Public Radio Requires Full Disclosure

To the Editor:

I would like to respond to Steven Rothschild’s April 23 letter to the editor (“Minn. Radio Stories Were a Disservice”).

The objective of my column (“Making Charities’ For-Profit Arms More Accountable,” Opinion, April 9) was to argue for full disclosure of all transactions between a charity and its for-profit subsidiaries. Minnesota Public Radio has been a widely reported example of “non-profiteering” and is an appropriate illustration of the problem I wrote about.

The point is not how expert M.P.R.’s governance and management are. The point is not whether its “nationally recognized outside compensation experts” fell into line. The point is not whether the development of alternative revenue streams is a good idea. And the point is not whether the non-profit organization was sufficiently shielded from the for-profit company’s risk (apparently it wasn’t, since Mr. Rothschild writes that M.P.R. “suffered fluctuations in income” as a result of the catalogue company).

The point is this: M.P.R. owes it to the “partnership” of “members, listeners, communities” and “legions of supporters” to whom Mr. Rothschild refers to explain fully and clearly, up front, the facts of the non-profit-for-profit relationship, after which the legions can decide for themselves.

Henry Goldstein
President
The Oram Group
New York