What's Up With Rising Inflation?

What's Up With Rising Inflation?
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, April 26, 2022, p. A5
Inflation can be a cruel, cold wind. It bites hardest those at the bottom of the economic ladder, or on fixed income -- especially when political leaders cut benefits. The wealthiest never knew what they were paying for groceries, still don’t know nor care.

All the rest of us need to know about inflation is whether we suddenly have too much month at the end of the money – and, if so, what can we do about it?

We don’t need to understand, let alone try to calculate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Price Index formula: CPIt = Ct/Co * 100. That may produce a number, the percentage increase in the CPI, but we don’t buy the CPI, as if investing in an index fund. We buy from among millions of individual items.

For example, “bread” is one of the CPI products. But there are over 100 types of bread, in various sizes, from different bakeries, stores, cities, days, with very different prices.

That’s why there’s no single “inflation.” There is only your memory of what you paid your grocery store for your family’s favorite bread last summer and what you paid yesterday.

Memory is at the core of the impact of increasing prices on our mood. Some remember last year’s prices. Others can recall prices during their youth. Depending on one’s age that can make an enormous difference.

I can remember, and the BLS reports, when things cost a nickel. An ice cream cone with two generous scoops. An adult’s cup of coffee. A loaf of Wonder bread. Many grocery items were a dime, as were my movie tickets.

My young buddies and I had pennies and occasionally sacrificed one to be flattened on the railroad track. We speculated whether a 50-cent piece might derail a steam engine. But none of us had ever possessed a half-dollar or would have willingly sacrificed one to science.

My first car, a roofless Model A, cost $25. Tuition at the University of Texas was $25. My four-door Texas Model A, with a roof, cost $75. The neighborhood Texaco station charged 19 cents a gallon. [Photo credit:wikimedia commons, public domain, John Margolies.]


During my 1974 congressional primary race my house rent was $40 a month.

Of course, wages increased, too; but without unions they haven’t kept up. It’s virtually impossible to calculate with any precision how much ahead or behind we are from 10, 20 or 50 years ago. My rule of thumb is that most things are now priced at least 20 to 30 times the prices I remember.

Nor is there much we could do even if we knew. Find a job that pays more? Good luck.

Our most expensive purchases are for “time-shifting.” Americans pay $120 billion a year in credit card interest to have things now rather than pay cash later. Sometimes that’s necessary, but not always. (Google “marshmallow experiment” or Steve Martin’s “Don’t Buy Stuff.”)

Hey, how about we pay more attention to who’s financing the politicians we vote for?
_______________
Nicholas Johnson still picks up pennies from sidewalks in Iowa City. mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org

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SOURCES
Current inflation. “U.S. Inflation Highest Since 1981 as CPI Hits 8.5% in March,” Inflation Calculator, April 12, 2022, https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

BLS CPI. “Consumer Price Index,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, https://www.bls.gov/cpi (a source that slices CPI by more ways than even imaginable)

CPI Calculation. “Consumer Price Index (CPI) Calculator, Calculator Academy, Aug. 3, 2021, https://calculator.academy/consumer-price-index-cpi-calculator/ (for formula displayed in column)

“Consumer Price Index: Calculation,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nov. 24, 2020, https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/calculation.htm

“How to Calculate the CPI and Inflation Rate,” https://www.uvm.edu/~awoolf/classes/spring2005/ec11/calculating_inflation.html#:~:text=To%20find%20the%20CPI%20in,year%2C%20in%20this%20case%201984

Bread. “Bread is among the food items which are widely consumed worldwide. As per the reports suggested by different restaurants, food surveys, and data, more than 100 types of bread are present today, with different types popular among different societies.” “Different Types Of Bread From Around The World You Should Know!” kidadl, Jan. 20, 2022, https://kidadl.com/fun-facts/different-types-of-bread-from-around-the-world-you-should-know

List of recalled prices. These are from memories from late 1930s and WWII believed to be accurate, and consistent with BLS amounts, but not documented.

