The fight for the future of NPR
April 18, 2016 8:35 AM   Subscribe

 
Interesting history of NPR. Lots of things I didn't know... but those gifs have to go. They actually hurt my eyes.
posted by KaizenSoze at 8:53 AM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


I expect it will. Many stakeholders have an interest in NPR continuing to do what it does ("Today on All Things Considered: Fracking is awesome, and those stupid states that ban it forego awesome economic growth! Coming up, we'll bring you Republicans' opinions of the news of the day.") and would prefer not to have an actual liberal network arise.
posted by Gelatin at 8:57 AM on April 18, 2016 [25 favorites]


I've been following this debate a little bit on Twitter and elsewhere, and it's a little strange to me. I'm probably not young enough to be really young, but I'm younger than the median NPR listener. I listen to a lot of podcasts, including some NPR-affiliated ones and some former-NPR-people ones, and I do almost all of my NPR-listening via the NPR news app. (I downloaded NPR one, but I mostly listen on my iPad, and NPR One only seems to work on a phone for now. I've only used it a couple of times.) But I also live in the hinterlands, and I'm really, really committed to local programing. There is stuff on my local NPR station that is relevant to me and that is not ever reflected in the podcasts coming out of NPR central or Gimlet or Maximum Fun or Slate. So if we're pitting 20-year-olds in Brooklyn against 80-year-olds in Alabama, I don't quite know where I fit in that mix. I do know that this whole discussion has made me become a member of my local station, so that's something.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:58 AM on April 18, 2016 [12 favorites]


I was wondering when this was going to surface here. It's been the topic of a lot of stuff I listen to, much of which is somehow within the NPR orbit to varying degrees.

It's interesting to me because Spokane Public Radio has just undergone quite a substantial infrastructure upgrade, moving into a new building that has been fitted out specifically for their mission, including new performance and recording studios for producing independent programming intended for possible distribution. (For what most might consider a hinterland, Spokane Public Radio is pretty excellent, with a system of stations that cover a wide range of the Inland Northwest between the Montana Rockies and the Eastern Cascades, and carries three channels -- one with classical and jazz and other music programming, one that is all news/talk, and one that is full-time Public Radio Remix. All fully independent, with no university or other sponsor for base support.)

I really do think that NPR will survive -- the product they produce is specific and well-done and in-demand. And I doubt the community support funding is going away. And I doubt that terrestrial radio broadcasting is going away, because it is too useful of a service in so many ways. But yeah, there are pressures happening that are new. And things will evolve.

On The Media looked at this matter. Might be worth a listen.
posted by hippybear at 8:59 AM on April 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


Honestly, I can't listen to npr new anymore. Their news coverage is so anodyne and bends over backwards to fit into the "both sides are equally responsible" camp that it's painful. I'd be more willing to listen and support them if I didn't feel like all the programming was for baby boomers who want to stoke their chins and mumble "ah yes, we are good moderates"
posted by Ferreous at 8:59 AM on April 18, 2016 [49 favorites]


They seem to have left out the ever-rightward shift of their news programs. I ended up quitting it cold turkey after listening to yet another story on Morning Edition about poor oppressed Republicans. My life improved immediately.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:59 AM on April 18, 2016 [18 favorites]


First step: Throw David Brooks and EJ Dionne into some sort of oubliette and be done with it.
posted by Ferreous at 9:01 AM on April 18, 2016 [19 favorites]


"30 Minutes Of Vocal Fry" would be a great podcast name.
posted by uosuaq at 9:09 AM on April 18, 2016 [11 favorites]


I know this much: My local NPR member station in Philadelphia, what would be considered one of the "powerhouses" because it's the home of Fresh Air with Terry Gross, will get to the point that the seasonal pledge drives become so long that they run into eachother, and the station will be in a perpetual state of beg-a-thon.

I would hate to see that happen.
posted by prepmonkey at 9:13 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]




Oh god I hope no one is paying attention to my NPR One usage. I skip over stuff I've already heard because I listen to All Things Considered and Morning Edition in the car, as god intended. I get pissed off when the app serves me so much taken from those shows because I am the stereotypical 40-year-old NPR baby who has listened to those shows twice a day every day since infancy. It doesn't mean I don't want to hear the news, it just means I've already heard it.

I really see this as a porque no los dos? situation. We need the news and we do need it to be traditionally reported to some extent. So much of that other content hinges (perhaps without the creators even realizing it) on the listener having already heard 3-4 minutes a few times a week on that particular topic. Then that listener turns on TAL and listens to The Giant Pool of Money because they want to know more about what this financial chaos they've heard about on the news is all about.

This feels too much like mommy and daddy fighting to me. I'm just going to go sit in my room and rock in the corner until they get it all worked out.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:15 AM on April 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


All snark aside, if NPR is really going to serve the needs of the younger listeners it perceives as its future, it's going to have to abandon its mission of telling the totebagger crowd comforting lies about how the modern Republican Party isn't that bad. And perhaps if they adopt the stance that some arguments aren't being made in good faith -- justifications for not even holding hearings for a Supreme Court nominee, for example -- NPR might also realize that right-wing criticisms about it being "liberal media" aren't being made in good faith either.
posted by Gelatin at 9:18 AM on April 18, 2016 [33 favorites]


The call in shows are even worse, listening to Diane Rhem is an exercise in hearing someone call with a canned republican viewpoint, her saying "the caller has a good point" and then the conservative flack panelist they have on talking about how right the caller is.
posted by Ferreous at 9:21 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Diane Rhem is not an NPR show.
posted by hippybear at 9:22 AM on April 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


Years ago I stopped listening to my local NPR affiliates, and donating to them, when I realized that they were responsible for the deluge of junk mail marketing I was getting. It was clear that my donation wasn't nearly as valuable to them as was selling my information to various other marketing organizations.

I do still have a few NPR programs on my podcast thing, and have donated to those individually, but with the rise of podcasts where the hosts are knowledgeable about the source topics and are willing to let the guests talk, I'm seeing less and less reason to. No more Teri Gross awkwardly trying to pretend that the publicist's questions are her own. No more Ira Flatow cutting off the scientist just as they start to get to the meat of the topic. No more listening to Morning Edition and thinking "Really? Just how is this disaster porn/corporate PR something I can use in my life?"

I don't know if it used to be better, but I know that even if it didn't, the world has moved past that.
posted by straw at 9:22 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


But it is carried by a ton of NPR affiliates and makes up a cornerstone of their morning programming in almost ever market I've been in they serve.
posted by Ferreous at 9:23 AM on April 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


I think the story that made me erase npr from my car radio favorites was when they had a person on talking about the medical costs of guns in the US, but then almost all the airtime was given to a doctor they found who was a gun rights nut talking insane shit about there was "infinitely more medical savings from prevented crimes because people had guns"

They let that shitheel talk for 80% of the time spouting utter trash and then everyone patted themselves on the back for how good of a conversation it was.
posted by Ferreous at 9:26 AM on April 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


This American Life and On The Media and Radiolab are also not NPR programs. Neither is A Prairie Home Companion.

