6,000 - 800,000

On one level, it's impressive that they miraculously claim to have gotten about 6,000 people to pay or pledge about 800,000 or about 125-150 each. Think about how many people subscribe to the News & Observer - that's about 175,000 paying about 200/year.

More from WUNC & NPR — North Carolina Public Radio WUNC

With cable television networks focusing attention on events today in Egypt, a quick look at the WUNC website would make wonder if there was anything going in the world other than a "Deadly Bat Fungus Found in NC", however important to the bats that may be.

750,000

Not sure if this appears as the goal of their current travel and event auction on the wunc website. They claim they have under 300,000 to raise by Friday, and it always quite amazing that they seem to reach their number, or exceed it. 3,500 pledges so far? Again, another figure that I don't recall seeing on the WUNC website.

Stories

Where are the stories on the WUNC website about the people who have won trips and rewards, and about the events to which people have purchased expensive access? Did I miss them? Is that all make believe?

Montreux pronunciation: How to pronounce Montreux in French, English

You would think that WUNC would learn how to pronounce Montreux. It's embarrassing.

Charity Navigator - Your Search Results

I wonder why WUNC is not here (list goes two pages), and yet WFAE in Charlotte is?

7%

I think they said that 7% of the budget comes from the federal government. How much is that in dollars?

Sustainer for free?

This suggests that you must give $5/mo to be a sustainer. I wonder how the station gets around federal law on lotteries? It strikes me that there may need to be an offer of being a sustainer with no money contributed in order not to be seen as requiring payment in order to "play" in their "lotteries".

Superficiality

By its nature, a lot of radio reporting is prerry superficial. It simply takes a lot of time to speak a few words and depth usually requires more.

The same goes for the fund drive.

We get really no in-depth understanding in what WUNC says, incessantly, on the air. There is no context for the assertion that they spend over 900,000 on programming that they rebroadcast. What percentage of the overall budget is that? How much does it cost to produce The Story? What percentage of the each dollar contributed goes to fund-raising expense?

There is an answer to not doing this over the air and something less than burying some of this somewhere on website.

Send out a rich e-mail regularly with links to answers to all of these questions so that anyone wanting to see the details can.

Why does WUNC not do this? Why do they not have an FAQ page on their website with these questions fully answered?

BBC World Service - News - Newshour

If you want to listen to the full Newshour without the travel lottery interruptions......

WUNC's February Travel Bingo

It is important for WUNC to raise money to continue its operation, of course.

But, I wonder if I am alone in simply turning off the radio for the most part while they try to get listeners to take a chacne on winning a trip somewhere. Instead, I find myself relying much more on varied internet sources, including many programs otherwise retransmitted by WUNC from NPR, PRI and the BBC, and suing podcasts more often plus an occasional check on news covered on various cable television channels.

It's good to be reminded how many alternative sources of quality information and insight there are.

It's too bad that WUNC's fundraising strategy is what leads me to do so.