternoon conference call, according to participants. “There has to be.”

Maria Newman contributed reporting from New York.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=7f007ac112b17d59cd800dcc7f74ae7b