KRCU IS NOT A COMPETITIVE ENTITY

To the Editor:

When we paint with a broad brush, we often miss the lines and lose the message.

I think your editorial of Thursday, Sept. 16, dealing with the use of university facilities to promote commercial enterprises that compete with local businesses, painted a little too broadly.

My concern is solely with your identification of the National Public Radio affiliate, KRCU 90.9FM, as a commercial enterprise competing with other local radio stations. Because of the nature of its programming, combining music not heard elsewhere in this region (classics, jazz, folk, new age) with in-depth news analysis in a non-commercial format, KRCU is competing with no-one. If there were an equivalent local commercial station, we would not need KRCU and its NPR offerings: but there simply isn't. KRCU stands alone.

KRCU contributes significantly to the cultural climate of this area in a totally unique way. Rather than subtracting from the economic environment, like all cultural activities in the area, KRCU contributes to it. It is for this reason that NPR radio stations such KRCU are supported by universities throughout the nation. The stations act as educational and cultural public services. They are completely consistent with the mission of the institutions supporting them.

To suggest that KRCU is an economic threat to the community is equivalent to suggesting, for example, that museums, art galleries, and other cultural facilities and events are in competition with local movie theaters and should not be supported by taxes.

I suggest that a finer brush might have better been used in your editorial, one that clearly targets only events on the university campus that genuinely compete with local commercial activities.

ALAN R.P. JOURNET

Cape Girardeau