Is it fashionable to dislike NPR?

Terry Gross is teh best.

Used to love Talk of the Nation.

Terri G -- meh. A lot to be desired for such a hi-pro program.

Worst: Diane effing Rheem. At least as treacly and self-congratulatory as Oprah.

i'm not sure i'd call it very liberal either. i guess being somewhere near the objective middle is liberal tho right?

the wife listens to some really caustic shit on occasion. but in tennarsee, that means it's totally right wing stuff. now, that station still has other good shows about financial advice and stuff like that, but... it's insane the stuff they say. people like michael savage give conservatives a bad name. him and rush give liberal folks the perfect straw man to waste their energies on meanwhile totally putting forth some really hateful shit. radio free nashville has just started up and that's part of the pacifica crowd, so hopefully there will be a third station we can flip between.

favorite npr show: car talk. i don't even know shit about cars, but i could listen to those two all day.
m.

Oh. Except I can't stand Prairie Home Companion. Too damn strange for my ears.

-- VegemiteGrrl (sharonjo...), April 8th, 2005.

I always got the feeling that that was a show everyone claimed to like and that few people actually like. Whenever they'd happen upon it on the radio in the car my parents would say "Oh, Prarie Home Companion" in this really nostalgic tone, and then we'd listen for about 5 minutes.

"Pacifica can be ok sometimes, when it's not conspiracy-mongering, promoting new age spirituality, or attributing everything the US govt. does to the quest for white male supremacy."

that sounds mildly painful. i might dj some tunes a couple times a month for them tho so...
m.

You nailed it. i get the same feeling listening to Prairie Home Companion as I do trying to read The Sound & The Fury...I feel like my ears aren't working or my brain shut down...nothing computes, and I just stare at the radio wondering what on earth this man is talking about.

One guy that annoys the crap out of me is Daniel Schorr (sp?). I can't tell if it's just his weird voice or not though -- does he have some kind of medical condition?

Ned, I fucking high-five you from thousands of miles away.

Catherine T. MacArthur (1909-1981) was one of five children born to Irish immigrants who had settled on the South Side of Chicago. Her father was active in Democratic politics in the city.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grantmaking institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. MacArthur has awarded more than $3 billion in grants since it began operations in 1978 , and today has assets of more than $4 billion. Annual grantmaking totals approximately $185 million."

There you have it. 19th-century style philanthropy by people who did very well out of capitalism and want, in a patrician sort of way, to help the kinds of poor people they once were themselves, but don't essentially want to change the structure of the system which allowed them to accumulate their billions.

In other words, they were "worldly ascetics" in the classic Max Weber style.

we call 'em "limousine liberals" these days. they can be pretty annoying and clueless wr2 their classism, and can drive even other liberals (from less-privileged backgrounds) up the wall. and that's the voice of NPR (which, unsurprisingly, is popular in the NYC metro area [ground zero for limousine liberals]).

that said, they do mean well and are better than today's breed of sam walton/ayn rand/"i got mine!" billionaire. better "noblesse oblige" than "fuck all y'all."

1. It emerges that MacArthur was incredibly mean, so mean he didn't even spend anything on himself. He certainly didn't have any particular liberal mission or ideological orientation. He just needed something to do with the billions he managed to accumulate. He said "I've made the money, it's your job to figure out how to spend it."

2. The MacArthur Foundation claims to be "thinking outside the box", neither left nor right, Republican nor Democrat. Yet their positions (a woman's right to choose, supporting the International Criminal Court, ecology,concern for the ageing, and the study of poor neighbourhoods in Chicago) are all broadly Democratic ones. At one point we see a shot of a Human Rights Watch publication exposing arbitrary detention and torture. You can almost see Blair and Bush flinching.

3. Outgoing head of World Bank Wolfensohn testifies to the Foundation's sterling work investing in Russian human capital, saying "The World Bank, together with the MacArthur Foundation, is building on the intellectual strengths they already had in the Soviet system as Russia joins the new world system." Hard to imagine his successor teaming with the liberal foundation or crediting anything to the Soviet system.

