NPR - stuffy or sexy?

Way too stuffy during the daylight hours (excluding DNTO)

as I've said before, most of WNYC's original talk programming (which doesn't include Terri Gross) is superfluous and responsible for largely eliminating NY's only non-Top 100 classical music programming. I like Marketplace, but don't see anything special about it. and while ME and ATC have seen better days, 'destroy'ing Daniel Schorr is heresy, sorry.

What about WKCR?

What about WKCR?

it's the best radio station in NY, probably, but a mixed-format one. weekday morning classical and weekday late afternoon new music isn't nothing, but it does not a 'classical music station' make.

And sorry, but calling Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate "superfluous" -- that's heresy.

it's really not

http://www.wnyc.com/shows/bl/archive.html?month=200504

Nor do these:

http://www.wnyc.com/shows/lopate/archive.html?month=200504

I was surprised to hear that Nina Totenberg has that much influence.

-- gabbneb (gabbne...), May 6th, 2005.

Um, so then you're arguing that NPR should be for people who don't have a classical library? I don't follow.

Um, so then you're arguing that NPR should be for people who don't have a classical library? I don't follow.

no, because it played stuff that went beyond the limits of most libraries. the same analogy doesn't apply to WNYC talk shows vs. the New York Times.

-- gabbneb (gabbne...), May 6th, 2005.

But it probably would if it had bumpers. That doesn't strike me as a very significant criticism though.

-- gabbneb (gabbne...), May 6th, 2005.

But that's just it, NPR fills a niche that the rest of radio does not. And in many situations (driving, working, etc.) radio is the only media you can take in.

I definitely remember the repeated question about Evangelicals not really wanting to prevent armageddon from happening. I can't really comment too much on it, because I don't remember exactly what was said, but I do remember feeling that the interviewee was sort of avoiding the question a little bit.

In the 90s in Southwest Ohio.

Mmm yes hello I am Garrison Keillor.

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU PEOPLE.

that was pretty funny

But is she sexy?

i do all the time. great show. except i call it Open Sores, cuz that's how Lydon pronounces it.

No.

2 motherfucking times

"No."

see this is rilly mean, but i can't stand the cutesy local color old-tymer snippets they play here of salty cape cod folks remembering their favorite fish chowder recipes. they all have that dry as sand yankee voice and they drive me mad for some reason. the guy who runs our local station is the dude who did that THIS I BELIEVE essay series and he's really into oral. his catch-phrase is LISTEN and then he will play audio of seagulls fighting over a clam neck or something. in theory i should be all for this yokelism but it just makes me grit my teeth. same with the soothing tones of the cape cod naturalist who reads his essays about frolicing in the bramble bushes in purple poesy. i'm so jaded and mean...

-- tremendoid (kemeti...), January 20th, 2007. (tremendoid)

I remember we had a lot of fun mocking these on another thread - can't remember where.

Why is NPR so effing bad sometimes?

(also, ever watch lehrer's tv show on cuny tv? he's a funny-lookin guy, and he cuts loose with more opinionating there. he told saddam hussein to "burn in hell" after the execution.)

I would totally listen to a personal essay feature called "BELIE' DAT!"

Jo3l Rose is ruling today

i was on this huge bpp kick lately, but it's starting to get a little to much like "the view."

listening to NPR like two minutes ago and there's this kind of inane cell-phone technology puff piece on, and they get a caller. daniel, a contractor of some kind, is telling the anchor dude (neil?) in a weird broken-dieter accent that this new technology saves him from hours of driving a day, since he gets in touch with all of his sites via those walky-talky jobbies.
--- So, sir, you're in construction?
--- Ja, and the improved vibration settings are amaaazing, so you can always tell, you just drive around and it just fits so perfectly in your scheißer hole and (thanks for the feedback! cut to 'commercial')

someone tell me that i am not the only person who heard this

anyone??

o_O

http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2009/05/may_28th_show.html#commentBlock

Why are comments closed for a particular story?

Comments on story pages are automatically shut down after five days; on blogs they close after 14 days. For the most part, we try our hardest not to close any comment thread before they close automatically. But sometimes, when things get too heated and a conversation has become uncivil, we’ll shut the thread down.

