The House Has Voted to Rescind Public Media Funding
This vote threatens federal support for programming on WITF — putting at risk educational programming, trusted news and emergency communications that our community depends on produced locally and from PBS and NPR. Now the proposal heads to the Senate.
Your voice is urgently needed. Call your senator and donate today to help protect the future of local public media.
Scott LaMar was formerly the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.
Ocean Conservancy
Airdate: July 5th, 2023
We are in prime beach season. Central Pennsylvanians most often travel to the shorelines in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. The towns and cities we visit do a good job of keeping the beaches clean and safe.
However, it’s a tough task because beach goers leave behind tons of trash and much of it is plastics.
The organization – Ocean Conservancy – is calling for a ban of five of the single use plastics that are most commonly polluting shorelines.
They include plastic cigarette filters, straws, cutlery, bags and foam foodware.
Ocean Conservancy says the ban of these five would be the equivalent of 1.4 million tons of plastic in the U.S. alone. They say that making less plastic would reduce 7 million metric tons of CO2 emissions every year — the equivalent of taking 1.5 million cars off the road.
Appearing on The SparkWednesday was Dr. Anja Brandon, associate director of U.S. policy plastics at Ocean Conservancy.