4. The MacArthur Foundation's president says (over shots of NPR headquarters) "Institutions matter because they endure. Individuals come and go." The main problem he sees currently is "the increasing disparity between rich and poor". Which is ironic, since immensely unfair concentration of wealth is the sole reason for the Foundation's existence.

Big Bird Meets Cash Cows is a Conservative News article which says "ouch" and "stop it" about the work of the foundations, NPR and PBS:

"There is an important moral case to be made that public broadcasting as we know it has outlived its time. The proliferation of broadcast outlets can bring a wide range of political and cultural viewpoints to the airwaves. By contrast, PBS seems stuck in a programming rut with a moderate liberal bias. For every mainstream Ken Burns blockbuster there's a Frontline expose of man-made chemicals destroying life on the planet. Worse yet, there are the self-help marathons and specials masquerading as public-spirited "cultural" programming. Why should taxpayers or even private donors subsidize this peculiar melange?"

better "noblesse oblige" than "fuck all y'all."

Absolutely. The thing that concerns me about this is the mealy-mouthed failure of spokesmen for the MacArthur Foundation, for example, to say they have an ideologically-rooted program. Charity is good, of course, but it's a poor second to fixing the primary systems which allow inequalities, and sometimes serves merely to perpetuate and do PR for the iniquitous system. There's also the fact that the very Protestant "good works" are not necessarily good science when they're science, or good art when they fall in the aesthetic field, like the photographer who's documenting Kurdistan "in the shadow of history". It's always this pompous universalistic humanism that emerges, with its ideology that "this is not ideology, this is creativity and human rights for the good of all mankind". Then again, a lot of the work is indisputably important, a step in the right direction.

-- tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemarygilber...), April 8th, 2005 1:51 AM. (rosemary) (later)

for some reason i like listening to that guy sometimes. i don't really know why. i guess i'm just sort of used to him; he used to be on our local tv news stations all the time. he's really ugly!

better "noblesse oblige" than "fuck all y'all."

Couldn't agree more.

This explains everything. I thought she was 80 years old.

When I've randomly encountered it in recent years, NPR strikes me as a well-meaning cul de sac. I can't put my finger on it any more than that, but something about it seems perfectly earnest and perfectly isolated at the same time.

Yet, like Winston during the wilderness years, this only addresses its popularity not its value or worth. In a time when shrill ideological and often hypocritical voices are using the basest demagoguery and wedge-issue polemics to addle and divide us, the temperate voices of rational media are needed more than ever.

I like the show--I forget its name--that comes on, on Sunday mornings (in Philadelphia anyway), that provides a little biography of various jazz artists, usually with lots of interviews with other artists or others who knew the artist under question. I enjoy this, despite not being a fan of much of the music covered.

By who and where, though? In my experience, whatever stances or arguments are made there that I might agree with are swathed in a coddling air that suggests a pre-sold lifestyle package, like it's all you need. This is hardly a failing limited to NPR in terms of media outlet stances, of course, but it is no less frustrating for that. Its very temperateness suggests something almost drowsily narcotic, almost as much as the 'shrill' opponents you note suggest crystal meth.

Also growing up in the middle of nowhere, I have my own affinity for NPR (and MN Public Radio, which is what we got even though I'm from Michigan.) The only problem is that one station might carry a show that others wouldn't/couldn't buy. Thus I spent a lot of time hearing how great This American Life was but never got a chance to hear it until I moved.

And don't even get me started on television.

Anyway, to answer the question, I doubt anything so insignificant to public affairs or national life as NPR is could ever be fully "fashionable" or "not fashionable" but more outrage and hatred would be a good place to start, no matter how seemingly ineffectual

I mean would it kill us to have ONE show, on either television or radio, that was an hour long and actually challenged its interviewees with difficult questions?

I actually have no problem w/NPR as long as it's seen as a kind of middlebrow arts network, which I think is actually how most people do see it (especially since most stations that carry NPR programming run classical music through most of the afternoon, and maybe on Fridays will air some challenging Sonny Stitt records)

Please forgive if I'm way off-base as I don't have the time right now to read that whole essay at the moment, but it seems like the central conceit is that NPR shouldn't be treated as one's sole source of information about the world? Which...duh?