L~O~L

they publish transcripts, right?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=EGLC%2CEGLC%3A2007-20%2CEGLC%3Aen&q=daniel+vibration+schei%C3%9Fer+&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

http://www.npr.org/transcripts/

Is this neil conan (sp?) talk of the nation?
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5

Ja, and the improved vibration settings are amaaazing, so you can always tell, you just drive around and it just fits so perfectly in your scheißer hole and

if this quote is real, and was on npr, i guess keeping the thread title in mind, the answer would be. . . stuffy??

Mobile Phones Do Much More Than Make Calls

with sexy results, etc etc

guys i swear to god this is what happened

is NPR covering the NYT story about excessive hugs giving kids lung cancer?

This Saturday, Daniel Schorr will tell Scott Simon about the time he was going to Good Vibrations, got confused, and wound up in an Apple Store instead.

like this idea of npr going for human interest and accidentally covering hardcore sexual fetishism

what's accidental about that?

scheißer hole

If this guy had an iPhone, what MP3s would be on it I wonder?

Samwell - "What What (In The Butt)"

"--- So, sir, you're in construction?
--- Ja, and the improved vibration settings are amaaazing, so you can always tell, you just drive around and it just fits so perfectly in your scheißer hole and (thanks for the feedback! cut to 'commercial')"

If you did not imagine this, they have rather seamlessly removed any hint of scheisser business from the online audio (and yet retained the bulk of the german guy's conversation as if he were a legit caller)

so... STUFFY! and... LIARS!

omg u r jokin right??????

i heard this!!!!

http://wcvarones.blogspot.com/2009/05/censorship-at-npr.html

“Ja! The vibrating strength on these new phones is sooo amazing! Ja, I mean, when you’re driving, you can stick one right in your scheisse-hole and stimulate the prostate very nicely.”

nice

if this happened on the BBC there would be a week-long furore followed by a government inquiry

vindicated!

Ok, this is WNYC, not NPR -- I know, I know, member station. But really these fucking Austria ads.

"WNYC is supported by Austria and her coffeehouses. Where you can plot a revolution, like Marx. Or discover the human psyche, like Freud." or whatever the fuck they say. Really.

Ebert gives it three cheers. Maybe more.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/11/everywhere_i_go_as_much.html

Everywhere I go, as much as I can, I listen to National Public Radio. It's an oasis of clear-headed intelligence. Carefully, patiently, it presents programming designed to make me feel just a little better equipped to reenter the world of uproar.

...We are interested in other peoples, other lifestyles, other choices. We do not demand that the media tell us over and over again the things we already believe. We are open to new ideas.

I vote sexy.

http://media.npr.org/about/people/bios/biophotos/jtarabay.jpg

Sexy. Cf: Ira Glass and his magical hands

I read this title as about NRO for 3 terrifying seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJFivQYjC-Q

Who can save us from the Diane Rehm zombie menace?

Currently running through about 2 Radiolabs per day.

A fantastic piece on the organization, especially on the Juan Williams brouhaha. Also bits like:

The editor of the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol, once confessed to former NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin that he really didn’t believe NPR was liberal; he just said so “to keep you guys on the defensive.”

Hey look, it's Brooklyn Home Companion:
http://www.wnyc.org/press/kingscounty/

Just pulling this up 'cus of a thing on skot's FB. Interested in the new (maybe) slightly more central (maybe) place NPR has in pop culture; like how it's sort of an Apple-ish boutique brand of news. In my childhood, I remember it as a stuffy ol' bastion of the gentry – Lawrence Welk, Robert J Lurtsema, BBC World Service. Now, though, it seems to be a widely-acknowledged signifier of a social/politicical ideology incrementally left of center – but only in the way that doesn't raise ripples. The Starbucks-Intellegencia Tribune. Or ... maybe this is just my station, my perception, my baggage? Curious, though, about other perceptions of it.

read that as 'raise nipples' that is all

oh damn, that is some good radio

there's some pretty good content on npr. i rarely seek it out but this american life is generally interesting and thoughtfully constructed. i think it's just a signifier of college educated liberals, a huge demographic

I can't deal with a lot of their shows - Diane Rehm works too hard to give the shills she sometimes have on room to air their bullshit, and Terry Gross is still the worst, and A Prairie Home Companion is an abomination, etc. - but my local NPR station (KERA) has a really good afternoon interview program called Think that justifies my tiny donation to them every year. The local NPR music station is usually pretty bland but has its heart in the right place.