For the sake of what this FPP is talking about, it's important to know what programs come from where, because that's literally the basis of much of this situation.
posted by hippybear at 9:30 AM on April 18, 2016 [13 favorites]


Diane Rhem is not an NPR show.
The Diane Rehm Show is produced at WAMU 88.5 and distributed by NPR, NPR Worldwide, SIRIUS XM satellite radio and the Armed Forces Network.
Also note the NPR link at the top right of the page.

"Following is a list of programs currently distributed by NPR."

It might not be produced by NPR, but Seinfeld wasn't produced by NBC either.
posted by Etrigan at 9:33 AM on April 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


But it is carried by a ton of NPR affiliates and makes up a cornerstone of their morning programming in almost ever market I've been in they serve.

And as a data point, my local NPR affiliate just concluded its spring pledge drive, and they hardly failed to mention that All Things Considered and Morning Edition were responsible for a hefty chunk of their programming budget. To their credit, this time they also plugged the amount of original and local programming they've been doing.
posted by Gelatin at 9:34 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I, also, am tired of NPR's rightward swing. It's a big garbage fire of unchallenged lies, and the really scary thing is it's still better than CNN, MSNBC, et cetera.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:38 AM on April 18, 2016 [15 favorites]


I'd be more willing to listen and support them if I didn't feel like all the programming was for baby boomers who want to stoke their chins and mumble "ah yes, we are good moderates"

I know it's fun to blame the baby boomers for the evils of the world, but you can blame this more on NPR's anxiety about conservative congressmen pushing further NPR cuts because of the "obvious liberal bias." Plenty of progressive / liberal middle-aged folks get just as annoyed as you lame "political parity" NPR sometimes (though not always) indulge in. They're still the smartest news on mass media, I think (though that in and of itself is pretty frightening).
posted by aught at 9:40 AM on April 18, 2016 [13 favorites]


it's still better than CNN, MSNBC

That's kind of the crux of it and why I haven't bothered to break out of my lifelong NPR inertia. What would I replace it with? I don't have a ton of time to read 30 longform articles in 20 different left wing monthly and quarterly magazines about the 30 top news stories of the day (or, like two months ago as the case may be). Just tell me what is going on in the world during my commute and at least try to not be super offensive and my news needs are mostly met.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:42 AM on April 18, 2016 [22 favorites]


will get to the point that the seasonal pledge drives become so long that they run into eachother, and the station will be in a perpetual state of beg-a-thon.

That's interesting, because both of my (upstate NY) NPR stations have moved toward minimal on-air drives and have been successful getting people to ante up in advance to limit the actual pledge to a single day. I was dubious when they started trying this a couple years ago, and I hope they keep being successful at it.
posted by aught at 9:42 AM on April 18, 2016 [11 favorites]


Here's the kind of thing I value from my local NPR station: an hour on how funding cuts are threatening historical research in state archives, followed by a twenty minute follow-up. I don't know that there's literally any other place in the local media landscape that would cover that issue with that level of depth.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:44 AM on April 18, 2016 [19 favorites]


In regards to comments above, it has not been my experience that NPR is overly weighted to 'both sides have merits' arguments. That said, they're about 6% publicly funded, so they should be expected to at least try and provide adequate representation from viewpoints that are mainstream on both sides of the aisle.

In regards to the problems in the article which I wish were more at the center of the discussion, this is going to be a big issue. I'm at the youngest end of NPR's target demographic and I listen to their programming exclusively through podcasts. The 'Gordian knot' that is their budget has a lot of competing conflicts of interest, and direct to consumer models are, I think going to become the default. I'd be shocked if there was much of a terrestrial radio infrastructure at all in 15 - 20 years. That said, I'm not sure it's going to be all bad - I think the lower than ever overhead costs for producing a podcast type program, coupled with the basically free cost of distributing via internet alone has allowed a lot of unique programming to flourish. I think what you'll see is an increase in 'niche' subject programming, and a decrease in regional subject programming.

I suggest listening to the On the Media Episode hippybear posted above. Certainly the biggest danger is that big-city-costal-elite viewpoints will continue to be over represented due to to sheer overexposure.
posted by the_querulous_night at 9:44 AM on April 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


I stopped listening to NPR when they would report corporate think tank nonsense as unquestioned, objective news. No thanks. I'm done with that garbage. I'm done with the New York Times, too, considering it's basically just a shameless mouthpiece for the 1% now; as if supporting the Iraq War wasn't enough.
posted by gehenna_lion at 9:46 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


(MeFi's Own) Linda Holmes had a really good take on the situation:
In its current form, podcasting – at least what most people mean when they talk about podcasting, which is projects that have reasonably big audiences – is brilliant and fascinating and fun and wise and informative and mind-opening and weird and smart and funny and innovative, but it’s still very limited in two of the most important areas that public radio exists to cover: one is local stuff, and the other is … you know, the news.
This is important. Set aside the political coverage, which is too studiously middle-of-the-road for my tastes (Cokie Roberts again, why?); but being able to project reporting resources, especially internationally and locally, is hard and expensive, and it's where media outlets have been hit hardest. NPR and its affiliates have been an important source for both, and I hope that whatever digital media regime is victorious, there's support for that kind of reporting, which would otherwise fall through the cracks.

I've really enjoyed NPR One. If you enter your local public radio station, you can get local coverage mixed into your playlist, which is great.
posted by Cash4Lead at 9:46 AM on April 18, 2016 [12 favorites]


Diane Rhem is not an NPR show.

It is according to NPR. http://www.npr.org/podcasts/381443514/the-diane-rehm-show

I will say that Diane Rehm's is one program I have always been repelled by. (Along with later seasons of Car Talk that devolved into dad humor and sexist gags occasionally interrupted by someone who didn't really have a serious car issue calling in just to hear themselves on the radio with Tom and Ray. Which is sad because back in the day I learned a lot from Car Talk.)
posted by aught at 9:47 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


you can blame this more on NPR's anxiety about conservative congressmen pushing further NPR cuts because of the "obvious liberal bias."

I genuinely wonder how much cachet this line has, though, among anyone who doesn't already watch Fox News and believes that anything that contradicts the movement conservative line -- i.e., reality -- is liberally biased.

As I implied upthread, though, part of the problem is that the shrinking public budget -- my local pledge drive is also quick to remind listeners that less than 10% of public radio's budget is Federal these days -- has made the network go begging for corporate dollars, and one could well wonder how much that dependence influences their programming.
posted by Gelatin at 9:48 AM on April 18, 2016


My wife listens to NPR, and I hear it now and again when we're driving somewhere together. There are shows I generally like - Wait, Wait - and shows that drive me up the wall. In the latter category is the apparent belief that someone with an opinion deserves as much time and legitimacy as someone with research and data, regardless of which end of the political spectrum either of them falls on. On Point does this consistently, and it's infuriating.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 9:50 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


NPR is better than tv news: well, any positive integer is greater than zero.
posted by doctornemo at 9:52 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


I find On Point equally infuriating, for a wide variety of reasons. I think a major lack in our current culture is having Neal Conan doing conversational call-in interviews 4 days a week. His brilliance is missed, and his firing was a major red flag for me about NPR.
posted by hippybear at 9:53 AM on April 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Also, memo to NPR: Steve Inskeep is not funny. Please stop. Love, me.
posted by Gelatin at 9:53 AM on April 18, 2016 [13 favorites]


part of the problem is that the shrinking public budget -- my local pledge drive is also quick to remind listeners that less than 10% of public radio's budget is Federal these days -- has made the network go begging for corporate dollars, and one could well wonder how much that dependence influences their programming.