The NPR podcast approach to addressing the problems they create would go like this: Begin by exploring how a steady media diet of behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychological changes affects cognitive processes. The podcasts’ invited guests would then socialize the effects by adding up all affected individuals and imagining what it would be like to constantly encounter them at work or at a party. In short, they would misunderstand their own impact on the world the way they misunderstand just about everything else. They’d still leave out the political valence of these effects, as well as the benefits realized by middle-income liberals in thinking this way. They would also leave out a proper understanding of how affect and emotion (and their seeming absence) do political work.

does any of this actually mean anything bc it sounds like gibberish to me; i've never heard an npr podcast this inane.

it's always fashionable to dislike npr.

oh god, did anyone else hear that horrible anti-Trump folk song yesterday? my girlfriend played it for me, it was just awful, a line about "the white house looks a lot whiter now"... fuck the lyrics were SO awful and I'm struggling to recall them now...

was it the one partially written by sara barielles or whatever

If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting TNI with a $3 subscription. If you thought it added nothing to the world save more "I don't like thing!"ism, be sure AdBlock's enabled

I don't remember, but I don't think so... it was a guy, I think his name was Matt?... it was just standard folk form, kinda Mountain Goats-y vocals... i just remembered it was only on our local affiliate, not national NPR... *still*...

nothing beats fiona apple's "scathing" new anti-trump chant.

(i do kinda love fiona. for the record. i respect her thing.)

(it's just that it was news? in the newspaper?)

If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting TNI with a $3 subscription. If you thought it added nothing to the world save more "I don't like thing!"ism, be sure AdBlock's enabled

― though she denies it to the press, (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, January 19, 2017 3:16 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL otm

i know this is now the third time this has been copy/pasted but such amazing nonsense

The podcasts’ invited guests would then socialize the effects by adding up all affected individuals and imagining what it would be like to constantly encounter them at work or at a party. In short, they would misunderstand their own impact on the world the way they misunderstand just about everything else. They’d still leave out the political valence of these effects, as well as the benefits realized by middle-income liberals in thinking this way. They would also leave out a proper understanding of how affect and emotion (and their seeming absence) do political work.

gotta love when a total horseshit tni piece makes the rounds

have you ever seen the paintings that fiona apple's dad does? he really captures his inner 6 year old.

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3d651d_8f2c20e50cf14cbb8cfc3b4d507ee429.jpg/v1/fill/w_560,h_420,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/3d651d_8f2c20e50cf14cbb8cfc3b4d507ee429.webp

http://www.brandonmaggart.com/photos

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3d651d_050a56b3277a457db34b2100d46409b4.jpg/v1/fill/w_560,h_420,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/3d651d_050a56b3277a457db34b2100d46409b4.webp

Talent runs in the family I see

Radiolab is unlistenable. Are there people out there that enjoy randomly edited sentences of different people interrupting each other every other word? I swear if you don't catch it at the very beginning it's just a meaningless jumble of different words. Maybe this is what all of life sounds like when you have dementia. Maybe I do.

I've also complained elsewhere about how everyone on NPR seems to now start every sentence with "yeah so." Yeah so I've complained about this elsewhere.....

I hate radiolab, I also hate all the crappy podcasts made by people who should never be in front of a microphone (so many “uhhhh”s). I like root beer.

Up with 'urps! Down with uhs!

I don't know a single person (outside of one person who is a friend of Jad Abumrad's) who likes Radiolab, and I know a lot of people who work for NPR stations.It's got to be the least liked of anything on NPR outside of game shows (Sez You, I'm talking about you, you smarmy shit)

Eh. Finding excellence in the mass media is always hard, especially in programming that must churn out something new every day of the week. I'm just gratified when NPR does a better job than daily cable or broadcast television newscasts, podcasts, or commentary programs. Which happens just often enough for me to continue to listen in hope of those segments.

As someone said upthread a ways, what are your alternatives? And are they more consistent than NPR? Cover as broad a set of topics? As timely? Nothing's perfect out there.

Radiolab has been patronizingly bad from the beginning. I never understand how/why people loved it so much.