This American Life is usually p. bad, to my mind, kind of a logical outgrowth of liberal arts creative writing classes.* The more earnest, Studs Terkely bits are all right, and the few hour length pieces are often interesting.

The Moth is too often about adults behaving badly, and I find that there's a lot of 'aren't I a naughty?" mugging. Lots of wry, slightly acid retellings of Unpleasant Life Experienes, too. Maybe this is just my experience, but I'd like this more if there was a bit less posturing.

Best of all is Glynn Washington's 'Snap Judgement' which - despite a a few goofy segments here and there – feels more alive than the other two combined. The Halloween episodes (spooky stories) are the very, very best.

* In defense of TAL, there was an excellent segment by Ben Calhoun two weeks ago. It was about the politically-motivated occupancy of a school board by Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jews, and the semi-deliberate, semi-unintended (perhaps) defunding of school programs in a majority Black/Latino area. Excellent, complicated segment: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/534/a-not-so-simple-majority

I like car talk and wait wait don't tell me and gene demby online. I like npr but it's like listening to my mother sometimes bc she listens to npr and then talks about what she heard on it to me.

OK, so I heard a rerun of Terry Gross being interviewed by Marc Maron yesterday, and I came away with a lot more respect for her. Mostly as an interview subject - Maron is capable of getting stuff from his subjects that she cannot - but still, I turned off the radio respecting the amount of thought and effort she must put into her work.

And then today comes around. I always seem to be in the car when Fresh Air is on, and today she had Kent Jones, who directed the new Hitchcock/Truffaut doc. After the intro, it more or less started like this.

TG: So, the shower scene from Psycho is probably Hitchcock's best known sequence. Even if you haven't seen it you probably know about it.
KJ: Right.
TG: The film starts with Janet Leigh, who is a real estate secretary. A client drops off $40,000 to buy a property, and her boss tells her to deposit in the bank immediately...

And I think to myself, hmm, what question could she possibly be leading up to?

TG: But instead of depositing it in the bank, she steals the money. She doesn't seem like a bad person, but you're wondering what she's going to do. Is she going to keep it? Is she going to return it? And she pulls into a motel and she meets the man working there, who is very shy and nervous. He's built up all this suspense. And then she goes to take a shower ...

At this point Kent Jones is sort of waiting to see where she's going with this, as am I. After a pause:

KJ: Um, well, as you said, everyone is pretty familiar with this scene.

You can tell he really doesn't want to spoil it, but she pressures him to go on.

KJ: And, um, she gets hacked to pieces.

OK, I think, never mind that TG saying people are familiar with Psycho and its shower scene basically negates the need to recount the first 30 minutes of the film, and never mind that she essentially leads with a giant spoiler for those handful of people unfamiliar with it. I'm kind of groaning at the lameness of it, but I think, OK, she's interviewing the director of a doc about Truffaut interviewing Hitchcock. Why did she lead with Psycho, and why did she decide her question needed this epic preamble? So there I am, primed for a doozy, and ...

TG: So Hitchcock reportedly shot the shower scene in slow-motion. Can you explain why he did that?

Jaw drops.

No, Terry Gross, no! Why did you do that?! Bad interviewer! Bad! What was the point!

And like that, all the good will from the day before basically evaporated.

marketplace is the offender for me. Kai Ryssdal...god I hate this guy's smug ass voice. Please just speak with normal inflections. You are not Jon Stewart.

I still will mostly defend Terry Gross -- I think she's good at getting people to open up and at stepping out of the way/not trying to show off how knowledgeable she is (though sometimes to a fault).

Marketplace does irritate me with its superficial, sunny, quick take on everything.

Worth pointing out that neither of those shows are actually produced by "NPR", but no one seems to make the distinction.

That's splitting hairs. They are as inextricable from NPR as, I dunno, This American Life or Prairie Home Companion. Lose those, and Fresh Air, and Marketplace, and NPR is just well-produced news and talk radio.