The BLS reports, for example, from a later time period, “Prices of selected food items, 1947”:

Apples, 12.8 cents/pound
Potatoes, 5.0 cents/pound
Bananas, 15 cents/pound
Flour, 4.8 cents/pound
Rice 18.4 cents/pound
White bread 12.5 cents/pound
Round steak 75.6 cents/pound
Milk, 18.7 cents/quart
Butter, 80.5 cents/pound”

“One hundred years of price change: the Consumer Price Index and the American inflation experience,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 2014, https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/article/one-hundred-years-of-price-change-the-consumer-price-index-and-the-american-inflation-experience.htm

Inflation decreases wages. Judge Glock, “Inflation Drives Wages Down, Not Up; The ‘wage-price spiral’ is a myth. It’s much easier to raise prices than wages,” Wall Street Journal,” Jan. 31, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-drives-worker-pay-down-not-up-wage-price-spiral-raises-goods-keynes-friedman-cost-push-fed-11643662537

(“The Labor Department released a report Friday showing that worker pay increased about 4% in one year, the fastest rate in two decades. This led to predictable alarm that the U.S. is facing a “wage-price spiral,” in which higher wages push up prices, which lead to demands for still-higher wages, and so forth. But the wage-price spiral is a false and antiquated economic idea that refuses to die and keeps generating bad policies.

“Wages don’t spiral up during inflation; they spiral down as higher prices eat away paychecks. The dollar amounts on paychecks will rise, but not fast enough for their real value to outpace inflation. The recent stories of wage increases came not long after the government announced prices increased 7% in the past year. A more accurate headline for coverage of Labor’s report last Friday would have been “Real Wages Drop 3%.”

“The reason real wages are dropping is simple. Wages are what economists call “sticky,” meaning they don’t change as fast as other prices do. When inflation comes along, gasoline stations can switch their price signs in an hour and restaurants can adjust their menus in a day, but most employees get a salary bump only once a year. Some unions renegotiate their salaries only every five years.

“The combination of flexible prices and sticky wages also explains why inflation provides a temporary boost for business. John Maynard Keynes observed that inflation tends to increase profits because it creates a greater spread between the prices businesses charged and the wages they paid. As one International Monetary Fund report stated, during an inflation there is a “redistribution of income away from labor” to capital. This explains recent surging business profits.

“We also saw this story play out in the 1970s, when the idea of the wage-price spiral first attracted attention. At the time, many Keynesian economists wanted to blame inflation on anything but the Federal Reserve printing too much money. So they came up with the wage-price spiral, also known as cost-push inflation, which they thought was driving up prices. But they confused nominal and real wages. Even though paychecks were for more dollars, their actual value dropped by almost 20% over the decade, as real profits increased.” . . . )

Decline in unions decreased wages. Alana Semuels, “Fewer Unions, Lower Pay for Everybody; If organized labor were as strong today as it was in the late 1970s, nonunion men without a high-school diploma would be earning 9 percent more, according to a new study,” The Atlantic, Aug. 30, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/union-inequality-wages/497954/

$120 B credit card interest. Ashwin Vasan and Wei Zhang, “Americans Pay $120 Billion in Credit Card Interest and Fees Each Year,” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Jan. 19, 2022, https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/americans-pay-120-billion-in-credit-card-interest-and-fees-each-year/

Marshmallow study. “Stanford Marshmallow Experiment,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

Don’t buy stuff. “SNL Transcripts: Steve Martin: 02/04/06: Don’t Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford,” SNL Transcripts Tonight, Season 31, Episode 12, https://snltranscripts.jt.org/05/05lbuy.phtml

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Use It Or Lose It

Public Radio: Use It or Lose It
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, April 9, 2022, p. 5A
I love radio. Always have. AM, shortwave, an amateur license, working for National Public Radio, and FCC.

Today’s NPR and Iowa Public Radio employees are the airwaves heroes in our civil war to save democracy.

Because 18-year-old Iowa Public Radio is currently celebrating its centennial, a little history is in order.

The first cross-Atlantic “wireless” transmission was 1901. Soon radio amateurs were building transmitters – as they have created communications innovations since. Launching communications satellites, bouncing signals off the moon, and making phone calls with hand-held radios long before your first smartphone.