I agree this is a problem. I notice it more on PBS with its expanded ads underwriter spots for Koch, Burlington Northern, ADM and so on. I think some of the financial autonomy NPR has gained (that brought the Federal dependence number down to 10% or below) is due to the Kroc legacy of over $200 million of McD's money going to them. Not sure what, if any, strings were attached to how NPR used that money.
posted by aught at 9:54 AM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


Also, memo to NPR: Steve Inskeep is not funny. Please stop. Love, me.

The Morning Edition line-up with the possible exception of David Green makes me nostalgic for Bob Edwards (and he used to drive me up the wall with his sanctimony and folksy inflections). I try to remember this whenever Scott Simon irritates on weekend mornings - he is so freaking sentimental and corny - but the replacement host might well be even more annoying.
posted by aught at 9:59 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


business model

Ugh.
posted by RogerB at 10:01 AM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


To be honest, the raw emotion present in Scott Simon's piece with Ron Fournier from this past Saturday felt like one of the most honest moments NPR has allowed to air on one of their actual programs, ever.
posted by hippybear at 10:02 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also, Ari Shapiro's latest interviewing style where he leads the subject to the expected answer, overemotes his incredulity, and laughs way too much drives me bananas. BANANAS, I SAY!

That said, I still appreciate their local reporting.
posted by Existential Dread at 10:04 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I heard Robert Segal(sp?) call Michael Brown a thug as well. A real eye-opener.
posted by Windopaene at 10:13 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


My local NPR affiliate is the parent company of this wonderful thing, which is doing some truly old-school investigative journalism. It's scrappy and it's low-budget and it's fearless. So there's that.
posted by jbickers at 10:13 AM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


I listen to KQED a lot when driving (well, when it's not the ALL GARRISON KEILLOR ALL THE TIME station), but almost never listen to the podcasts of the same shows. Some shows are just made for driving. Podcasts demand too much attention from the user. The only show I really wish there were podcasts for is City Arts and Lectures, and of course that's the one that's never going to happen.
posted by aspo at 10:14 AM on April 18, 2016


I think public radio can survive, but it will likely continue evolving into public media. Not sure if NPR nor any of the other distributors or public radio networks can continue without evolving too.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:25 AM on April 18, 2016


That Linda Holmes post that Cash4Lead linked above is really smart and pretty much sums up what I think about this issue.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:26 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


I don't get all the hate for NPR News. Yes, it's trying to be fair to both sides of a highly partisan country. It's the most watched/listened news show in the US, so that seems appropriate.

What news show does anyone think is better?

I'd be happy is they just stopped playing endless hours of Prarie Home Companion and Car Talk. FFS, one of those guys is dead! Have some respect.
posted by msalt at 10:27 AM on April 18, 2016 [8 favorites]


I should be fully in the NPR target range as I am a full time science guy (and seems as if having NPR on in the lab is REQUIRED in many science places) but... nope, I don't listen to anything except the local affiliate's music station. Which is fully awesome and is the reason I am a sustaining member. The classic talk format though, not really interested. I suppose my annual contributions support it, and that's great, but I'm here for the tunes!! It's the only station I listen to.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:28 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


NPR is really unique in the US - no other large media organization participates so regularly in the kind of navel gazing that NPR so regularly indulges in. I don't mean that in a bad way, nor do I mean to put them on a pedestal - just that I wish others would demonstrate even half as much introspection as they engage in. In regards to comments about the Michael Brown coverage above, they posted this article about their own coverage in response to listener feedback.
posted by the_querulous_night at 10:28 AM on April 18, 2016 [11 favorites]


t msalt: Because it has to invent a "reasonable" right wing point to counterbalance sane things left leaning people say. The amount of unchallenged bullshit commentators said about how planned parenthood was breaking the law and selling fetal tissue for profit during that debacle was a great example.
posted by Ferreous at 10:37 AM on April 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


I stopped contributing to NPR this year because I am beyond frustrated with their election coverage. All about the race and the personalities, until this past week when they (finally) debuted their issue program — nearly halfway through the primary/caucus calendar! And I am sick (and tired) of the platform they have given to Tamara Keith for what I call her Daily Bernie Bash session. I heard her "report" live on air on Super Tuesday about the "English only!" chant that allegedly occurred as if she was there and it was fact. And neither of those was true. I have repeated asked NPR for a correction or apology and they haven't responded. They used to say "Tamara Keith with the Clinton Campaign" but now they say "following the Democrats" and I assume it is because all of her reports come across as blatantly pro-Clinton or anti-Sanders.

I wish there was a way to contribute to my local affiliate without having to support the parent group, but I have yet to figure out how.
posted by terrapin at 10:39 AM on April 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


The thing that bothered me about the article: I listen to NPR exclusively when I'm in the car. I don't want to listen to long-form podcast-style stories when I'm driving; I like the 4-5 minute news dispatches of Morning Edition and All Things Considered because I can follow the whole things between errands. If they're talking about something I'm interested in when I get to where I'm going, I can wait in the car and continue listening until they're done.

I prefer to listen to Serial, This American Life, etc. when I have a big chunk of time to pay attention, like when I'm walking the dog or running.

I'm sure it's different for people with long commutes, but I'm generally in the car for 30 minutes or less at a time.
posted by liet at 10:41 AM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


its marquee iPhone app, NPR One


I had to check that. It's iPhone only. I have the (universal) NPR news app on my iPad.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:44 AM on April 18, 2016


To the "...but [X] is not an NPR show, it's a {PRI,MPR,APM,etc} show!": Yeah, but a big part of what's driving NPR is the affiliate stations and their inability to adapt to a changing media world. Broadcast is tanking. Hard. The we won't talk about non-broadcast-radio ways to get this content thing is a sop to the local radio station managers... who are replaying all of the same flailing of mall managers in the late '90s banning URLs from any store signage.

And to the "...what most people mean when they talk about podcasting, which is projects that have reasonably big audiences...". So many great niche podcasts that aren't in this category.
posted by straw at 10:48 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Because it has to invent a "reasonable" right wing point to counterbalance sane things left leaning people say.

Failing that, it will fall back on the old reliable "he said, she said" style, in which they will quote Mitch McConnell or someone saying something verifiably untrue for the sake of phony "balance."
posted by Gelatin at 10:50 AM on April 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Becoming disillusioned in regards to the NPR station I was raised on is some end times shit for me.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 10:58 AM on April 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


I had to check that. It's iPhone only. I have the (universal) NPR news app on my iPad.