"let's do the numbers! boppity bippity boo boo boop" fuck you

lol

I will take Terry Gross's ostensibly "dumb questions" over the guy (and yeah, it's usually a guy) whose questions are so overloaded with information and opinion that they hardly leave room for an answer beyond "yeah, you're right"

the MOTH style of storytelling is so fuckin unbearable. samey samey

serves you right for not listening to fmu

Yeah can't stand moth

Michael Ian Black interview on Terry Gross was a little weird -- she seemed really way too interested in the fact that people sometimes mistake him for gay and spent like 1/3 of the interview on it.

this David Greene on Morning Edition uses formulaic "therapist voice" ALL THE TIME

so fucking annoying

the MOTH style of storytelling is so fuckin unbearable. samey samey

yeah. they apparently have a structure that they more or less impose on their storytellers in the name of 'developing' them

TAL just replayed the Richard Price episode from 2008 (which I think was also a Moth story, confusingly?). It's a great story but the audience is so awful and reacts so inappropriately to what is actually a horrifying police story.

let me guess, they chortle knowingly

for a minute I forgot they have occasional live shows and was wondering about your mental health

They guffaw even, at what seem like really inappropriate moments. The story is very upsetting.

the way he delivers it though does feel kinda like a stand-up routine. i wasn't entirely sure what he was doing with it either.

yeah that's true, his delivery was a little weird. It didn't start out like it was going to go in that direction.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/362/got-you-pegged

Act 1 for those interested

I gotta say I love Code Switch, the new NPR podcast.

there's a new girl who does the support/benefactor spots and her delivery is so affectedly smooth and precisely enunciated it makes me wanna hurl

Cokie Roberts: Commentator Says Supporters of Donald Trump Are 'Morally Tainted'

brass fucking balls

Diane Rhem's last show will air today. (Fear not, she says she wants a podcast!)

I thought her show was a good way to dig under the surface of headlines . . .The show topics were always prescient and she seemed to get good guests.

Beyond the standard NPR liberal bias, she didn't inject much of her personal life into the show. If she had any great auses or passions, I wasn't aware of them.

Her voice never bothered me at all.

Any superfans or h4t3rz?

"sexy npr" is a rather disappointing GIS.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bh02IobCbGM/TdCH3WaZ3RI/AAAAAAAAGU4/HEgQmmpX2CM/s1600/cokie.jpg

One of my youtube habits is to go through random "Tiny Desk Concerts" videos, and I'm shocked at how awful the vast majority of them are. I don't think the people selecting these bands have any taste at all, they just want stuff that superficially has that cloying "Tiny Desk" aesthetic, and occasionally this formula accidentally results in a great performance by a great band. Or maybe it's just that most bands suck, in general.

that aesthetic makes my skin crawl but the christian scott and gucci mane tiny desk concerts are so good i can try to overlook the national playing ukeleles or whatever

The NPR music people seem to sincerely like/love most of the music they highlight.

Steve Innskeep is a straight up dealbreaker when it comes to me listening to npr for morning news

pinegrove tiny desk is also incredible

I used to think KEXP Live was kinda corny and twee. Then Tiny Desk comes around

I guess I'm just surprised at how many corny, mediocre, old-man-hat style bands there are in the world.

Steve Innskeep is a straight up dealbreaker when it comes to me listening to npr for morning news

you mean that if it's no inskeep, it's not a must-listen, or that if it is inskeep, you'd rather listen to nothing at all?

i didn't binge-listen to NPR until i had a temp job in data entry for about a year. i'd spend the entire day mindlessly QCing spreadsheet data with headphones on, and really began to rely on NPR and other talk radio to get me through the day. morning edition was an important part of the routine. i'd listen to it all the way across the workbridge from morning arrival to lunch. i started to like this steve inskeep character, or just the reliable tenor of his voice, really.

then i took a few years off from morning edition, and whenever i heard snippets of it i subconsciously associated it with entering and reviewing spreadsheet data for hours on end, so i'd turn it off. now when i listen to morning edition, steve inskeep often actively pisses me off, and i'm not sure why. i think it has something to do with the way he blankly describes everything with the same tone, his weak interview questions, and even weaker follow-up questions. i haven't heard him do a segment on antifa, but listening to steve inskeep talk about antifa and both-sides it to death sounds like torture.

the twist at the end of all of this? i am steve inskeep

I did a quick search and this came up:

Steve Inskeep at Amazon - Low Prices on Steve Inskeep. (Ad)
Low Prices on Steve Inskeep. Free 2-Day Shipping w/ Amazon Prime.

steve inskeep is death

i have literally no idea how i missed the christian scott tiny desk concert when it came out but holy shit