Once their Morse Code gave way to the human voice the tussle began. Like Steve Martin’s Saturday Night Live routine, folks pointed to the talking box and asked, “What the hell is that?” Both the Navy and phone company fought for control.

Iowa’s President Herbert Hoover, as Secretary of Commerce 1921 to 1928, led the way, as homes with radios went from 300,000 to 10 million. Thirty stations became 618. The chaos of signal interference required regulation.
[Photo: wikimedia; accompanying text: "Photo of an American family in the 1920s listening to a crystal radio. From a 1922 advertisement for Freed-Eisemann radios in Radio World magazine. The small radio is on the table. Crystal sets work off the power received from radio waves, so they are not strong enough to power loudspeakers. Therefore the family members each wear earphones, the mother and father sharing a pair. Although this is obviously a professionally posed, promotional photo, it captures the excitement of the public at the first radio broadcasts, which were beginning about this time. Crystal sets like this were the most widely used type of radio until the 1920s, when they were slowly replaced by vacuum tube radios."]

Many nations responded with non-commercial-only, public (though not government) national broadcasting networks. Most famously, Britain’s BBC.

Congress called them “public airwaves,” but gave the FCC power to select and license private individuals’ use of them in “the public interest.” Hoover opposed “advertising chatter.” Even licensees urged “advertising in radio be absolutely prohibited.”

As commercialism took over radio, the push-back created “educational, non-commercial” stations. FCC’s first woman commissioner, Frieda Hennock, a Ukrainian, is credited with the reservation of educational TV channels. In 1945, the FCC reserved educational FM channels.

In 1911 engineering students and faculty at the University of Iowa got their “training school license,” 9YA, for their “wireless telegraph.” By 1916 free course material was broadcast in Morse Code. Later full licenses were granted for WHAA (1922) and WSUI (1925). By 1933 W9XK (later W9XUI) provided education via TV. WOI has similar history.

NPR began in 1971, and IPR in 2004 – the first step in a cutback in state support of Iowa’s university-licensed stations. This year the Board of Regents began the transfer of all broadcast licenses and property of university stations to IPR.

The Legislature no longer funds our universities to the extent it once did. (Now $389M less than 20 years ago, notwithstanding increasing costs.)

Meanwhile, the Golden Dome of Wisdom echoes with, “what have the universities done for us lately?”

Former UI President Sally Mason observed there are Iowans in “pockets where we may be less favorably viewed … a lot of them are west.” You think?

How sad the universities had an irreplaceable, invaluable statewide network of 26 stations – a public relations firm’s dream -- that could have told their story and won over legislators by helping small towns. University administrators, regents, legislators and governors failed to see its value.

It was “use it or lose it,” and now they’ve lost it. Happy Centennial.

Nicholas Johnson, a former FCC commissioner, lives in Iowa City. mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org

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Sources
My amateur radio license. N0EAJ, Aug. 20, 2027, https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/searchLicense.jsp

Working for NPR. Although I have never accepted payment from NPR, and thus would not be considered an "employee" in that sense, my involvement has included providing daily reports, and an hour-long special, regarding RAGBRAI, reports from presidential conventions on how the media covers conventions, and uncounted opinion pieces over the years.

History of radio, general. Erik Barnouw, three-volume “A History of Broadcasting in the United States.” A Tower of Babel (to 1933), vol. 1; The Golden Web (1933-1953), vol. 2; and The Image Empire (from 1953), vol. 3

“History of Radio,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radio

Wireless in 1901. “Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean …. The message–simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”–traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.” “First radio transmission sent across the Atlantic Ocean, December 12, 1901,” This Day in History, December 12,” History, Feb. 9, 2010, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/marconi-sends-first-atlantic-wireless-transmission

Early amateurs. “The radio hobbyists, soon to be called radio amateurs, or ham operators, … were among the first to transform their hobby into the earliest broadcasting stations, and felt it was only proper they should be entrusted with radio’s future.[19] (Footnotes are to referenced sources in Nicholas Johnson, “Radio as Mysterious Miracle” in “The Origins and Future of Radio,” August 23, 2015, https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/writing/OriginsAndFutureOfRadio-150823.htm