I have it on Android. And there's a web version.
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:02 AM on April 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm grateful that here in LA we have our local Pacifica affiliate KPFK as an alternative, carrying intelligent, openly progressive fare like Democracy Now! and The Thom Hartmann Program.

The only show on our local NPR affiliates that doesn't actively annoy me (not that it's always without slant) is the BBC News Hour, which covers world news way more comprehensively than the daily NPR shows.

I agree about the Daily Bernie Bash — I'm also a lifelong NPR listener, but the final straw that made our household shift all its NPR support to Pacifica was a hearing a drive time story that started with some scare line like, "Bernie Sanders wants to completely dismantle the US health care system...", and then finding that completely missing from the online transcript when I checked back at home.
posted by mubba at 11:06 AM on April 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


I can only call it a feeling, but I wonder if the pivot point for NPR's rightward turn came after the Kroc bequest. Maybe there were conditions for the payments.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:08 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have to count myself with the group that says "well what's better then?" Between NPR and BBC news I feel like I get a good overview of what's going on in the world each day, and I can dig into other sources if I like. Their job is to ask tough questions, and I think NPR sometimes falls down on the job there, but they do a pretty good job of representing what's going on in the United States. A good chunk of Americans are religiously, financially, and socially pretty conservative and I want to know about their viewpoints, as long as the conversation is well moderated and doesn't allow bogus statements to go unchallenged.

I listen to a lot of their news and the other shows (Diane Rehm, Fresh Air, etc) and man, am I not hearing the terrible conservatism some others seem to be. They bring in guests from the right but it's usually the corporate shills and not the crazy yelling type. Having a forum where everyone is included is a better solution to me than having people tune into only Fox talk shows on the right and "9/11 was an inside job" shows on the left. There needs to be some sort of middle ground presence that we all can use as a frame of reference, and NPR seems to me to be about all we've got at the moment on a national level.

Also, I went and read the followup on the Michael Brown "thuggish" thing and it seemed pretty reasonable. I saw the convenience store video and I had the same thoughts as a lot of folks; namely, "wow that guy is an a**hole who thinks he owns the world and likes to intimidate people, but him ending up dead is clearly not a proportional response". I knew people who shoplifted when I was young but trying to push a store manager around is a whole other level. If we've gotten to the point where that sort of crappy attitude is considered not thuggish, we have some major issues. I fully support the community response and the bigger discussion about institutionalized racism, but come on.
posted by freecellwizard at 11:10 AM on April 18, 2016 [13 favorites]


Pacifica only operates in 5 markets, though, so if you don't live in the Bay Area, LA, New York, DC or Houston, Pacifica is not a good alternative.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:10 AM on April 18, 2016


WXXI is the best possible where I live. Scott Regan actually has bands that are gonna be playing locally LIVE IN HIS STUDIO! And I feel like the mothership does do a little too much on the fair and balanced side, but Segal let Kasich say some straight-up bullshit lies yesterday, and it sounded so fake, and Segal said nothing, and that in itself kinda said enough.

Viva Le NPR!
posted by valkane at 11:15 AM on April 18, 2016


in which they will quote Mitch McConnell or someone saying something verifiably untrue for the sake of phony "balance."

Though, to be honest, at my age yelling at the radio and giving the audio McConnell the finger violently at 6:30 a.m. is a pretty good way to get the blood circulating for the day.
posted by aught at 11:15 AM on April 18, 2016 [11 favorites]


I listen to a lot of their news and the other shows (Diane Rehm, Fresh Air, etc) and man, am I not hearing the terrible conservatism some others seem to be. They bring in guests from the right but it's usually the corporate shills and not the crazy yelling type. Having a forum where everyone is included is a better solution to me than having people tune into only Fox talk shows on the right and "9/11 was an inside job" shows on the left. There needs to be some sort of middle ground presence that we all can use as a frame of reference, and NPR seems to me to be about all we've got at the moment on a national level.

This is the exact kind of thinking NPR thrives on. There is not a single 9/11 was an inside job leftist news organization that gets national press. There certainly are a shit ton of right wing lunatics who get major airtime on radio and tv.

The middle ground view you're describing is like if two people were trying to decide what to have for lunch and one said "hamburgers" and the other said "I want to stab you in the face" the middle ground would be "well, how about he stabs you in the arm?"
posted by Ferreous at 11:15 AM on April 18, 2016 [23 favorites]


WBER is good too.
posted by valkane at 11:16 AM on April 18, 2016


We don't get Diane Rehm here in Portland, so I can't speak to that. John Hockenberry and Here and Now are pretty reasonable, though it was jarring to hear the host of the latter refer to the Boston Marathon bomber Jakhar Tsarnayev (who went to school with her kid) as "this beautiful young man."

There's a listener supported station here KBOO-FM which has some great music, but the news is very hit and miss and kind often annoyingly strident.

For the leftier folks here, what do you think of "On the Media"? It seems pretty openly biased to the left, from my POV. I don't disagree with most of what they're saying though it gets a big smug at times.
posted by msalt at 11:22 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have to count myself with the group that says "well what's better then?" Between NPR and BBC news I feel like I get a good overview of what's going on in the world each day

If only there was another English-speaking huge country in North America with a state-funded radio broadcaster that did in-depth news reporting. IF ONLY. IF ONLY.
posted by GuyZero at 11:24 AM on April 18, 2016 [10 favorites]


For the leftier folks here, what do you think of "On the Media"? It seems pretty openly biased to the left, from my POV

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
posted by GuyZero at 11:25 AM on April 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


I can only call it a feeling, but I wonder if the pivot point for NPR's rightward turn came after the Kroc bequest. Maybe there were conditions for the payments.

a lungful of dragon: I appreciate that people feel like NPR may not be representing their viewpoints objectivly, but I don't think this kind of comment contributes anything other than FUD without a citation. NPR has an ethics handbook, they have impartiality guidelines, and they have a statement of journalist independence. They have an ombudsman to represent the public interest. Clearly not everyone here enjoys their attempts to position themselves as a 'moderate' voice, but this kind of posturing strikes me as unnecessarily conspiratorial.

A good chunk of Americans are religiously, financially, and socially pretty conservative and I want to know about their viewpoints, as long as the conversation is well moderated and doesn't allow bogus statements to go unchallenged.


You put a finger on something that I was struggling with in this thread, which is that I want to hear and try to understand why people hold views opposite my own without reading Brietbart and watching Fox news. When I listen, NPR programming largely tries to contextualize these issues in a reasonable manner.
posted by the_querulous_night at 11:31 AM on April 18, 2016 [19 favorites]


They are way more rightward leaning than when I first listened to them. I think when Bill Clinton started to triangulate into the dead center of everything he took a lot of people with him; the NPR of 1996 seemed very different from the NPR of 1990.
posted by bukvich at 11:35 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I don't get all the hate for NPR News. Yes, it's trying to be fair to both sides of a highly partisan country.