@Karl yeah I just can't stomach him. He seems to be actively trying to change the tone of NPR to something a little looser, hipper, more irreverent; which mayyy not be a bad idea -- he's just not the guy to do it

this party is officially started

https://i.imgur.com/2CJvcqz.jpg

that is not how I imagined his appearance

I was ok with him but now I'm having second thoughts

there's gotta be a bitchin' rat tail back there

steve inskeep shows up at your party at 5:30 pm before you even get home from work, talks to you non-stop for the next two hours as you scramble with preparations, and then leaves the party at 8:45pm because he has to get up super early the next morning

oh shit i'm steve

NPR HR graciously covers the Jaws Of Life rental fee required for all Steve's dental visits

One of my youtube habits is to go through random "Tiny Desk Concerts" videos, and I'm shocked at how awful the vast majority of them are. I don't think the people selecting these bands have any taste at all, they just want stuff that superficially has that cloying "Tiny Desk" aesthetic, and occasionally this formula accidentally results in a great performance by a great band. Or maybe it's just that most bands suck, in general.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Monday, October 9, 2017 11:58 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like i once argued this to you on here, to a rebuttal of 'theyre just high qual live recordings bruv'. i feel vindicated now thank u

ha! that sounds very plausible. I mean the sound quality of the recording is very nice imo, just the curation is terrible.

But then again it looks like they do at least one per week, so I guess I can't totally fault them for not having 50+ good artists per year.

lol there was a recent one by a band called The Oh Hellos. Perfect.

Blind Pilot
October 21, 2016 • The band's shimmery folk-pop sound, with its vibraphone and overarching vibrancy, is perfectly suited to the space behind Bob Boilen's desk.

The Secret Sisters
September 12, 2016 • The Alabama sibling duo's music can be hymn-like: plain but powerful, heartsick and hopeful. Watch The Secret Sisters perform a river ballad, a hymn and a song capturing some old-fashioned loneliness.

Oh god please no

car talk is actually good though

i kinda don't mind steve inskeep. when he was temporarily replaced by mary whatever i really hated that bc her voice is so annoying like really bad annoying and i don't like how she says the letter S

mary louise kelly, hate her

NPR repeatedly referred to Ocasio-Cortez as wanting to abolish the "Federal Immigration Agency" this morning, instead of abolishing ICE. There is no such agency as the Federal Immigration Agency, there are like six different agencies that deal with immigration. ICE is just the police state wing.

keep thinking that, sheeple

"Coming up, the puzzle with Will Shortz and an interview with Cathy Guisewhite!" I don't think I've ever turned anything off so fast.

If you take the name of Cathy's boyfriend and rearrange the letters, you end up with this word that perfectly describes Will Shortz. What is it?

I can't help but be a little fascinated by Will because of his association with the world's greatest sport (table tennis). But it's almost comical how reluctant and low energy a presence he is on air

he might be the most npr person on npr

i was going to come to this thread to complain about on being with krista tippett. now that farmers' market season has returned i'm driving at 7:30 a.m. on sundays and she makes me want to drive into a wall mmm yeah

i've seen people mock her by calling her 'christian tidbit' lol

weekend NPR is the absolute worst with car talk being the only exception

wait wait dont tell me is p good but theres a show called "ask me another" and it might be worse than prarie home companion, yikes

oh god that one is horrible. it has that particular self-satisfied npr sense of humor. you know the people they play around fundraising time, regular people they have recorded talking about how they love npr. so proud of themselves, for nothing.

onnnnn beinggggg

wait wait don't tell me is awful, the panelists think they're 10x funnier than they actually are

When I graduated many, many years ago, my sweet mother gifted me a multi-volume CD box set of many, many hours of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. She knew I listened to NPR, and I guess I must've mentioned that I sometimes listened to Wait Wait on Saturday mornings, but I guess I didn't make it clear that my listening was entirely passive and my appreciation of it mostly ironic. Anyway, it was very sweet of her and so that's why I waited a few months before placing it directly into the trash can. I like to think that a few days later a 75 year old white liberal dumpster diver's day had been made.

man I listened to All Things Considered this evening and almost turned it off, the reporters were so terrible (this was after suffering through fucking kai ryssdal's marketplace, why is this still on?). There was a back and forth between host and reporter and the reporter was clearly reading written responses in a completely flat, inflectionless tone, and also sounded like she was in junior high. Asking someone I know who works with NPR what the deal is he simply said "you get what you pay for"

I get irritated at NPR more than I used to but i haven’t been able to tell if it’s worse than it used to be or I just have less patience with middlebrow milquetoast journalism than I used to.

i'd welcome middlebrow milquetoast journalism, it's the barely coherent junior-high level reading of something prewritten and pretending it's an off the cuff conversation that made me cringe.