Amateurs’ innovations. “Ham Radio History,” ARRL (American Radio Relay League), http://www.arrl.org/ham-radio-history

“The radio hobbyists, soon to be called radio amateurs, or ham operators, provided most of the early improvements in radio – as they continued to do with electronics generally throughout the Twentieth Century.[18] (Footnotes are to referenced sources in Nicholas Johnson, “Radio as Mysterious Miracle” in “The Origins and Future of Radio,” August 23, 2015, https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/writing/OriginsAndFutureOfRadio-150823.htm

Steve Martin’s routine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l5tpY6SXMc

Navy and phone company control. “There was little agreement as to what radio was, how it could be used, and who should control it. The Navy, having used and advanced radio technology during World War I, understandably saw radio as a form of military equipment properly controlled by them – with wireless telegraphy’s ability to provide rapid, where telegraph wires were not an option communication, between ships, and ship-to-shore.[15] Telegraph companies argued that anything called wireless telegraphy was obviously still telegraphy, and a private business inappropriate for military or other governmental operation.[16] Telephone companies, with comparable certainly, saw radio as an obvious extension of their businesses – and even more so once radio started to be used for broadcasting programming. After all, as early as the 1870s telephone companies in the U.S. and Europe were distributing music and other entertainment programming over telephone wires -- what we today might call cable radio.[17] The radio hobbyists, soon to be called radio amateurs, or ham operators, provided most of the early improvements in radio – as they continued to do with electronics generally throughout the Twentieth Century.[18] They were among the first to transform their hobby into the earliest broadcasting stations, and felt it was only proper they should be entrusted with radio’s future.[19] (Footnotes are to referenced sources in Nicholas Johnson, “Radio as Mysterious Miracle” in “The Origins and Future of Radio,” August 23, 2015, https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/writing/OriginsAndFutureOfRadio-150823.htm

Hoover, as Secretary of Commerce. “Secretary of Commerce (1921-1928” (5), “Radio regulation and air travel” (5.1), “Herbert Hoover,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

“Hoover's tenure as Secretary of Commerce heavily influenced radio use in the United States. In the early and mid-1920s, Hoover's radio conferences played a key role in the organization, development, and regulation of radio broadcasting. Hoover also helped pass the Radio Act of 1927….” Id., “Radio regulation and air travel” (5.1)

“Secretary Hoover went ahead with at least a frequency allocation scheme to bring a little order out of chaos and signal interference.[25]” Footnote links to Erik Barnouw, A History of Broadcasting in the United States, vol. 1, pp. 121-22, in Nicholas Johnson, “The Origins and Future of Radio,” lecture transcript, August 23, 2015, https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/writing/OriginsAndFutureOfRadio-150823.htm

Homes with radios. “Between 1923 and 1929, the number of families with radios grew from 300,000 to 10 million,[109].” “Radio regulation and air travel” (5.1), “Herbert Hoover,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

30 (1922) to 618 (1930) stations. “United States Broadcasting Station Totals[2],” chart in “Radio in the United States,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_in_the_United_States#cite_note-2

Signal interference -> regulation. “Secretary Hoover went ahead with at least a frequency allocation scheme to bring a little order out of chaos and signal interference.[25]” Footnote links to Erik Barnouw, A History of Broadcasting in the United States, vol. 1, pp. 121-22, in Nicholas Johnson, “The Origins and Future of Radio,” lecture transcript, August 23, 2015, https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/writing/OriginsAndFutureOfRadio-150823.htm

Other nations’ public networks. e.g., Sweden, Sveriges Radio AB (“The company – which was founded as AB Radiotjänst … on 21 March 1924 – made its first broadcast on 1 January 1925 ….”) Sveriges Radio, History, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_Radio

Japan, NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai) (“NHK's earliest forerunner was the Tokyo Broadcasting Station (東京放送局), founded in 1924 …. Tokyo Broadcasting Station … began radio broadcasts in 1925. The three stations merged under the first incarnation of NHK in August 1926.[6] NHK was modelled on the BBC ….”) NHK, History, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHK#Radio_broadcasting

