Is it fashionable to dislike NPR?

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)

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I must say I feel deeply ambivalent towards this culture. On the one hand, it's very much my culture: I'm an ageing metropolitan liberal. I like The Books, and I'd rather listen to NPR than 90% of US radio. (But I'd rather listen to selected highlights of Radio 4 than that, I agree with Tracer.) At the same time, NPR is aerosol valium. Its "moronic humanism" singlehandedly justifies the need for Vice magazine, its snotty adolescent provocative black sheep of a grandson. (Mentally Ill issue of Vice is sterling, by the way, and, weirdly, not a million miles from something I could imagine the MacArthur Foundation coughing up funds for.)

When I think of NPR I think of 'tasteful' bourgeois culture, open to Latin-flavored jazz (Barnes & Nobles world music comps) and indie-rock ala the Shins and semi-indie movies (I bet they loved Sideways), etc.. Altogether bland and banal, not speaking to my world or experiences at all.

I wish I could find something on radio in between listening to NPR and listening to ESPN Radio (right-wing talk is obviously out of the question).

Sure, NPR has a fair amount of the Starbucks-culture crap. Sure, it doesn't hold a candle to the BBC World Service (which my NPR station now broadcasts after Morning Edition). (Neither does the BBC itself, I'm told) Sure, the news shows are not what they were and bring back Bob Edwards and would Juan Williams shut the fuck up and die for crimes against journalism already? Sure, the pop-culture coverage is embarrasing and entirely devoid of a critical impulse.

But, please, while it could be a LOT better, it should be remembered that even as it slips it remains just about the only mainstream American non-print/non-web outlet for anything approximating serious journalism. The only way it will get better is with your support. And, while I don't listen to it much, I love A Prairie Home Companion and what it stands for. Car Talk and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me are fluff, but good fluff.

As for WNYC, ok, the daytime shows are decent. Brian Lehrer has great range and seems like a really smart guy until he tackles something you actually know a lot about (and enough with the cheesy jam-jazz band bumpers). Leonard Lopate is a great interviewer, but his interview subjects can also be found at Barnes & Noble at 7PM. Terri Gross can do interesting stuff, but I can take her or leave her. Bottom line - I'd often rather listen to Air America/Charlie Rose reruns/Hot 97, and I'm still offended, on behalf of my parents, that they wiped classical music off the daytime airwaves. There is no longer a serious classical music radio station in the greatest city in the world, unless you want to listen during dinner or late at night. Instead, we have some unnecessary talk shows and a mostly pointless local news department in the event that they have to provide some unique service to the public when a dirty bomb goes off in midtown. And, while I don't completely hate him anymore, I can think of a few dozen better ideas for weekend programming than Jonathan Schwartz. He should listen to WKCR and cry.

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Icons/AllergistsWifeLogo.gif

Acknowledging (hoping) the bit of sarcasm behind this, I'd say you're much closer to the mark on why NPR sucks.

(I sympathize with this kind of nostalgia. You know, it's like that Modern Lovers song - "Old World.")

2. 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.

"Jazz Profiles," I believe.

Not only that, but the Chicago affiliate offered the Sideways soundtrack as a pledge drive gift!!

It's a tricky one, isn't it? How do you make intelligent and rational analysis of a stupid and irrational war? The best attempt I've seen is deliberately childlike: Eliot Weinberger's What I Heard About Iraq in the London Review of Books.

Fashionable or not, Terry Gross just surprised me by asking a really good question in an interview. On the show from 3/30, she's interviewing Seymour Hersh, and brings up his recent allegation that Cheney was in charge of an "assassination ring," that he was in command of US Special Forces that were given a list of people that we're all better off without, and then walkied in, killed them in a dutiful and expedient manner, and moved to the next name, all while reporting directly to Cheney. So her question was, "Isn't that part of what the Special Forces do? Assassinate people?"

Never mind what the answer was, because it was very long and rambly. And never mind that Gross, true to form, nearly apologized before asking the question, and never really pressed him for a real answer. The question itself is perfect. It deflates the claim by making the counter-claim that it's not really outrageous at all. It questions the underlying assumptions of the premise. It flips the script. It's a second- or third-level question, from someone who I would ordinarily expect to ask something completely useless like, "How did we get to the point in this country where that could happen?"

Anyway, it's not earth shaking or anything, but I thought I'd mention it, because It really did surprise me.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/05/20/314256024/npr-to-end-tell-me-more-lay-off-28-people?live=1

After seven years on the air, the program was carried by just 136 of the more than 800 noncommercial stations affiliated with NPR.

The decision was another setback for NPR’s efforts to diversify its audience and provide alternative perspectives. NPR has struggled to produce programming for and about minority listeners for more than a decade. “News and Notes,” a magazine-style program that was tailored to African Americans, was canceled in 2009 during a budget-cutting cycle. Tavis Smiley, who was an African American host of an NPR program, abruptly left the organization in 2004 after a dispute with managers over promoting his show.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/npr-to-end-tell-me-more-program-aimed-at-minorities-eliminate-28-positions/2014/05/20/0593cc3a-e04f-11e3-8dcc-d6b7fede081a_story.html

Since I had no idea what a 'ramp' is in the food world, the npr piece about people eating 'ramps' this morning was surreal. I pictured people harvesting and eating these little wedge shaped things. It was as if someone did an autoreplace on the npr audio. It could have been a piece about people harvesting and eating hatcats from my perspective.

Ever since NPR took over 88.5 here in Atlanta I've been listening to it now and then, and it almost always ends up making me IA. The non-music parts are just the most vapid milquetoast programming you could imagine. And occasionally it is flat-out offensively stupid. Yesterday there was an hour where they were playing all these stories about the economic crises. It started off with a feel-good story about homeless people having their own choir, and they talked about this one guy for a second, quickly describing the situation around his ending up homeless, and letting him speak a sentence or two. Then they went back into the choir. Then they shifted to another story about an economic out of France who has a theory that the financial crisis actually hurt the rich a lot more than you would think. So suddenly we they are talking about how after the '08 crash lots of rich lost their stock money, and the post-crash big increase in wealth was actually them making up for money they lost, so it doesn't count! Then the interviewer talked about how also the rich don't have access to free programs like food stamps, unemployment, etc. So that this point I am playing the smallest violin and about to change the channel. But before I do, guess what? They go back to the singing homeless people.

Almost not sure what is worse, this pandering corporate lefist schlock or its right-wing equivalent.

i would go with "mushy Democrat" rather than "leftist"

"corporate leftist" is a perfect phrase for our time tho, sell it to Hillary16.

she's an "inclusive capitalist" dontchaknow

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.