Why is NPR so effing bad sometimes?

I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

-- jaymc (jmcunnin...), July 26th, 2005.

I listen to NPR all the time. There's some great stuff but it's very uneven. Of course I guess that makes sense since what I'm really hearing is a combination of WNYC programming, national NPR programming, and programming from various other affiliates.

The radio essays are the worst.

wotta development!

all things considered considering things that aren't hard news = dud.

Spencer is one cool dude, I've concluded.

"Cheers" > NBC > General Electric. At least the callers to the show that I listen to the most are prattling on about a state-run university most of the time.

-- Tracer Hand (tracerhan...), July 27th, 2005.

"This is your captain Robert Siegel speaking. We have clear skies up here at our cruising altitude of 10,000 feet above war and famine."

I know a person who won't listen to TAL and described it as nerdy, grating people with nerdy, grating stories told in nerdy, grating voices. Seriously.

I think WWDTM might be the nearest thing to wit on US radio. I really could live without ever hearing Mo Rocca again tho. And there will come a point, sadly, when Karl Kastle is completely unintelligible, and will nonetheless still feature prominently.

morning drivetime for me is a bounce between NPR & Jerry Springer on Air America(along with Thom Hartmann's local portland show), and then to Howard when I get so mad I wanna put my fist thru the radio.

but yeah, Juan Williams', Mara Liasson's and Cokie Roberts' contributions to Morning Edition during the election pissed me off so much i spent a few months rarely listening to the show.

I love you.

*of course, the "Science Friday" eps aren't considered in the numbers here.

Yeah, this is OTM. It's amazing how utterly personality-less Neil Conan manages to be. He's like Mister-super-polished-radio-talk-show-guy. Science Friday is often shockingly boring and occasionally interesting - I guess it fulfills NPR's science quota.

Juan Williams is horrible. I think he's only still around because of his previous contract to do Talk of the Nation. It seems he's being pushed further and further to the margins.

ask me another is the worst, least funny, dumbest show on NPR

Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! is also bad, insufficiently funny, and dumb

Who listens to these shows? Who are the studio audiences? Why do they exist?

people who 'like to have something on' but have refined sensibilities that make them need to feel that the thing that's on is somehow educative

i confess i have laughed at wait wait don't tell me. i definitely don't go out of my way to listen to it. i can't distinguish it from well what do you know? it's on in the car when the ride's not long enough to bother with spotify. they're both bad though and have no reason for existing. ask me another is just that kind of smug humor for yelpers and people who call themselves nerds. SO BAD AND HATED

I kind of enjoy 'says you'

Yeah says you is really dopey sometimes but I like the games.

I fear I'm one of those likes to have something on people. But there really aren't a lot of options besides npr. Right wing radio? Traffic and weather together on the 8s?

But yeah I have my limits. I won't listen to wait wait or prairie home or ask me another or on being. Sometimes I'll do TAL.

my friend got me to listen to this NPR Dinner Party podcast, designed for you to have things to talk about at dinner parties
...which is so NPR-ian it should be an Onion parody

it is literally everything I hate about NPR condensed into 30 minutes

Actually On Being can be good with the right guest. I like when she has scientists on.

I feel like bad NPR vs. good NPR is sort of an uncanny valley thing. Like, it's close enough to what "someone like you" wants to hear to be creepy. Even good NPR is a little like that, which is why bad NPR is really bad. But everyone's limits are different, which I guess is why shows I hate are still on the radio.

Like, I don't mind Splendid Table -- I discount the excessive cheeriness and just listen for cooking tips. But I have friends who hate it.

i met david sedaris once and he is a lovely man.

i listen to right wing AM radio in the mornings often because i can't always take so much npr or democracy now. but on the weekends it's not the same, lots of infomercials and garden or car shows. so i end up hearing all these dumb quizzes. ask me another is the first thing i've found really intolerable just to have on though. i can even listen to prairie home companion for up to 8 minutes because i am entertained by thinking about people who enjoy it and listening to garrison's disgusting gasps and nose whistles.

splendid table i hatelisten. it's really grating but i can't turn away.