I stopped listening after they became a PR machine for Iraq War II in 2003, and it seems like I haven’t missed anything.

i'd welcome middlebrow milquetoast journalism, it's the barely coherent junior-high level reading of something prewritten and pretending it's an off the cuff conversation that made me cringe.

xxxxp years ago when my wife and i were listening to npr and marketplace started and it got to that part where kai does his "this... is marketplace" intro and she just says "there is no way that guy doesn't have skeletons in his closet."

ATL has a strong NPR station, there is tons of very relevant and well-done local programming.

But yeah, the national stuff is mostly shit.

i'm here for On the Media and basically nothing else; you can read my scathing criticisms on the other thread

...where it appears we all had a version of this same conversation

Is it fashionable to dislike NPR?

I got very attached to WNYC when I lived in New York and I still listen to some of their daytime programming, Brian Lehrer etc. And On the Media is still good, it survived its tumult. But yeah the actual NPR stuff feels pretty flimsy.

when is somebody going to finally take Scott Simon off to the glue factory??

why, is there a major labor law violation taking place at the-- ohhhhhhhhhh

Idk anything about that actually, just listening to him this morning and can’t believe how bad he is

Yeah I stopped listening on Saturdays years ago. Can’t take him.

omfg his laugh
it's criminally annoying
i also can't stand the way he thinks it's funny to refer to bj liederman
or the way he refers to Ayesha Rascoe as Ayesha

she has a surname, sir!!

he needs to go. i dislike almost all the lighthearted NPR content but i do listen for loca news bc there is nowhere else that does investigative local journalism to that depth.

HA! HA! HA! HA!

--Scott Simon

*LOCAL news

oh also i heard him "interview" a guy from slowdive and he asked the most asinine questions like

"what is it like to make an album today?"
"what is shoegaze?"

someone please retire this man

Wordle-playing!!

Senior NPR editor claims public broadcaster lacks ‘viewpoint diversity’
In the piece on Free Press, a site run by Bari Weiss, a former opinion editor at the New York Times, Berliner noted that in 2011 the public broadcaster’s audience identified as 26% conservative, 23% as middle of the road and 37% liberal. Last year it identified as 11% very or somewhat conservative, 21% as middle of the road, and 67% very or somewhat liberal.

“We weren’t just losing conservatives; we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals,” Berliner wrote, and described a new listener stereotype: “EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite.”

I thought NPR's own coverage of that was pretty good: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/09/1243755769/npr-journalist-uri-berliner-trust-diversity

NPR is in that funny category with the NYT where conservatives think they're woke commies and leftists think they're squishy-lib corporate apologists.

'Wait Wait' openly mocks Trump nearly every week

The horror! I'd call On the Media pretty left-leaning overall too. But obv Berliner was talking about NPR's core news coverage, not those kinds of shows.

I blame the end of Car Talk for the exodus of libertarians & neocons from the NPR listening base.

they need to get Robert Davi or Jim Caveziel on The Treatment

I would think all traditional news organizations have lost a lot of conservative viewership/listenership/readership since 2011, it’s hard to look at this as an NPR phenomenon. It’s all part of the conservative think tank playbook- paint the traditional media as liberal/woke, driving conservatives to stop following it, then sit back and watch as the media outlets fall all over themselves to shift rightward to get them back. Thus shifting the national discourse and eventually public opinion toward the right.

Four words: Kid Rock Tiny Desk

It's all been down hill since the Gene Simmons Fresh Air ep

This has been a slowly brewing local scandal:

https://www.axios.com/local/miami/2024/02/07/wlrn-latino-sundial-host-carlos-frias-discrimination

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust

The original piece. I had mixed feelings about it. I feel like these kinds of pieces surface every so often. I have also sometimes felt like NPR has changed - I wouldn't necessarily say further left, but a lot of the reporting feels squishier and less fact-driven. I rolled my eyes a little bit when I got to the Hunter Biden laptop point, but OTOH I do think the lab leak theory is something that was weirdly and prematurely dismissed for political reasons.

