Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Open Thread

NPR related comments welcomed.
Posted by Mytwords at 5:41 AM
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5 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

I must vent!
My Reprehensible Reporting Award of the Month (soon it will be 'of the Day', then 'of the Hour'...) goes to: Gwen Thompkins. Famous for her genial and chucklesome reports from that Annexation-In-Waiting to the Axis of Evil, Sudan, I was truly disgusted with her comic book portrayal this morning of a security conference in Khartoum. Readers can hear it for themselves on today's ME website, because there's no reason to describe it all here. She tries to be funny (why is EVERYONE trying to be FUNNY these days??) by waxing wry about a few things (and playful, too!), then, with all the inconsistency of a Dan Quayle speech, decides when to be properly sober, just to satisfy the NPR quota for 'seriousness' as an appropriate tone for a report from a 'serious' part of the world - you know, Darfur and all that stuff...
Predictably, this excreta was set up by Steev 'n Renayy, with all the self-amused priggishness to be found in many of their white yuppie/baby-boomer listeners.
To me they were communicating something like: 'Now, get a load of what those bozos in icky Sudan are up to! It's quite amusing...'
My dog vomits up far more acceptable discharge than this brain-dead 'infotainment'.

In the same show, I was reminded yet again how limited the range of demographics of the NPR listenship is (that's GOOD, isn't it?). Even though NPR boasts of getting letters/call-ins from truck driver types, I can't conceive of it being of much use to blue collar listeners. NPR has always been content to write them off to the nether realms of talk radio anyway, while preferring to woo persons of higher quality - and income.

At any rate, there was a segment about what to do about having a new boss in the workplace. Nothing too terrible in itself, but it was so blithely exclusive as far as its audience was concerned (upper echelon office types), it was just another example of NPR's self-absorbed aspirations. But at the end of the piece, after one of Steav's jackass-laughing fits, he makes a bid to remind us that NPR is still of The People when he announces that Terry Semel of Yahoo's salary last year was in the 70 millions, and the implication was 'that's rather excessive'.
End of venting. Thank you for your patience, understanding - and pity.

6/13/07, 2:24 PM
Kevan Smith said...

Inskeep makes over 350K. A true man of the masses!

6/13/07, 3:44 PM
Anonymous said...

Speaking of somebody who tries to be funny, Andrea Seabrooke was just so SQUEAKY with DELIGHT yesterday about the Democrats and the NRA working together! Ooooh! Cats and dogs are getting married!

At least Scott Simon is still away on paternity leave a few weeks more...

6/14/07, 7:57 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

Yeah, Adenoid Andrea is turning into one of NPR's biggest hits (I know she's a bit on the hefty side, but I shall not put her down for that...). And I'd rather have Boring John than Slimy Scott any old day of the week. Actually, I'd rather have none of them at all.

Believe me, I'm not trying to be funny myself in my NPR critiques. Well, most of the time, anyway. The laughter is indeed bitter. NPR could be such a wonderful thing if it hadn't have been so hijacked. Mockery is a therapeutic agent in my struggle. The struggle over 'just say no to NPR' (turning it off and keeping it off, that is). I'm working on it. We'll see how it goes...

6/14/07, 1:57 PM
Anonymous said...

There are just so many better ways to use one's sense of hearing than to allow one's eardrums to vibrate to the waste of energy that NPR has become. Music, or talking with one's vanpool-mates, or just enjoying complete silence...all are much more worthwhile.

And just think about this: Scott Simon returning to regale us (no doubt) with sickeningly sweet blather about the joys of fatherhood on and on and on...If you thought he was the most self-absorbed phony-concerned-voiced forehead-wrinkler you ever heard, just you wait. Saturdays on NPR won't be safe for swimmers this summer, kids.

6/15/07, 3:49 PM

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