I still really like This American Life, Car Talk and Marketplace. If they're on when I turn on the radio, I will always listen all the way through.
When I'm in the right mood I can listen to All Things Considered driving home from work and really enjoy it. But most of the time there's only so many field recordings of scrunching leaves and outsider poetry I can hear about before I go barmy. The 'we are so amused by these earthlings you call humans' tone REALLY gets to me sometimes

Like, it's close enough to what "someone like you" wants to hear to be creepy. Even good NPR is a little like that, which is why bad NPR is really bad.

this is otm tipsy

i wonder how common a media-audience strategy this is apart from us public broadcasting (where acting like you speak for the audience as a 'we' is fraught).

apart from say health care advertising or premium coffee commercials, with which npr style obviously has a lot of overlap anyway

someone like youness

i don't mind this american life most of the time. i do mind shows that are like this american life where they do that thing with the quick cuts between two speakers and the too much music. i think snap judgment and radiolab do that.

One of the Sirius NPR stations does 8 hours of Car Talk a day, I just don't get it. Are there Deadhead-esque Car Talkers who really savor a 2002 CT show?

The dinner party podcast was enraging for the four minutes I could last.

I liked Radiolab for a while but now I can hardly stand to listen to it, the sound effects alone ugggh

there's plenty on npr i tolerate but radiolab is the one show i cannot bear.

oh, and philosophy talk.

One of the things I really hate on Radiolab and that the TAL guy also often does is this exaggerated, pretend incredulity thing

Radiolab: So what happened to the particle?
Scientist: Well, in essence, it became undetectable to our instruments.
Radiolab: You mean it just went off the radar?
Scientist: Well, for our purposes.
Radiolab: It just disappeared, like vanished off the grid?
Scientist: Basically, yes.
(SWELLING SYNTHS)

(btw is the TAL guy not the same guy as the nerdy sounding guy on Radiolab? They have different names but I'm not convinced they're actually different guys)

are you talking about Ira Glass? NPR has about 7 guys who sound like him.

yeah I genuinely blanked on his name, was not doing the art of pretend forgetfulness in the course of describing pretend incredulity

7 guys but they are all named neil or peter

the Radiolab guy is a different guy. His name is Jad and he's Lebanese-American.

x-post all the men on Planet Money sound exactly like Glass

haha they do. whenever planet money shows up on this american life it freaks me out, like, why is ira glass talking to himself?

i am addicted to this american life, tbh

i used to think morning edition was pretty good but i hardly ever listen to it anymore.

all things considered is borderline terrible imo.

i like steve inskeep. does he still do morning edition?

I think I dislike the other Radiolab guy more though actually, he's the one who more often does the incredulous schtick, and also has this yuk-yukky laugh

also it is a baltimore program, but i like midday with dan rodricks, the times i've heard it.

i used to haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate kai ryssdal, especially the way he says THIS.........is Marketplace" but now i don't mind him.

that's a pretty good show, i have to say. it always has ken doll-sounding hosts, for some reason. i was totally in love with the guy who hosted two hosts before ryssdal. i can't remember his name now! his voice was identical to ryssdal's. dreamy-man-voice.

there's definitely something lacking in weight about him, like if he were delivering really grave news he'd still have that bouncy, smug tone

i hate the way everyone on radiolab trips over each other when they are talking

can't remember if it's Guy Raz or Robert Siegel, but he's always making these horrible puns/dad jokes, I think he thinks he's being lowbrow or ironic in a humorous way, but no so much

i hate guy raz

horseshoe, was it david brancaccio? he was 2 season ago, and then david brown was 1 season ago.

i had a bit of a crush on david brown, but i heart kai now

x-post --Why do you hate Guy Raz ? I recall him in DC where he used to ocassionally write some ok articles for our local alt-weekly. What's he up to now?

here's definitely something lacking in weight about him, like if he were delivering really grave news he'd still have that bouncy, smug tone

― james franco tur(oll)ing test (Hurting 2), Tuesday, March 25, 2014 12:41 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha, something like "two AIRPLANES, t'day, crashed 'nto the world trade center, and the markets on wall street - ain't - too - happy - 'bout that, coming up next .... on marketplace....

mean

actually i think david brown might have been the one i had a crush on. i am creepily trying to track down an old marketplace clip to confirm.

guy raz hosts the ted radio hour which doesn't need to exist. he also hosts weekend all things considered. it might not be him, it might just be that the shows are bad.

david was a total voice doppelganger for kai, but he was funnier iirc

Yeah exactly xp "Possibly thousands dead -- we'll give you more specifics when we do the numbers coming up"

okay i have confirmed that it was david brown i had a voice-crush on! i feel better now.

hooray

he was lovely

I have probably mentioned in some thread or other that I had a huge voice crush on Terry Gross before seeing what she looked like.

the Radiolab guy is a different guy. His name is Jad and he's Lebanese-American.