BBC. “The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom. Headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, it is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees ….” “BBC,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC

Congress and “public airwaves.” “It is the purpose of this chapter, among other things, to maintain the control of the United States over all the channels of radio transmission; and to provide for the use of such channels, but not the ownership thereof, by persons for limited periods of time, under licenses granted by Federal authority, and no such license shall be construed to create any right, beyond the terms, conditions, and periods of the license.” 47 U.S.C. Sec. 301

“The public interest.” “if the Commission, upon examination of such application and upon consideration of such other matters as the Commission may officially notice, shall find that public interest, convenience, and necessity would be served by the granting thereof, it shall grant such application.” 47 U.S.C. Sec. 309(a)

Hoover “advertising chatter.” Then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover's oft-quoted objection was, "It is inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service [for news, for entertainment, for education] to be drowned in advertising chatter." Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency 140 (1952), quoted in Erik Barnouw, A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting in the United States 96 (1966). (See, “Public Radio's Self-Inflicted Wounds,” FromDC2Iowa, Nov. 11, 2008, https://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2008/11/public-radios-self-inflicted-wounds.html)

Licensees’ opposition to advertising. The licensees’ Recommendation III.E. provided, "It is recommended that direct advertising in radio broadcasting service be absolutely prohibited . . .." Report of Department of Commerce Conference on Radio Telephony, Rad. Serv. Bull., May 1, 1922. See Nicholas Johnson, "Forty Years of Wandering in the Wasteland," Federal Communications Law Journal, May 2003, p. 521, 527-28, n. 17, https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/writing/masmedia/55FCL521.html. (See, “Public Radio's Self-Inflicted Wounds,” FromDC2Iowa, Nov. 11, 2008, https://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2008/11/public-radios-self-inflicted-wounds.html)

Frieda Hennock, first woman FCC. “Frieda Barkin Hennock (December 27, 1904–June 20, 1960) was the first female commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission and a central figure in the creation of an enduring system of educational television in the United States.” Frieda B. Hennock, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frieda_B._Hennock

Hennock Ukrainian. “Born in Kovel, then in the Russian Empire, now in Ukraine, the youngest of the eight children, she immigrated with her family to New York City in 1910 and became a US citizen in 1916 (in later life, she retained her fluency in Yiddish and continued to pray daily).[1]” Ibid.

Hennock educational TV. “Frieda Barkin Hennock, the woman credited with establishing educational television in the United States …. Returning to her work at the FCC, Hennock renewed her efforts on behalf of educational television. When the FCC's Sixth Report and Order was issued on April 11, 1952, it included 242 specific channel reservations for non-commercial television. Even though channels had been reserved for non-commercial use, Hennock realized that getting educational stations on the air was crucial in preserving those reservations…. Two years later [than 1953], when her term expired in mid-1955, over 50 non-commercial license applications had been filed and 12 stations were on the air.” “Hennock, Frieda B.,” Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hennock-frieda-b-1904-1960

Reservation educational FM. “On May 24, 1940, the FCC had announced the establishment, effective January 1, 1941, of an FM radio band operating on 40 channels spanning 42–50 MHz, with the first five channels (42.1 to 42.9 MHz) reserved for educational stations ….” [1] “On June 27, 1945, the FCC announced the reassignment of the FM band to 80 channels from 88–106 MHz, which was soon expanded to 100 channels from 88–108 MHz.[6][7].” “List of the initial commercial FM station assignments issued by the Federal Communications Commission on October 31, 1940,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_initial_commercial_FM_station_assignments_issued_by_the_Federal_Communications_Commission_on_October_31,_1940

“Commercial broadcasting is licensed only on channels 221 through 300 (the upper 80 channels, frequencies between 92.1 and 107.9 MHz), with 200 through 220 (the lower 21 channels, frequencies between 87.9 and 91.9 MHz) reserved for non-commercial educational (NCE) broadcasting.” “FM broadcasting in the United States; History,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_broadcasting_in_the_United_States

“In 1945, in recognition of the differing needs of educators and commercial broadcasters, FCC policy had set aside 20 FM radio channels for educational use.” “Hennock, Frieda B.,” Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hennock-frieda-b-1904-1960

