Thursday, March 19, 2009

Q Tips


NPR related comments welcomed.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

NPR on Morning Edition tells me, based on a single story in Nature, that I have nothing to worry about from the Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsing, because it won't happen until long after I'm dead.

No mention of the number of forecasts already proven wrong by changes happening faster than expected. Nope. Barely a mention that when it does collapse, it will transform the world into something unrecognizable. (Not even a detailed description of what the Nature article says about what the Earth was like the last time the sheet collapsed.)

Nope. Just happy talk. Don't worry, be happy!

Anonymous said...

Check out the not-a-Ombudsman (copyright Grumpy Industries Intl) section on NPR. They go busted on their story of how angry Gays are threatening God Fearing Wingers in CA with their boycotts.

I posted two comments (feed back welcome), but its rich with irony and rear end covering.

Porter Melmoth said...

Speaking of happy, I heard MeeShill on All Thinktanks Considered interview a woman who has a happy news website. Surprisingly, the woman did not sound like a zombified idiot. She was merely collecting news stories that she thought reflected upbeat themes. This region is of course is a matter of opinion, and it can cross over into propaganda at a moment's notice. No, I didn't go to the happy news website and don't intend to. That would be like getting down on a website that just dealt with Australian sheep dogs - for specialists only.

My point being, too-cool MeeShill sounded utterly pompous and uNPR-self-important in light of this rather low-key woman who had worked in media and was now doing something specialized that interested her. MeeShill's tone was: we at NPR are doing much more serious and important work than you, happy person, could ever think of. And her premise for interviewing this 'happy person' at all was because NPR gets so many emails saying how depressing the news is! MeeShill of course was only too happy to wrap up the interview and get back to the loftier task of converting the real world into Nationalist Propaganda Radiation's version of it.

Gee, i just might Google 'happy news' after all... I bet many of the hits will be at NPR!

Anonymous said...

James Hansen knows the real deal on the melt and he is not very comfortable at all about a sea-rise of up to 23 feet (computer modeling in worse case).

edk

ps: Grumpy: I know your type - NPR just isn't "liberal enough" for you. I do read the comments lol

Anonymous said...

Happy Sixth Anniversay of Iraq War!

Did I miss somethin on Morning Edition along with the two hear stories no mention of the War?

There's no specific story about Iraq.

That some good memory hole NPR's got there.

As for "not liberal" enough, I would be happy if it just reported news like the BBC.

geoff said...

There was some commentary this am to the effect that "Hey, you like entrepreneurs, don't you? And most entrepreneurs aren't successful and so they don't get a pension or health care and that's the way we like it - just keep government out of the business."

Can't remember the guy's name and don't see it posted at npr.org, but it was just so dumb. Maybe a KCRW special?

Hubertg said...

Yep,...the BBC rocks....1 hour on the BBC gives me more than a month on USA media.

Anonymous said...

1 hour on the BBC gives me more than a month on USA media."

But in order to get something out of nothing, you have to multiply by infinity, don't you?

So, no matter how many months we multiply the "nothing" MSM coverage by, it will never amount to a month of actual news coverage on BBC -- or amount to anything, for that matter.

These are not mere mathematical nits I am picking here.

With the impossibility of "getting something from nothing" in mind, I would rephrase the above statement thus: "1 hour on the USA media (NPR included) gives me more propaganda than a month on BBC."

There. Technically and mathematically correct.

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

All,

Two pieces of note:

Puff piece about NPR from FastCompany.Com. My title for the article; "Will NPR Believe Its Own Press?"

A thoughtful piece in The Nation from Bob McChesney regarding journalism (email him to get into his address book if you can).

-JET

Anonymous said...

NPR is only an extension of dominant culture attempts at hegemony. NPR supports war, torture, financial disaster Capitalism, and all the rest of the BS Americans accept. That is the "job" of NPR. They are in the business of pacifying the NPR target audience, using them as "inflencers", and distracting people from dealing with the serious consequences for America that are in store. Journalism and NPR in the same sentence is, without a doubt, an oxy-moron

My comment/response to this tripe.

edk

Hubertg said...

Anon...thanks for the correction.
...I must admit 10 times nothing doesn't equal something...my bad.