Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.

18 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

I couldn't quite figure out how Missy Blok and esteemed Prof. Siegal, PhD., MD, DD, Etc. were spinning the Al Franken closure on ATC yesterday. Missy was her usual mayonnaise-covered lollipop best (perfectly icky, of course), and they just seemed sort of stunned by it all. No surprise there.

Porter Melmoth said...

Also, no reference to the fact that US troops, while they have indeed decamped from Iraqi cities, are nevertheless SURROUNDING said cities, ready to mortar 'em away or pounce if needed.

Porter Melmoth said...

Some torture discussion at Crooks & Liars, with a Greenwald link, which means, an NPR link down the line...

http://crooksandliars.com/
john-amato/tortured-logic-ii-or-how-be-tortured-de

Porter Melmoth said...

Sorry, I mean an NPR Check link, down the line...

JayV said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JayV said...

I've been following the torture discussion/debate closely. I listened to Ms Shepard's lame answers to Bob Garfield's questions on On the Media (and she's a journalism professor, too!). I've read her post and comments on it at her NPROmbudsman's page. Today at Glen Greenwald, I learned about Ms Shepard's refusal to meet up with him. "Vermont's NPR Station" and North Country Public Radio (both of which have award-winning local programming I listen to) are always asking for money, but donations cannot be earmarked to local programming. So, next time these public radio stations ask for a hand-out, I'll tell 'em, don't expect any dosh from me until they - as an affiliate - tell NPR to clean up its act.

JayV said...

Simon Owens, a social media consultant and online journalist, sent me this link. Simon had a chance to interview Salon's Glenn Greenwald about the NPR ombud's refusal to appear on Greenwald's radio show and her reasons for turning down his interview request:

http://bloggasm.com/why-wont-nprs-ombud-speak-to-salons-glenn-greenwald

krameroneill said...

Via Greenwald, here's Shepard on KPCC (in case you all haven't already heard it): http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2009/06/26/calling-a-spade-a-spade-use-of-the-word-torture/

Patt Morrison and the callers ask some good questions, and the piece includes an audio montage of NPR's use of torture euphemisms. It sounds like genius satire, except it's, you know, sadly real.

Anonymous said...

I listened to that KPCC interview of Shepard up until the point where she made the following comment in response to a caller question about the "blog culture" use of words (and where I started choking on my coffee)

"I think we're at a stage now where the debate is between "dialogue and diatribe...and I wish their was more dialogue. I think there's more diatribe"

Yes, as everyone knows: traditional (real) journalists use "dialogue" and bloggers use "diatribe"

Talk about broad brush characterizations.

I wonder what Shepard thinks of all the comments on HER NPR blog, most of them quite civil and quite thoughtful (though admittedly very critical of her and of NPR). Are those "dialogue" or "diatribe" in her opinion?

Anonymous said...

and by the way, that question about bloggers was very leading and smelled to me like an NPR setup.

The caller started off his comment by saying he thought NPR was very objective and then immediately went into 'Bash blogger mode".

And I thought, according to Shepard, journalists were not supposed to use words that "characterize" like "dialogue" and "diatribe."

krameroneill said...

I know...I'm not one of those "down with the old media!" types (mainly because I think NPR/NYT et al have global resources that would be a shame to lose, even if they often fail to use them in what I would consider a worthwhile manner), but wow, her "diatribe" thing was terrible, and rooted in an all-too-familiar big media perspective. She didn't seem to know much about blogs, but went on the offensive anyway...and, amusingly, had a little diatribe herself.

Anonymous said...

one of the funny things about that KPCC interview is that Shepard again touted her "years of journalistic experience', but the number of years seems to be shrinking...

She claimed "over 25 years" while previously claiming "close to 30".

maybe it would be better termed "journelastic experience" in Shepard's case?

Anonymous said...

Maybe we'll have to start calling it "Negative Publicity Radio" cuz that's what Alcia Shepard seems to have visited on them: a plague of locusts upon the NPR House.

I bet they wish the whole thing would just go away, but unfortunately, it just keeps getting bigger (and better).

//end diatribe

Anonymous said...

Donate to your local library!

edk

Porter Melmoth said...

Right on, edk!

geoff said...

Wednesday's ATC letters starts with a "clarification."

In covering the recent military coup in Honduras we said there hadn't been a coup in Latin American since 1983. That's not exactly true. There have been plenty of coups attempts. In Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru, among other countries.

I guess the "others" include Panama, where several failed coup attempts culminated in a US invasion which led to the deaths of thousands of civilians.

Oh, and did NPR forget Haiti again? Maybe nothing much ever happens in Haiti.

Porter Melmoth said...

Everything that happens in Uncle Spam's back yard is subject to selective memory.

Anonymous said...

Everything that happens in Uncle Spam's back yard is subject to selective memory.

...and everything that happens at NPR is subject to selective editing.

I love the word use by NPR, by the way,

"That's not exactly true" as if they got it MOSTLY right and are merley making an eentsy weentsy modification (not even a correction)

What utter bullshit.