Absolutely they do, they mention them all the time on their broadcasts. And I’m sure it shapes their messaging. There is no such thing as a 100% unbiased source.
But their revenue isn’t dependent on how many people listen to them, unlike other media, so there is no need for sensationalism.
As you said, I know more because I am better able to keep track of things. Here’s an article which, while left leaning, does have some good information about the issue:
On the subject of subdivisions and nonsensical names, I’m reminded of the time I did pizza delivery in the weatlhy suburbs of St. Louis. I think that what the developers did was just throw a bunch of chits into a bag containing words or bits of words - “mont” or “glen” or “oak” or what have you - and draw them randomly to compose their street names. Over here was Oakmont Glen. Over there was Glenmont Oak. Across the way was Eagle Glen, down the road from Mont Eagle Glen. And so on.
There is a local shopping development in the planning stages called “Orchard Township”. They cut down an orchard to build it. Actually, it’s delayed now so all there is is a big ugly muddy field. 
To be fair, they didn’t call it Orchard View Township.
On NPR funding,
This is demonstrably untrue. I financially support both NPR and our local station, but NPR’s revenue stream is directly dependent on the number of listeners. The fees they charge the local stations, for example, are directly related to the number of listeners that station has. Also, these fees are inversely related to the ratio of individual donations vs. corporate donations and endowments to the local station. The more listeners a station has, the higher the fees are, but the larger the percentage of total funding that comes from individual donations, the lower the fees.
This is a feature, not a bug. This gives the local stations an incentive to air programs that will attract a larger number of listeners (individual donations), which prevents deep-pocket corporations or even wealthy individuals from dominating.
Yikes, they must. That effectively makes any regulation that only bears on subdivisions over a given size entirely useless. You’ve either got to impose it on the landowner wanting to pop off an acre for their child to build a house on, or you can’t impose it on anybody.
It does seem that the state hasn’t really left the local government any choice.
I remember listening to them do a long exposé on Archer Daniels Midland – one of their major sponsors. So while I’m sure there’s an effect on their messaging, it doesn’t seem to be total.
I should have said that it’s not exclusively dependent. And even if there weren’t fees as you describe, obviously you won’t have donations (from anyone) if nobody is listening. But there isn’t as direct a correlation as there are from other kinds of media.
I lived in an apartment complex once called Orchard View.
They removed the orchard to build the apartment buildings.
During college, I worked at a swim club called Seven Oaks. There were only six.
To be fair, one of the oaks was diseased and died shortly after the pool opened.
A San Francisco art gallery owner has been arrested for spraying a homeless woman with water from a hose in a video that went viral.
The point that both of you are forgetting to mention is that NPR and their affiliated public radio stations are non-profit. So they don’t have shareholders and investors they have to satisfy. This is the huge difference. They don’t have to make a profit, and especially they don’t have to make a larger and larger profit every year, which happens to a lot of for-profit companies. Yes, they need their audience to stay on the air (otherwise, aside from having no operating funds, what would be the point?).
Thank you for pointing that out. That is the big difference, yes.
“I feel awful, not just because I want to get out of trouble, or something like that, but because I’d put a tremendous amount of effort into helping this woman.”
You know what, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and believe that he did genuinely try to help her at some point in the past, but this is despicable. I’m sure it was a frustrating situation, but that was fucked up.
Kind of like the Twin Pines/Lone Pine Mall in Back to the Future.
The thing is with oaks, there are only certain numbers of oaks that sound like somewhere I want to live.
Lone Oak - hard no
Twin Oaks - acceptable
Thee Oaks - no
Four Oaks - no
Five Oaks - acceptable
Six Oaks - hard no
Seven Oaks - yes!
I haven’t the faintest idea why, or why the rules are different for pines.
Miami Beach’s Indian Creek Island?
Sevenoaks is not a bad place to live - convenient for London and the countryside. And now they have eight oaks!
But we digress.
So I am not an expert on how NPR is funded, but I’m a nonprofit development professional, and I would say that a funder (corporate, private or otherwise) is comparable to having an investor that you need to satisfy. And while you don’t per se have to make a profit, nonprofits are often subject to similar kinds of pressures to grow their operations. It’s not the same, I’m not saying it’s the same, but it’s not radically different, either. There is real pressure from funders and the board of directors to see sustained growth. To give you a rough example, my revenue target this year is to grow corporation and foundation grant funding by 15%. It’s probably not as cutthroat as it would be for a corporation, but at the NPR level, who knows?
To help clarify things, it isn’t the ground around the river that’s verde, it’s the river itself (or it was, when it was “discovered”.) Just like the Colorado isn’t really red anymore since the coming of Glen Canyon Dam prevented all the seasonal erosion that lent the river its distinctive color.