Surmounter's cousin, right?

(Ha, I just found a photo of them together from 2006.)

posts v much in character, obv

btw, a guy in my office is first cousins with Brian Lehrer, I thought that was cool as shit when I found out, he's my favorite WNYC guy

there are some local people whose voices are starting to drive me crazy for phonological reasons as well as the overuse of the word "conversation"

There's also this talking-through-a-smile-and-almost-stifling-a-chuckle thing I hear a lot with younger-sounding NPR voices, e.g. on Planet Money. It gets really annoying when the topic is serious. The kind of presenters that come off a segue from an anchor with "Right, so..."

there's also the 'trying to prove something' slow-talker who moves the tongue down and back while saying (and frequently emphasizing) words like THAT and BACK

it's innocuous but it gets on my nerves because it's so obviously a strategic choice

my wife and i have a game where we try to describe what the various npr voices look like in person. does everybody have that super stiff nerdy guy who says "funding provided by the john d. & catherine t. macarthur foundation. this is npr."? we think he wears a bowtie and has super thick glasses

http://www.ihiphop.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/common-glasses.jpg

haha

one of my roommates is an asst. producer for WNYC. he's an alright guy, but he's the living embodiment of the NRP "thing": remarkably stiff, uptight, prudish, obsessed with conventional upper middle class conspicuous consumption (one of those turds who rambles on about designer coffee beans). i'm not sure if he's human or if i had a bad trip listening to 93.9 and he's a manifestation of a part of my psyche that detached from itself.

"The dinner party download" is such a terrible name for a show, it kind of enrages me whenever I hear the promos.

damn spectrum

i feel bad talking smack about the guy, his thing's his, i'm just amused i get to experience a human being who so perfectly captures the NPR experience for me.

a few months ago they started ending morning edition with a 30 second "lighter side" story, so now the prelude to every day's drudgery is Renee Montagne's forced laughter.

buh.

I think NPR could be vastly improved if they engaged in that business practice of just cutting the bottom 10% of features/programming/presenters every few months or so, like if they just surveyed listeners what there least favorite shit was and culled that every so often

Then we'd end up with the 24 hr Lake Woebegone comedy hour and I'd never hear the news again.

Only news, no funnies.

yeah, I'm pretty sure their most popular shows are ones like Wait Wait

I fear I'm one of those likes to have something on people. But there really aren't a lot of options besides npr. Right wing radio? Traffic and weather together on the 8s?

― james franco tur(oll)ing test (Hurting 2), Sunday, March 23, 2014 7:24 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

MUSIQUE!

when I was a kid I was taken to a taping of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me. i didn't get it then, I don't get it now. they just sound like every other time I overhear a bunch of left-wing baby boomers having an elaborately self-congratulating conversation.

glad im not the only one with disdain for the cookie cutter smug sound alikes of planet money

someday will i be old enough to understand why they don't just play tupac, how would that not be a public service

planet money sucks so bad. and i usually like people's accents from wherever but zoe chase is the WORST
ted radio hour is horrific
i like steve inskeep, he's the only one i like
have i mentioned how much i hate neda ulaby's voice also, probably on another thread. awfulllllll.

there was a crazy Planet Money back in 2009 where one of the fools tried to go all hardman against Elizabeth Warren and had to apologize to the audience

xps the most popular non-news show used to be car talk.

TED Radio Hour is pretty hilarious because I can't believe it took so long to mash up NPR and TED into one terrible stew.

wut? zoe chase sounds cool like some degrassi high character, or earnest campus tour guide! Anyway I think she left to join some other show.

