Friday, April 27, 2007

Open Thread - Friday & Saturday

NPR related comments welcomed.
Posted by Mytwords at 5:34 AM
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ted Koppel woke up for a few moments this afternoon. Musta been something he ate.

4/27/07, 7:29 PM
Unknown said...

Oh. My. God. Weekend Edition this morning seems to be nothing but fawning, presumptively "patriotic," turn-on-their-mic-and-let-em-babble interviews. Scott Simon, and maybe Steve Innskeep too. One with John McGlocklin (sp?), some deputy sec for George Tenet, on George's new book. It was actually boring, because this guy was mostly just allowed to go on and on about how the CIA did the best it could in the atmosphere leading up to the "decision to go to war." Scott (or was it Steve?) mostly just seemed bored with the topic. NOTHING about how that decision to attack Iraq had been made long before, nothing about intelligence that countered the claims of WMD, nothing about, nothing about, etc. etc. Ugh.

And then, a piece on another new book, about a Vietnamese spy during that war. Scott asked with grave solemnity, "Do you think he has any American and South Vietnamese blood on his hands?" WHAT? What about all the Vietnamese blood that America has on its hands?!

NPR implicitly bills itself as the thinking person's news alternative, and I used to listen with agreement. But man, it's become just as idiotic and unwilling to challenge power as CNN, and nearly as bad as Fox News.

Scott Simon sounded a little bored doing all that heavy international stuff. Right now it's sports news, and Scott is suddenly all excited! He's talking to some chipper-but-macho expert about baseball! A Rod and Bonds, what dynamic heroes! Now THIS is news!

4/28/07, 7:51 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

Yes indeed, that's Lil' Scotty's score. He should be put in charge of a show that just features things he's interested in on it. Probable audience: about 25 - all family members. Thanks heavens he wasn't able to bungle an interview with the great Sonny Rollins. I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard that someone else was doing it. Sonny himself didn't waste too much of his time with NPR.
And then, that shameful episode with Tom Gjelten in 'the other' Congo. I couldn't be more caustic about that stupid segment. Yet, I could run on and on about how insipid his 'notebook' was in how condescending and dumbed down his mind was in approaching this rather significant nation. How insulting, to hear of Gjelten's inadequacies as a reporter, just because he thought that his audience DIDN'T KNOW about Congo (Brazzaville), just because HE didn't know about it. The Ugly American lives! I seem to recall that in his earlier 'report' from Congo (Brazzaville), he never revealed he was IN Congo (Brazzaville) until deep into the segment, thus leading we few in the audience to wonder, what the hell Congo was in? I think he would be even MORE lost in a county in, say, rural Mississippi. How reprehensible he is. Just like he whom he approaches with gingerly caution: Paul Wolfowitz. He (Gjelten) and his cohort Scott Simon should retire NOW, in order to get in touch with their mid-life crises, before they do any more damage. It's way too late in the world for Gjelten's imperialistic brain-dead dumb-shit approach to be tolerated on any media except perhaps Fox, where birds of a feather . . .
It's almost as if a wave of liberation has passed over NPR, so that its reporters are now free to reveal, without any sort of conscience, how irretrievably lacking they are.

4/28/07, 9:13 PM

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