I think the problem comes from not going that extra step, a necessary component of actual journalism, where the reporter notices and points out that, while there may be two sides of a Random Issue, sometimes the available evidence points mostly to one side or the other. That both sides may receive roughly equal support does not mean that they deserve equal regard.

If you have a public radio station that plays much BBC news coverage, that may be the only chance you have to hear reporters or interviewers prod public figures to defend their positions on the basis of evidence instead of merely asserting them. I've sometimes heard BBC reporters tear into highly placed BBC officials. By U.S. standards that seems pretty nervy.
posted by Flexagon at 11:37 AM on April 18, 2016 [16 favorites]


I don't get the hate for NPR either. Are they a corporate mouthpiece just because they put some company spokesperson on? Are they moving to the right when they interview a Republican on the air? That's just silly.
For what it's worth, where I live WNYC is the single most comprehensive news source for local affairs, and quite often national affairs as well. Brian Lehrer is a genius talkshow host in my book.
posted by monospace at 11:37 AM on April 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


I sympathise with the complaints about faux balance and have voiced them myself at times. This discussion has me thinking that the situation isn't as bad as I thought, because you all know when the right wing source is lying or being disingenuous. The NPR audience is smart and informed and maybe we don't need an on air personality to point out when an interviewee is full of shit. Airing both sides of an argument and then allowing the audience to see that one of those sides has no leg to stand on seems like a reasonable way to operate.
posted by chrchr at 11:39 AM on April 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Are they a corporate mouthpiece just because they put some company spokesperson on? Are they moving to the right when they interview a Republican on the air?

Quite frequently, and particularly when they let their lies and distortions go uncorrected, yes! This isn't complicated. Journalists have an obligation to the facts, not to spokespeople.
posted by RogerB at 11:41 AM on April 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


David Brooks' mealy-mouthed corporate lickspittle smugness puts me right over the edge, and they have him on all the fucking time. And I don't see it as "balanced" when a news organizations fails to point out the gigantic, known errors in something a conservative says. Because when you do that, they keep saying that stuff and pushing it further and NPR letting them do so only lends them legitimacy.

I still love NPR for many things and listen to them as part of my regular rotation on my Sirius channel, which also carries 2-3 actual progressive stations, the kind that take it as given that the Republican party is out to get you.

And even there, I still have never heard "9-11 was an inside job!" from anyone. So I'm going to call shenanigans on that.
posted by emjaybee at 11:42 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


The fact that both me (Lefty McLefterson) and my dad (Libertarian McJohnGaltPants) both get our daily dose of headline-rundown from NPR probably is what a lot of people here are condemning, but for me it's really valuable and I'm grateful for it.

If someone could point me to a news outlet that presents daily headlines and short interviews in which the interviewer calls out the interviewee, please point me to it because I've never encountered it. It's kind of the nature of the beast. If you have a newsmagazine format in which interviews have to be exactly x:xx minutes long, you don't really have time to spin that out into a deep investigation of the claims the interviewee is making. IDK maybe that's just a case for not interviewing people if you don't have an hour to really grill them.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:43 AM on April 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm grateful that here in LA we have our local Pacifica affiliate KPFK as an alternative, carrying intelligent, openly progressive fare like Democracy Now! and The Thom Hartmann Program.

KPFK has its own problems.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:44 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I sympathise with the complaints about faux balance and have voiced them myself at times. This discussion has me thinking that the situation isn't as bad as I thought, because you all know when the right wing source is lying or being disingenuous. The NPR audience is smart and informed and maybe we don't need an on air personality to point out when an interviewee is full of shit. Airing both sides of an argument and then allowing the audience to see that one of those sides has no leg to stand on seems like a reasonable way to operate.

News isn't supposed to be a quiz show where the listener is expect to know who is right and wrong. Factchecking matter, the interviewer/moderator has a job, and by not doing it they give validity to utter trash lies.
posted by Ferreous at 11:45 AM on April 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm not convinced that it's a journalists's task to correct such lies. What you do is invite an *expert* with an opposing viewpoint to make that case. In my opinion, NPR is no worse at doing that than the commercial stations, and often quite a bit better. I understand that it will never fully agree with my points of view, and I kind of like it that way. It's National Public Radio, not "Lefty" Public Radio.
posted by monospace at 11:46 AM on April 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


I never really got the love for NPR so many people had. I mean, given local newscasts and commercial radio, sure, it was better, but it was never enough. IIRC--and it's been years since I've listened to NPR with any regularity now that I have the CBC and BBC to get better radio news coverage from--you had the morning shows and then classical music of whatever local station was an NPR affiliate, BBC world news maybe at noon, more classical music, a bit of NPR original programming towards the end of the work day and that's it. Like, it's always felt like bits and pieces of a station, but never a comprehensive whole. The CBC is fighting a losing funding battle as well as original on-air programming battle here in Canada, but at least so much of it is still regional and all day.

(I still hate the As It Happens puns and theme song though. Seven years in this country and I see red when I hear it at 6 pm.)
posted by Kitteh at 11:47 AM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I understand that it will never fully agree with my points of view, and I kind of like it that way.

"I'm liberal. You, you aristocrat,
Won’t know exactly what I mean by that.
I mean so altruistically moral
I never take my own side in a quarrel." (Frost, "The Lesson for Today")
posted by RogerB at 11:51 AM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yes, well, puns aside, As It Happens will have stuff like interviews with people on the ground and in the middle of major international news events worldwide. The only major downside to that it they often interview people with heavy accents over terribly bad phone connections and you can hardly make out the important half of the interview. But they do a lot of pretty serious stuff mixed among the wacky news pieces.

NPR has a good mix of things - at least KQED does - and not every NPR station plays music.

The one thing I will say CBC does regularly better than NPR is to rotate programming. You don't get Car Talk running in perpetuity and slowly grinding itself into the dirt. Once Air Farce started to suck wind, it got pulled. Thanks goodness. Make way for new talent. the weekend NPR tentpoles are stuck in a terrible rut and need to get killed to make way for new blood.

On the plus side they run stuff like Latino USA in pretty prime Sunday time around here which I think is a pretty good way for non-Latino people to hear about issues they might otehrwise be totally ignorant about.
posted by GuyZero at 11:57 AM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


For the leftier folks here, what do you think of "On the Media"? It seems pretty openly biased to the left, from my POV

Strange. OTM is my go-to for all the worst of public radio. False "balance" (but only sometimes), lazy research, snooty-as-hell hosts, etc.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:01 PM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm not convinced that it's a journalists's task to correct such lies.

This is the single most important job of any journalist, which is why it's listed first in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. They're not talk show hosts, they're journalists. But perhaps that's the point, isn't it, that NPR isn't really a journalism outfit.
posted by MetalFingerz at 12:05 PM on April 18, 2016 [21 favorites]


Here's a little more on the decline of radio listenership among young people (via Nieman Journalism Lab).
posted by MetalFingerz at 12:17 PM on April 18, 2016


I wake up every morning to Morning Edition on my clock radio, and I've got an actual FM radio in the shower so I've got a chance at dragging myself out of bed without audible lag between the two devices. I'm not always completely happy with their fact-checking on the stories I know a lot about already, the recent attacks on Planned Parenthood being a good example. They've gotten a bit better about that, presumably after public complaint, and the last couple times it's come up they have made a point of noting that those allegations were investigated and found to be groundless. And overall they're still better for national news than anybody else who'll wake me up in the morning, and I can trust that if there's some major news story that I really must know about, I'll get a not-overly-sensationalized take on it before I leave for work.

