Word games are my favorite sport; they don't require publicly-funded stadiums, anyone can play, and horrible puns are appreciated for the gifts* they truly are. So I often enjoy a nationally distributed public radio program called "Says You," a fast half-hour of witty wordplay. But this week was different--the local NPR all-talk-most-of-the-time-station, KUOW, was grinding through the periodic exercise of Begging For Dollars. Most of my favorite show was taken over by KUOW staff badgering listeners for the money they can't get from their corporate sponsors and daily underwriters.

Why should anyone give their hard-earned cash to KUOW when, for one thing, they have no regular community calendar. If you want your event publicized, you're either fortunate to get some producer's attention, or be a day sponsor and pay dearly to have your message mentioned a few times. Even the local FOX affiliate carries free community service announcements! But KUOW follows a commercial format in many ways.

The $100 KUOW member package includes a logo baseball cap (they didn't mention which sweatshop produces them) and a public radio tattoo (how hip!), in the mode of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nike, and other corporate "leaders." But wait, there's more! In a brilliant tribute to the KUOW management's political sophistication, the KUOW membership package includes a year's subscription to Newsweek magazine! This is the measure of the station's news sense: bland, mainstream, following shallow trends while ignoring tough questions (see Newsweek's recent cover story on actress Nichole Kidman's struggle for privacy, a struggle which apparently eclipses daily bombings in Iraq, murders in Columbia, and other more serious issues).

Looking on the bright side, at least Newsweek doesn't pretend to eschew advertising while harassing subscribers with quarterly begathons. And it's great junk food to accompany NPR's increasingly tabloid-style journalism: stories on commercial TV trends, the daily business report, the bland juxtaposition of commentators from the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institute arguing over commas, and coverage of a range of opinion from extreme right-wing drivel to center-right navel-gazing.

And these NPR programs cost local stations mucho dinero to buy and broadcast. KUOW's staff was quite discomfited by the outrageous amount of money they were expected to extract from listeners this time around: over $300,000 in four days! Each on-air host mentioned: "The management set a very high goal this year; some of us think it's too high, but we're going to try." (It's better than going on strike, I guess.) The station is planning to move into new studios on University Way (near Wizards of the Coast no less--stay tuned for a live remote broadcast from the video arcade on opening day!) after getting booted out of their low-rent digs at the University of Washington. With new offices to furnish, KUOW is aiming for the big bucks. Oak paneled offices can make a big impression on potential corporate sponsors!

I didn't deliberate for long; it took maybe two split seconds to pass up on the opportunity to give some of my meager earnings to this bland excuse for "public" radio (the same station that killed Sandy Bradley's Potluck show). After all, I once worked at KUOW with other staffpeople, each of us earning less than the work-study students who were learning our trade. There are a few admirable humans at KUOW: in particular, veteran reporter Ken Vincent draws on his time at Seattle City Hall to provide desperately needed local political coverage. But he's one voice drowned out by many Newsweek clones. It's definitely not worth a subscription.

* This is a pun: in German, the word "gift" means "poison," which is what many humorless people think of puns.