This part did actually concern me some:

Race and identity became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace. Journalists were required to ask everyone we interviewed their race, gender, and ethnicity (among other questions), and had to enter it in a centralized tracking system. We were given unconscious bias training sessions. A growing DEI staff offered regular meetings imploring us to “start talking about race.” Monthly dialogues were offered for “women of color” and “men of color.” Nonbinary people of color were included, too.

These initiatives, bolstered by a $1 million grant from the NPR Foundation, came from management, from the top down. Crucially, they were in sync culturally with what was happening at the grassroots—among producers, reporters, and other staffers. Most visible was a burgeoning number of employee resource (or affinity) groups based on identity.

They included MGIPOC (Marginalized Genders and Intersex People of Color mentorship program); Mi Gente (Latinx employees at NPR); NPR Noir (black employees at NPR); Southwest Asians and North Africans at NPR; Ummah (for Muslim-identifying employees); Women, Gender-Expansive, and Transgender People in Technology Throughout Public Media; Khevre (Jewish heritage and culture at NPR); and NPR Pride (LGBTQIA employees at NPR).

All this reflected a broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic of birth. If, as NPR’s internal website suggested, the groups were simply a “great way to meet like-minded colleagues” and “help new employees feel included,” it would have been one thing.

But the role and standing of affinity groups, including those outside NPR, were more than that. They became a priority for NPR’s union, SAG-AFTRA—an item in collective bargaining. The current contract, in a section on DEI, requires NPR management to “keep up to date with current language and style guidance from journalism affinity groups” and to inform employees if language differs from the diktats of those groups. In such a case, the dispute could go before the DEI Accountability Committee.

In essence, this means the NPR union, of which I am a dues-paying member, has ensured that advocacy groups are given a seat at the table in determining the terms and vocabulary of our news coverage.

EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite.

lol, what a clown. stuff like this goes here FYI

"croissant-munching, latte-sipping": instances of misconceived media-class self-loathing ITT

I think a lot of institutions in 2020 added or amplified various kinds of DEI/unconscious bias/anti-racist training, mostly for good reasons (and for PR reasons too, depending on the institution and how publicly they talked about it). Of course some of that was overly broad or simplistic or possibly had unintended consequences. There are good critiques of those kinds of efforts from people of color too, in terms of how superficial they could be. But Uri Berliner is of the exact vintage and demographic of people who whine about DEI initiatives the most — middle-aged white men — and it's a demographic whose thoughts on such things I'm least interested in. (Even though and/or because it's my own demographic too.)

Also the whole "I have a lesbian mom so my problem can't be any kind of bias" shtick is pretty tired.

I have no issue with DEI initiatives either, but the level of involvement in editorial decisions sounded a little concerning.

All this reflected a broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic of birth.

You just didn't notice when white people did it for your entire fuckin' life. Sit down and shut up.

the level of involvement in editorial decisions sounded a little concerning

Maybe. I'd want to hear from other voices there about what that actually looks like.

Agree it would be a more compelling point if he could actually point to some examples of where this actually factored into a decision and how

i stick to PBS. Amna Nawaz for President! John Yang for Vice President! Lisa Desjardins for Secretary of Health and Human Services! Judy Woodruff for the Supreme Court!

NPR is the stink. Peeyoooooo.

and before you ask yes i do pay 5 bucks a month to PBS so that i get PBS Passport and can watch every episode of Nova if i want.

I listen to the PBS New Hour... on NPR!

It's the R that's the stumbling block for me. People listen to the radio? In 2024? Really?

its the only listenable thing i get in my car but i often turn it off anyway in favor of one of the THREE bad country stations near me. so, they are turning THIS Trumper off as well. Hello, Hank Jr.

every time i hear the beginning of wait wait don't tell me i almost drive into a tree. on purpose. because it fills me with dread. its all so terrible...

Bluetoothing internet radio from my phone to my car is the strongest argument for having a smartphone I'll ever have. I love cruising around the middle of nowhere listening to WFMU and pretending it's a local station.

Why do we always fall for right-wingers (claiming to be liberals) pretending to be worried about how liberal the Times or NPR are? How many hand-wringing editorials have you seen worrying about the diversity of voices on Newsmax?