I know Morning Edition costs my NPR affiliate a lot of money to air, but the main reason I donate to my affiliate is that they're the best state and local news coverage available. I'm really more of a newspaper person, but my local papers are much worse alternatives in a lot of ways, so I throw what I'd spend on a newspaper subscription into a monthly public radio donation. They earn it by doing actual work to gather news that nobody else in the state is bothering with.
posted by asperity at 12:33 PM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


[On the Media]: False "balance" (but only sometimes), lazy research, snooty-as-hell hosts, etc.

I agree with all of that, though Garrison Keillor easily surpasses them for worst of public radio. On the other hand, they have a somewhat higher percentage of surprising and unusual perspectives than most shows, maybe just because they're in New York and have a wealth of smart people all around them.
posted by msalt at 12:36 PM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is the single most important job of any journalist

Yes, and the way a journalist exposes lies and falsehoods in a story is not by yelling "You lie" on the air, but by inviting an expert to counter any questionable statements. And I think NPR on the whole does an admirable job at that. If I want to listen to journalists chewing out their guests I can always tune in to right wing talk radio.
posted by monospace at 12:48 PM on April 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Pacifica only operates in 5 markets, though, so if you don't live in the Bay Area, LA, New York, DC or Houston, Pacifica is not a good alternative.

KPFA streams live over the internet and archives all of their shows (podcasts?). Many of the other Pacifica network stations do the same.

I highly recommend it as an alternative to NPR for news and opinion. NPR is a corporate network with an unconvincing gloss to convince you it's not. I can't stand it.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:52 PM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


KPFA streams live over the internet and archives all of their shows (podcasts?). Many of the other Pacifica network stations do the same.
As I said above, I rely on NPR for news and information about my local community. For people who are totally disengaged with local politics or culture, I guess that might be a good solution.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:58 PM on April 18, 2016


... though Garrison Keillor easily surpasses them for worst of public radio.

As someone who lives in PHC-Land, I'm curious how he counts as the 'worst' of public radio.
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:15 PM on April 18, 2016


the NPR of 1996 seemed very different from the NPR of 1990

Maybe. I think pre-First-Gulf-War NPR was a more naive and innocent news organization, believing if they earnestly presented The Truth as They Researched It, everything would be all right. That isn't how things go, unfortunately, and it certainly isn't how things go now, even remotely. And the political climate of the U.S. in general is completely different too, of course; the viciousness of NPR's foes is much more intense than it was when I was in college in the 80s and first listened to public radio. To be possibly over-charitable to NPR, it could be they have decided to trust their listeners to recognize bullshit for themselves - whether it's coming from the right or the left - when they hear it.

One of the problems I have with Pacifica / Democracy Now, as much as I agree with much of their underlying progressive message, is their compulsive need to beat us over the head with everything and make sure no whiff of opposing viewpoint is presented, or if presented, it doesn't go un-mocked, which frequently (to me) seems to underestimate the ability of their listeners themselves to be intelligent critics of popular opinion. As someone with a contrarian streak, when Democracy Now (for example) gets on a tear about something, with their long and heavily-loaded questions of their guests, I have sometimes found myself mentally starting to oppose opinions I would otherwise be completely sympathetic with, because they have drummed on them so hard with no whiff of any other perspective. Perverse, I know.
posted by aught at 1:18 PM on April 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


by inviting an expert to counter any questionable statements

Yeah, but sometimes that expert is supposed to be the journalist.
posted by Green With You at 1:19 PM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]




Yes, and the way a journalist exposes lies and falsehoods in a story is not by yelling "You lie" on the air, but by inviting an expert to counter any questionable statements. And I think NPR on the whole does an admirable job at that. If I want to listen to journalists chewing out their guests I can always tune in to right wing talk radio.


By putting them against each other, without fact checking, actually gives more credence to bullshit. It says that they are two opposing, but equal viewpoints. Outright lies need to be called out, it doesn't have to be "you lie!" but demanding proof or explanations of things.
posted by Ferreous at 1:21 PM on April 18, 2016 [10 favorites]


Boy, Slate really sucks.

NPR is less liberal than it was. The Big Money that is pushing the US to the Right has had an effect on NPR. But have you listened to any other news shows lately? Holy crap, they're just awful. Most news now is driven mostly by advertising; watch a few minutes of the Today show if you want confirmation. Sports & movies get lots of play, because they're advertisers. Being a lot less awful than everybody else is hardly a goal, but I still find plenty to like.

Maine Public Broadcasting does 1 day fundraisers, and they remind you that if it doesn't work, it'll be back to several days of begging and cajoling. A successful threat. Our wonderful, scrappy, community radio station, WMPG, calls it a begathon, refreshing in its honesty.
posted by theora55 at 1:23 PM on April 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


It's also the coded language they use, things don't happen in Washington because of "partisan gridlock" not what it actually is, republican obstructionism. Everything is couched in terms to present a viewpoint, that while ostensibly neutral, gives a huge leg up to far right positions and policy.
posted by Ferreous at 1:27 PM on April 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


It was during the 2nd Bush administration that I started hearing, in NPR's news, that they were having new management assigned, then that became "management is insisting we play the following verbatim" followed by a rebuttal of an obviously wrong right-wing slanted news item, to no longer having the disclaimer or the rebuttal. It never got better even after the first couple of years of Obama, so I stopped listening to news on the commute and started listening to the other staple of NPR around here, classical music.

I get my news online now, from a diverse list of sources, knowing they're all biased, but at least no longer quite so blatant and obviously politicized as NPR has become.
posted by Blackanvil at 1:32 PM on April 18, 2016


I like NPR. I enjoyed the first season of Serial, but I rarely have time in my life to listen to podcasts these days. Whether I'm in the car or in the lab, the ability to direct my attention elsewhere briefly and the zone back in on NPR is really nice. Yes, I hate the David Brooks/EJ Dionne Friday afternoon shitfest (and I usually tune to the local Clearchannel "alternative rock" station when they come on). Yes, their coverage of the Democratic primary has been terrible. But they're still much better than any other news sources available to me.

And our local station, WABE, has kickass daytime shows that I always enjoy and learn a ton about Atlanta from, as well as really good news features during ME and ATC. I used to tune into Diane Rehm and Here and Now for my in the lab half-listening purposes, but lately I just stick to the local programming, which is excellent.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:33 PM on April 18, 2016


Well, I really wish this thread had gone differently. NPR's bona fides aside, does anyone have any thoughts on how podcasts and internet streaming are changing the terrestrial radio -someone groaned at the use of "business model" above but really I don't have another word here - market?