UI’s 9YA license. David McCartney, “Old Gold: WSUI Radio Marks a Century on the Air,” Iowa Magazine, March 13, 2020, https://magazine.foriowa.org/story.php?ed=true&storyid=1930

“WSUI,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSUI Google search: History of radio at University of Iowa

Morse Code education. “Wireless Education Latest Undertaking,” The State University of Iowa News Letter, vol. 2, no. 8, Nov. 18, 1916, http://wsui.info/historicArchives/lessonsByWireless-Nov%201916.pdf

“WSUI,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSUI Google search: History of radio at University of Iowa

WHAA and WSUI. “WSUI,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSUI Google search: History of radio at University of Iowa

Educational TV. “WSUI,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSUI

NPR origins. “WSUI,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSUI

IPR origins. “Iowa Public Radio was created in 2004 by the Iowa Board of Regents ….” “Our History; About IPR,” Iowa Public Radio, https://www.iowapublicradio.org/about-ipr “Iowa Public Radio Final Report,” Bornstein and Associates, Nov. 2004, https://web.archive.org/web/20070925223230/http://www2.state.ia.us/regents/Meetings/DocketMemos/04Memos/dec04/FinalReport.pdf

Board of Regents transferring stations. Grant Gerlock, “Board of Regents Proposal Would Transfer Broadcast Licenses from Universities to Iowa Public Radio,” Iowa Public Radio,” Feb. 15, 2022, https://www.iowapublicradio.org/ipr-news/2022-02-15/board-of-regents-proposal-would-transfer-broadcast-licenses-from-universities-to-iowa-public-radio

Andrew Wind, “Board of Regents initiates asset transfer to Iowa Public Radio,” The Courier, Feb. 27, 2022, https://wcfcourier.com/news/local/education/board-of-regents-initiates-asset-transfer-to-iowa-public-radio/article_6a3615a8-3998-5549-8670-914047f6038c.html

Decline in legislature support. Adjusted for inflation, the $506M appropriation in 1999 would be $875M today. In fact, the 2022 appropriation was $486M -- $389M less than 20 years ago, notwithstanding the increases in costs. “This fiscal year’s allocation of just over $486 million is nearly $20 million less than the state gave to public universities in 1999 — not adjusted for inflation. To put that into scale: $100 in 1999 would have the same buying power as about $173 in 2022.” Katie Akin, “Proposed GOP budget for state universities is less than 20 years ago,” Iowa Capital Dispatch, March 27, 2022, https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/03/27/proposed-gop-budget-for-state-universities-is-less-than-20-years-ago/

Sally Mason “less favorably viewed.” "U of I's Mason on Other Topics," Des Moines Register, February 11, 2013 (reproduced in, “Self Help for a Helpful University,” FromDC2Iowa, March 1, 2003, https://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2013/03/self-help-for-helpful-university.html)

26 stations. “This statewide public radio network (a total of 26 stations) ….” “Our History; About IPR,” Iowa Public Radio, https://www.iowapublicradio.org/about-ipr

Things universities could have done. See, e.g., "Are the Iowa Universities' Stations No Longer 'Educational," April 2, 2013, https://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2013/04/are-iowa-universities-stations-no.html (with embedded, “Public Universities Not Using Radio Well,” The Gazette, March 28, 2013, p. A5);
“Self Help for a Helpful University,” FromDC2Iowa, March 1, 2013, https://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2013/03/self-help-for-helpful-university.html;
"War On Sabbaticals Casualty of Iowa Public Radio; Universities Should Use Their Stations to Tell Story," December 13, 2010, https://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2010/12/war-on-sabbaticals-casualty-of-iowa.html;
“Public Radio's Self-Inflicted Wounds,” FromDC2Iowa, Nov. 11, 2008, https://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2008/11/public-radios-self-inflicted-wounds.html

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Tags: amateur radio, BBC, centennial, educational stations, FCC, Frieda Hennock, Herbert Hoover, Iowa, IPR, NPR, radio history, regents, Sally Mason, University of Iowa, WOI, WSUI