Lately I've been doing dishes to Doug henwood's podcasts, which are like a legit left antidote to planet money.

One of the Sirius NPR stations does 8 hours of Car Talk a day, I just don't get it. Are there Deadhead-esque Car Talkers who really savor a 2002 CT show?

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Monday, March 24, 2014 8:57 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark

I sometimes let Car Talk episodes accumulate on my iPhone and then I mainline them all in one day

Thank goodness nobody was talking shit about Car Talk itt or I would have had to cut someone

NPR is the worst. I'd rather hear someone poop.

hahaha

lol

click and clack make me want to hang myself. also, didn't that show end a long time ago and they're running reruns? I believe so

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/05/259996793/forget-the-compass-follow-the-way-your-dog-poops

SABINE BEGALL: All people know dogs, and know that they are pooping.

there's a show that comes on midmorning that's just a professor dude interviewing govt. officials/authors/artists etc. that's pretty good. just unedited long interviews, none of the bullshit extra flair. i just want pure data.

i assume most places have local programs like that on their npr affiliate?

xps yeah car talk ended in 2012. i love it and will always happily listen but it's depressing that many (most?) npr stations devote weekend primetime hours to the reruns.

Wait what the hell? How do I still get new episodes on iTunes every week

you're getting the reruns.

This is a terrible day. Terrible, terrible day

I listened to a lot of Diane Rehm after Dan Patrick left ESPN Radio, but I can't do it anymore - I just want her (or one of her guests) to call out the hacks and shills she has on 40% of the time. Nodding and going "fair enough" to oil lobbyists and conservative wackjobs kills me.

My local station has an early afternoon interview program called Think that I'll take over any of the national NPR shows - since they only get people travelling through the area (or willing to do a phone interview) the guests are more interesting than the usual tasteful subjects.

think out loud?

http://www.kera.org/think/

you probably have just listened to the same car talk 100s of times over and over again, it's so inane you didn't notice

xp ah the "early afternoon interview program" here is think out loud. it's good too.

http://mspmag.com/Out-And-About/Articles/Features/Season-of-the-Wits/

steve marsh considers the NPR JV team

have to say i find the show in question p much laugh-devoid

jeezus, WNYC's hourly slogan "Just keep listening" (wow, THAT was worth however many months the marketing dept spent thinking it up) is pronounced by an unidentified Scarlett Johansson. I guess some people really did like that Her movie.

I'm sure she had her agent send a DVD of Her over when she auditioned for the gig.

I've come around and like Zoe Chase now. Something softened in me and I now find her delivery endearing. Now I can't stand John Hockenberry and The Takeaway. Maybe it's because he sounds so much like Colbert that it makes it sound like he's taking the piss constantly, about any subject, serious or not. Difficult to sit through.

On a different note, still gutted at Bob Parlocha's death. Those will be hard shoes to fill. They still play the show through the night here, but I wonder how long that will last. Sigh.

next slogan: "shut up and listen"

Popes, Supreme Court Judges & NPR Hosts.

The apparently lifetime appointment of Scott "The Fighting Quaker" Simon is reason enough to despise NPR. Even George Orwell didn't see this sensitive voiced slaughter apologist coming.

"There Are People Under Those Bombs," his Weekend Edition editorial from March 2003 explained - sounds like a sensitive title, right? - why it was more humane for people in Baghdad to die by bombing. Listen if you dare. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1242591

Compared to Fox News outright bloodlust, I find Simon's nuanced explanation far more sinister. As he soothingly says, "Humane and bombing may sound incongruous in the same sentence, but the United States and United Kingdom have said that it is possible to wage war against a bad regime for the sake of innocent people. The bombing we watch is a target of opportunity to demonstrate that they value the lives of innocent civilians as much as those of Iraqi commanders they seek to shock and awe into surrender."

"a target of opportunity." Guy saw the bright side of everything, you know?

But those were idealistic days. What did Scott learn in ten years?

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/07/219702819/when-weighing-intervention-in-syria-consider-the-children

The media push for war in Syria a couple years ago --- it didn't work & so was quickly forgotten --- will likely get somewhat more scrutiny now that an amazing story has hit the mass media:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2015/04/16/nbc-engel-kidnapping/25878771/