Some people don't mind being patronized, if they think they are also learning something. Robert Krulwich has always been the King of Patronizing, but he has always had an avid following on NPR, too, because he often picks topics people are interested in hearing about or feel insufficiently informed about. He made his first splash on All Things Considered in the late 70s doing 'Vox-explainer' type segments about economics.

it’s not hard to make something not suck, just cut out with the cute and clever all the time

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/07/today-in-npr

disgusting

Why voters aren't impressed by 'Bidenomics'

Many Democrats think delivering tangible economic benefits to working class and lower-income voters will help them win more elections.

Some policy wonks call it "deliverism." But does it work?

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/08/01/why-voters-arent-impressed-by-bidenomics

shit like this makes my blood boil!

Uh, what does that have to do with NPR and whether it is worth listening to?

it's a radio show that's co-produced by NPR and syndicated on a lot of NPR stations including my local

Sorry about the boiling blood. You might want to lie down until it passes. Or you can call them to complain. Tell them you won't pony up for the next pledge drive if they air that drivel. They might even notice and it will make you feel better.

you can really be an ass for no good reason on here

anyway, the whole program was basically about how the democrats need to stop giving away free money to everybody all the time, because it doesn't actually "work," and actually it could lead to authoritarianism. as if. in other words, the usual barefaced contempt for working people and poor folk, the same ones that NPR is constantly reminding us are to blame for inflation. i know i should never put it on. i'm posting here to remind myself to never put it on.

"providing ppl economic benefits is not a winning electoral strategy" is the kind of take you could only imagine the pundit class coming up with

It’s a lie that “giving people money” doesn’t work because we have direct evidence of a drop in child poverty when we had the child tax credit during Covid.

conservatives should love NPR it’s all about upholding the current system.

I stopped listening to NPR 20 years ago when they became cheerleaders for Iraq War II: The Deuce. I guess I haven’t missed anything. Their music selections always sucked; I continue to discover more from KXLU (Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles’ radio station, which I stream online)

this is what my local NPR station is broadcasting right now. fucking piece of shit station

https://opentodebate.org/debate/do-unions-work-for-the-economy/

Ha, I listened to that too. Very both-sidesy! I yelled SCAB at the anti-union debater several times. The pro-union guy seemed more competent and composed in his argument but then again, I am a card carrying union member.

yeah, you must have more fortitude than me. the fact that they made some sleazy libertarian the 'moderator' pissed me off too.

A week or so ago I was listening to NPR, and for whatever reason, on whatever show, they were doing a deep dive into Sepultura.

i heard that too -- it was on Code Switch iirc. enjoyed it tbh! Radiolab is indeed on the irritating end of the spectrum. I kinda miss Fresh Air now that it airs at some time I am never listening.

i listen to the Chicago NPR station for all kinds of reasons -- local news coverage, listen to news while i go about required daily tasks, scouting for digestible examples of various topics/arguments to use in class.

What I find unlistenable and would choose silence over: Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and anything resembling "topical humor", radio plays old and new, most "storytelling" shows like The Moth, and most TedTalks-related programming. Runner up goes to the too-long lunchtime talk show that asks only the most basic questions of its guests and can't keep a host for very long.

also 0 tolerance for Scott Simon's laugh if i am being my most petty self

Years ago I had a little crush on Kai Ryssdal, but lately it seems like he is i dunno just really leaning way to hard into Kainess on Marketplace.

Oh yeah lol he’s in the moderately aggravating category. Too full of the sound of his own voice.

I always wanna defend NPR against the rancor of my communist friends, whose position is basically "everything sucks except for us communists," but then they go and have a guy from fucking REASON "guest moderate" their "Do Unions Work?" panel and I'm like, fuckin, are you shitting me

If I understand Kai-ness correctly, it is a strong tendency to folksy phrasing, delivered with a certain chirpy cheerfulness like he's trying to turn his face into a heart and mash it through the mic and into your brain.

radio plays old and new

I was gonna say I've never heard an NPR station broadcast anything like this but then I remembered Selected Shorts... does that exist as a radio show anymore?

I remember some holiday-themed radio plays or maybe they just play them on holidays to take up space? Idk. They’re unbearable.