Much like Netflix and DVR reduced the need to consume things in real time, I have trouble imagining why anyone would want to listen to NPR in a world where any part of their programming can be chosen at will. If I'm on the road and I hear Jonathan Schwartz incoherently rambling on about some half remembered Frank Sinatra anecdote I'm shutting it off. Inversely if my father were to tune into Bob Boilen gushing about a new Mongolian folk metal ensemble, he's going to reach for the vehicle eject button. I have a curated playlist of podcasts that I have a higher likelihood of actually enjoying, and set it to start playing as soon as I get in the car, and in a world where everyone is doing the same what role do affiliate stations really play?

The argument that the affiliates make is that someone should be making content and reporting on behalf of small niches of listeners that no commercial entity could reasonably cater to, a position I have considerable sympathy for. In the OTM episode on this subject, a rep from one of the smaller affiliates pointed out that during the cable boom, commercial operators thought they might compete with PBS by producing educational content... only to find that TLC and Discovery would be more profitable as vehicles for an endless buffet of reality TV banality. Radiotopia and Gimlet are unquestionably putting out programming that would probably never have gotten on the air during the golden age of radio... but if they see a broader market open up, might they not descend into the same sort of pandering?
posted by the_querulous_night at 2:06 PM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


It helps that the much lower barrier to entry for podcasts allows you to succeed on quality of programming. If those entities start to produce drek, it's much easier for someone to sneak in under them.

Admittedly there is a certain degree of ossification that will occur in the podcasting world where if you weren't established during the boom, or associated with a group that was it will be harder to get in. This though is still far far far lower than the barriers against creating something broadcast on terrestrial radio/ television.
posted by Ferreous at 2:17 PM on April 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have trouble imagining why anyone would want to listen to NPR in a world where any part of their programming can be chosen at will.

I hold this opinion as well. I'd say the only time I by default hit up their terrestrial signal is part of my 20 minute commute in the office. I figure that current events of what is happening right this minute is usually things that haven't entered into my media diet (either via other podcasts or just reading the news, etc.).

That's not to say I don't have a lot of NPR and public radio content in my absurdly long podcast playlist queue but all of that is listened to asynchronously.
posted by mmascolino at 2:21 PM on April 18, 2016


In my 20s and 30s I listened to NPR with a frequency that was way uncool among my peers, because then it was seen as content for stodgy, aging, middle-aged-to-oldsters. Now that I'm a stodgy, middle-aged and aging adult, I positively can't stand it.

It used to be that I'd turn it on first thing every morning and listen to it on my way to work, then again on the drive home. Literally every morning, and weekends too. The turning point for me was the Republican primary in 2008 and all of the toxicity that came out of it. It made me angry, and it made me feel bad, and I haven't had any sort of tolerance for NPR -- or other news/news outlets that requires me to hear people's actual voices -- since.

I recently made an unplanned, 1,700-mile round-trip road trip. By the last day, I'd run out of podcasts. About an hour from home I switched on my local NPR station thinking it would be fine for the rest of the drive.

I didn't get the details of the piece that was airing, but it was one of their evergreens about someone struggling to make ends meet day-to-day. It was so formulaic and so incredibly Enn.Pee.Arr -- the sound editing, along with the tone of voice of the reporter, who was trying to sound both empathetic and journalistic at the same time -- I just couldn't take it.

I don't know if NPR has changed, or if I have changed, or if the world has changed. It's likely a combination of all three. And it's true that there's no real good alternative. Ignorance is the one I've knowingly chosen, and I'm actually pretty happy with that choice.

As an idealistic twenty-something, I never would have predicted that I'd be saying that right there. And I have changed, and our culture -- especially our political culture -- has changed, and I know those are factors. But on reflection, I'm actually going to rescind my assertion that my dislike of and disgust at NPR is due to combined factors. I'm going to take that back and put a decent share of the blame on NPR itself, because here's what I just figured out: NPR was a good fit for me in my 20s and 30s because it fueled my political idealism. It was a more hopeful news report in a way, because it reported on the really ugly truths in our country from the perspective of "this thing is shitty, but here's what people are doing to fix it."

Now the reporting is more along the lines of "this thing is shitty, and this is how it's going to get shittier, and here are the reasons why no one can do a damn thing about it. So, either a) be glad it's not you being shat upon and go ahead and feel superior to those who are, or b) if it is you enduring the shit storm, get used to it."

THAT'S what I hate now about NPR, and why I can't listen to it, and why I've just given up on most news in general, save for several daily scans of the top headlines and what I learn here.

I don't miss it. My life is enriched with plenty of information.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:34 PM on April 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


Let me amend my comment above: What I hate is NPR news. Some of the non-NPR-news shows they run are very good, and I enjoy their podcasts. On the Media and Monkey See are excellent. But then you've got stuff like Radiolab, which has interesting content but is so overproduced in an NPR-ish way that it makes me want to stab my eardrums.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:38 PM on April 18, 2016


But then you've got stuff like Radiolab, which has interesting content but is so overproduced in an NPR-ish way that it makes me want to stab my eardrums.

One hundred percent with you on Radiolab's overproduction but I don't think it's typical for public radio (honestly, I can't think of any radio anywhere that is so... twee.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:43 PM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


As someone who lives in PHC-Land, I'm curious how he counts as the 'worst' of public radio.

I'm Norwegian-American with lots of relatives in Minnesota, in case that makes a difference.

PHC is insufferably sentimental and brutally formulaic, pretentious in its middle-brow intellectual winking at the audience and even more pretentious in Keillor's stage-hush whispers.

The skits are incredibly witless -- Guy Noir!?! How about Joe SpaceOpera, or Sally Romcom? The gag ads are driven deep into the dirt without variation, and the skilled musicians are wasted on pablum material when there's no need to do that whatsoever -- any bluegrass will do, even good stuff.

Like Jerry Garcia RIP, Keillor is a genuinely talented guy who got lazy and became a parody of himself, earning fat checks by offering up a lame rehash of his own once-interesting work. Prarie Home Companion is basically Reader's Digest for the ears, but without the inadvertently funny parts. I'd say more but I don't want to be unkind.
posted by msalt at 2:47 PM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


It used to be different right? It's not just me?

In '90 or '91 Daniel Zwerdling came to speak at my high school. After his talk he trashed NPR to a group of students talking about how investigative journalism had been largely forced out from All Things Considered . As usual, the rot starts from the top down. The board became increasingly filled with "suits," in response to the political shifts Reagan era, who hired other suits, from outfits like CBS Radio, who worked the bureaucracy from the top down until reporters with either forced out or forced into "senior" roles with little organizational power.

"Right" and "left" mean very little in US elite politics, it's "in" or "out". NPR moved inward and the results speak for themselves.
posted by ennui.bz at 3:01 PM on April 18, 2016 [9 favorites]


I want to hear and try to understand why people hold views opposite my own without reading Brietbart and watching Fox news.

See, it's attitudes like that which have no place in the America of 2016.How are we going to have our civil war when we have people trying to understand differing points of view?

I have trouble imagining why anyone would want to listen to NPR in a world where any part of their programming can be chosen at will.

