Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Open Thread

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

Anonymous said...

One of the strongest feelings I have when listening to NPR is one of deception - that the reporter is deceiving me. But ... I can't determine their motive. Is it willful, and if so, why? Are they unaware that what they're saying is false or slanted, and if so, why are they entrusted to report on the subject? This happens in every program, over and over, and it drives me crazy. WHY am I being deceived? Sometimes, like with the pre-war Iraq WMD reporting, its not hard to understand their sad motives (job fear via political management imperatives, for example), but other times...

For example: On tonight's program there was a piece entitled "Luxury Homes Are Hot Properties." ( by Carrie Kahn ) At one point, she mentions that the fortunes of the rich have diverged from that of the lower & middle classes for the past few decades.

She says: "According to Census data, middle-income families saw their wealth increase a little more than 7 percent in the last 15 years. Contrast that with the richest 5 percent of the population, who have seen their wealth soar 40 percent."

But she has been talking about the sale of houses costing between $5 and $165 million dollars... these are absolutely NOT being bought by the top 5% of the population. They are being bought by the top .001%, .0001%, and .00001% of the population, who have seen their wealth grow not by a rather mild 40% but by several hundreds of percent (increasing rapidly at the extremes of wealth). She must know this...right? Why the subtle lie, the downplaying of the extreme disparity in wealth growth between the super-rich and the middle classes?

7/23/07, 7:50 PM
Mytwords said...

I moved this "Open Thread" up to today (7/24/07) so that this thoughtful anonymous post from 7/23/07 could lead instead of being lost below.

7/24/07, 5:42 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

I think this NPR double talk could actually be a sort of code to the 'in' crowd. That is, the masses are not welcome, but those who ASPIRE to those rarefied percentages can get ideas about making their elitist plans. Anyone in an elite class naturally wants to keep out unwanted elements, but one can dream of achieving that status. That's part of the Bush Machine's Hollow Optimism (TM): 'support us because you want to become one of us, but we know you never will, so we'll laugh all the way to the bank,' so to speak. I think many NPR listeners aspire to the elite classes, and they think they can actually get there, maybe even with help from the handy 'tips', disguised in NPR-speak. Preposterous? I don't know. It's just that NPR News seems to be 'up to something' in just about everything they do. They sprinkle supposedly amusing and even quirky feature stories amidst the 'depressing' news, then make supposedly insightful observations about trends and mega-trends. Any self-respecting and self-absorbed NPR listener certainly is attentive to any info at all about means to fulfill one's own self-interest. That's why the corporate takeover of NPR has been such a perfect fit.
Now, is that conspiratorial, or what?

7/24/07, 11:49 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

The upshot is that NPR is no longer a 'public' service. As a national media outlet, the stakes have become too high. It is too valuable a commodity to devote to 'public' needs. A legal case should be made of its failure in purpose (rather like those of us who are pushing for Bush/Cheney impeachment), and NPR should be spun off into the private sector, where it can rot amongst the galaxies of garbage media offerings.

7/24/07, 12:36 PM
Porter Melmoth said...

One more thought: Murdoch would snap up NPR in a second. Top dollar offer, too.

7/24/07, 12:38 PM
Anonymous said...

Rupert Murdoch cant buy NPR.
The American Enterprise Institute already owns it.

7/24/07, 7:13 PM
Porter Melmoth said...

Well, I guess that means that that option's 'off the table'. Just like impeachment. For now. Thing is, RM would be a 'safe haven' for the NPR crowd, as they would be willing sycophants to his throne. Prediction: Rupert will launch, perhaps around election time, an ersatz NPR-ish news service, for those 'thinking' audiences which he now covets, because he knows that future 'power' people will be emerging from NPR-ish demographics.

7/24/07, 8:51 PM
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7/25/07, 10:31 AM
Anonymous said...

Don't worry, no secrets of the ultra wealthy will be divulged on NPR. You won't learn how GW was given a ML Baseball Team, or how he was given his ranch, or how Lamar Alexander bought an entire newspaper company for $1, or how the Pequot Reservation keeps gambling competition out of Rhode Island. NPR will lull you to sleep making you think that the ultras follow some sort of rules, and that if you follow them, you can aspire to a luxury home. But you'll starve to death waiting for the nourishment of the truth.

7/25/07, 10:17 PM
Anonymous said...

The only value i get from NPR McNews as of late (aside from just tuning in for the headlines) is to mimic the milquetoast, sing-songy voices and those very-annoying music cues. And well, that's just embarrassing to admit.

7/29/07, 10:15 AM

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