NPR gets nearly nothing anymore from the government anyway, and they basically have ads now (like PBS).

People listen to the radio? In 2024? Really?

every day, all day... but I've always been radio person, since childhood

yeah i just like FM and AM. always will. it just all sucks so bad now. the robo stations are horrible.

maria started doing a show again on the local public access fm station and i can barely get it in my car! its right here in town! but cars don't bother with good radio anymore. this is maria's 4th radio station she has had a show on. she loves the whole thing.

AM around the Bay Area still has some rad ethnic stations.. we also have public jazz & classical station on FM, and college radio

I have a KLH Model Twenty-One kitchen table radio, designed by the great Henry Kloss... with the optional satellite speaker

For another thread Andy, but I have questions about my KLH model 27.

How many hand-wringing editorials have you seen worrying about the diversity of voices on Newsmax?

I know, like basically everyone just tacitly agrees upfront that right-wing media is nothing but ridiculous bias and ideologically slanted commentary. But the "MSM" must be held to account!

Andy what are your favorite Bay Area AM stations? I haven’t explored the band too much, but there used to be a great oldies AM station that played serious lit r&b and cool fifth dimension songs and stuff

the Bay Area AM dial has been pretty gutted.. KGO is essentially gone and turned into a sports-betting station called "The Spread" where they just play sports podcasts

I don't listen to as much AM as I once did.. there's an interesting conspiracy theory about new car makers completely dropping AM radios, which is where all the conservatives get their yelling-at-clouds stations, because they don't want us to hear the truth or something like that

but the slow demise of noisy commercial AM has opened up bandwidth for various ethnic language programming which is a cool development

I listen to the radio a lot — usually local NPR station unless:
It’s wait wait (unbearable)
It’s the insipid local daytime show
It’s a holiday and they’re playing the most unlistenable shit ever: a radio play

Still prefer PBS newshour, Amna & Lisa for president, Lisa’s cat in charge of homeland security

We also recently had some major cuts to Chi Public Media that ended the sister station that played local music and was p much the only place to hear it. :(

the most unlistenable shit ever: a radio play

Lol.. I listen to all ghostly & supernatural radio plays on BBC Sounds

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater was already an oddly anachronistic format by the 1970's.. just the eerie opening music makes me super nostalgic, I used to listen to it on a old tube Philco in bed... free episodes here: https://www.cbsrmt.com/

I used to fall asleep to those as a kid!

The only good thing our local npr does is host a two hour old timey radio show with things like gun smoke.

every time i hear the beginning of wait wait don't tell me i almost drive into a tree. on purpose. because it fills me with dread. its all so terrible...

― scott seward, Wednesday, April 10, 2024 2:51 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is exactly how I used to feel about Prairie Home Companion. Except it would require me taking the wheel, because I was usually in the backseat with my parents playing it.

sexy or stuffy?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/business/media/npr-suspends-business-editor.html

A longtime (now former) NPR staffer responds to the Berliner piece:
https://slate.com/business/2024/04/npr-diversity-public-broadcasting-radio.html

She acknowledges that NPR is an "organizational shit show," but not because of wokeness:

"And that’s what the core editorial problem at NPR is and, frankly, has long been: an abundance of caution that often crossed the border to cowardice. NPR culture encouraged an editorial fixation on finding the exact middle point of the elite political and social thought, planting a flag there, and calling it objectivity."

i just read this linked on the political thread about PBS's Buckley doc.

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-04-17-an-implausible-mr-buckley/

"caution that often crossed the border to cowardice" is a good description of that doc apparently. though i haven't seen it because ugh i was just glad when he finally died i don't need to watch a doc about him.

one of my closest friends worked at WHYY for several years (and for many more years before that at KQED) and that slate article could have been written by him, it absolutely tracks a lot of the complaints he had about working in public media.

the final paragraph is the kicker: "I guess that’s why I think Uri is most wrong about NPR’s relationship with the rest of the country. It’s a very accurate reflection of America right now, a place where people won’t admit that good intentions don’t always yield good results, and would rather hide behind the myth of its excellence than do the hard work of making it a reality."

looks like that dude resigned

yes he'll be whining about being cancelled on podcasts along with Taibbi and other dummies soon

Berliner seems like basically a newsroom crank, which every newsroom I've worked in had at least one of and often more.