This is the bottom line. Why listen to "news", when we can have infotainment carefully sculpted to match and enhance our beliefs and attitudes? We don't want to hear news we might disagree with, not when we can have messages that conform that we're right and the other people are wrong.

NPR is the past. The future is an internet-based echo chamber.
posted by happyroach at 3:05 PM on April 18, 2016 [9 favorites]


Like Cable, Big Broadcasting, a tool of cultural conditioning, is a dinosaur. Sorry, news journalists, but your toolship is roaring towards the grave.

Since the web is going the same way, maybe news'lll move by handheld nearfield electronic samizdat. But probably we haven't conceived it yet. But when It arrives it will PWN in a flash.
posted by Twang at 3:19 PM on April 18, 2016


I just need it to last long enough for me to attend Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me next month.
posted by Ruki at 3:41 PM on April 18, 2016


msalt's thoughts on Keillor are exactly why I'm so excited that Chris Thile (buckle creek, Punch Brothers) is taking over the show when Keillor retires. He's guest hosted a couple shows and made them more his own even though Keillor was still doing the writing. It definitely has the potential to break or completely remake APHC. It'll be interesting to see how the show changes once Thile takes over for good.
posted by nathan_teske at 5:06 PM on April 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


My local NPR affiliate does a pretty good job covering the impacts of climate change in Minnesota. It's good precisely because it doesn't give credence to "differing points of view," where "differing points of view" means the "observable truth" and "assertions that are demonstrably false." Good journalism means searching for the observable truth, not pitting establishment points of view against one another.
posted by MetalFingerz at 5:06 PM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


My nephew works backstage on most traveling shows in west Texas / southern New Mexico and he has nothing but good to say about Garrison Keillor. But, I agree the show has been called in for the last few years. I'm glad to hear it will continue though I admit I had a fantasy that someone like Taj Mahal would host it.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:40 PM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I can only call it a feeling, but I wonder if the pivot point for NPR's rightward turn came after the Kroc bequest. Maybe there were conditions for the payments

Does seem like that's when the shift started. A lot of money and yet they still are 'poor' and suddenly a more rightward spin on things.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:11 PM on April 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Regarding thier "all perspectives are equally valid" journalism model, I stopped supporting NPR when Alicia Shepard, their ombudsman at the time, made this statement:
I recognize that it's frustrating for some listeners to have NPR not use the word torture to describe certain practices that seem barbaric. But the role of a news organization is not to choose sides in this or any debate. People have different definitions of torture and different feelings about what constitutes torture.
posted by Staggering Jack at 11:52 PM on April 18, 2016 [7 favorites]


Poor? That's where I find this OP item puzzling. As near as I can tell, NPR has the only sustainable financial model in all of journalism, save perhaps the NYT's uniquely successful paywall (and perhaps the WSJ's imitation thereof). And the NYT is bascially the only surviving news service, de facto.

There's a lot of change going on, but for the life of me I don't see anyone in the news business who's handling it better.
posted by msalt at 12:07 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Would someone please tell Renee Montagne that vocal fry is 10x more annoying when coming from a middle aged woman? I mean really, isn't there someone at NPR who has enough common sense to tell her to stop that?
and 2nding David Green applause - he has interviews where it seems he is actually listening to the answers, not just reading the questions.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:34 AM on April 19, 2016


Staggering Jack: Note their finest moment for sure. Her follow up statement was perhaps worse. Her interview with Bob Garfield was pretty satisfying though:
BOB GARFIELD: I put it to you that embracing a euphemism for torture validates a political position. You’re trying to be apolitical but, in fact, to embrace terms like “harsh interrogation tactics” instead of calling a thing by its name, in effect, gives credence to the Bush Administration’s argument, does it not?

ALICIA SHEPARD: Yes, I think it does. I think using terms like “harsh interrogation tactics” or “enhanced interrogation techniques” does validate the Bush Administration. So that’s why I said why not just describe it. I think when you detail something and explain specifically what it is, then the public can decide.

BOB GARFIELD: NPR certainly has no difficulty calling murder “murder.” It doesn't call it “enhanced argumentation technique.” The terrorists call themselves “freedom fighters” but NPR calls acts of terror “acts of terror.”

ALICIA SHEPARD: Right.

BOB GARFIELD: In other respects, NPR hasn't taken a position against, you know, nouns. Why this one, in particular?

posted by the_querulous_night at 7:42 AM on April 19, 2016


So, about pandering to the listeners: has anybody else noticed that they've had a run of non-tearjerker StoryCorps segments lately? It's so nice not to have to turn the radio off as soon as I hear the intro. I ain't got time for crying time on Friday mornings.
posted by asperity at 8:11 AM on April 19, 2016


In '90 or '91 Daniel Zwerdling came to speak at my high school. After his talk he trashed NPR to a group of students talking about how investigative journalism had been largely forced out from All Things Considered .

And yet he is still doing (very good, imho) investigative reports on NPR a quarter of a century later.
posted by aught at 8:35 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


You put a finger on something that I was struggling with in this thread, which is that I want to hear and try to understand why people hold views opposite my own without reading Brietbart and watching Fox news. When I listen, NPR programming largely tries to contextualize these issues in a reasonable manner.

Exactly. We shouldn't need an echo chamber to make us feel better.
posted by aught at 8:37 AM on April 19, 2016


If we've gotten to the point where that sort of crappy attitude is considered not thuggish, we have some major issues. I fully support the community response and the bigger discussion about institutionalized racism, but come on.

I don't know if I've ever seen anyone say that they're perfectly fine with the late young Mr. Brown's behavior in that video.

But we have a serious problem when a supposedly highly educated and neutral and fair and just reportin' the facts and just askin' the questions reporter somehow can't think of a word other than one that everybody knows by now is a racist dogwhistle -- a word that is for all practical purposes the n-word when it comes out of the mouths of certain folks -- to describe that behavior.

Especially when that reporter works for an organization that goes out of its way to avoid "loaded" words in other contexts. Can't call it Republican obstructionism, gotta call it "bipartisan rancor" and "gridlock." Can't call it torture, gotta call it "enhanced interrogation techniques."

But a black kid who evokes the old NYT characterization of the rampaging giant Negro with his actions? Oh, hell yeah, that's some thug shit right there. Thug is pretty obviously the only word that fits there. Just calling a spade a spade is all I'm doing, aren't I, my fellow eminently reasonable and balanced socially liberal/fiscally conservative intellectuals?
posted by lord_wolf at 9:08 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Would someone please tell Renee Montagne that vocal fry is 10x more annoying when coming from a middle aged woman? I mean really, isn't there someone at NPR who has enough common sense to tell her to stop that?

Here is some extracurricular reading that you may find interesting.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:54 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


Would someone please tell Renee Montagne that vocal fry is 10x more annoying when coming from a middle aged woman? I mean really, isn't there someone at NPR who has enough common sense to tell her to stop that?

Discussion of vocal fry and sexism previously on MetaFilter 1 2
posted by hydropsyche at 10:58 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


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