Monday meant that there were only 45 shopping days before Christmas, and NPR was in crass commercialism high gear.If you were casually listening to Morning Edition, you might have thought NPR was reporting on its own newsreader stars - Montagne, Inskeep, Siegel, Norris, and Block -
"[They]...have names like Mr. Squiggles, Chunk, Pipsqueak....[and] are embedded with a computer chip so they can squeak, chirp and respond"- and not the $10 MUST HAVE TOY of the season - computerized hamsters:
By the time All Things Considered [emphasis on Things] rolled around the cost level of the embedded commercials had gone up a notch.
Melissa Block spent more than 4 minutes with Omar Gallaga going over stuff like Motorola's Droid phone
[Gallaga]"...it's a very kind of masculine metal dense in your hand, kind of feel, not curvy like the iPhone. So, I think it's definitely a good alternative to the iPhone. If I were shopping for something outside of the iPhone universe...."Dell's newest thin laptop
[Gallaga] "I got some cuddle time with it as I like to call it....It's very, very thin....there's some very interesting design things going on...It all sounds good so far. But the downside is that it starts at $1799."And a new video game starring Mickey Mouse
[Block] "Disney is going to be a using a video game to help reinvent, re-imagine one of its most beloved characters. The game is called Epic Mickey. What can you tell us about it?"Fortunately Americans now have some way cool stuff to spend those unemployment benefits on. Are we feeling stimulated yet?
I see the product placements continue this morning (Tuesday) with Inskeep hawking Call of Duty 2 (No, not Obama's supposed Afghanistan war plans!), the video game.
10 comments:
I'd bet this is all Vivian Schiller's doing.
Since she became CEO, NPR has become "Always on the Money"
This is how an empire dies.
Now, with more Cuddle Power!
Meanwhile, others are reporting on unimportant matters:
"10 Suicides a Month at Ft. Hood -- War Stress Is Taking Soldiers to the Brink"(By Dahr Jamail, Asia Times.)
"The shooting tragedy at Fort Hood on Friday points to a much larger problem of combat stress and overdeployment in Iraq and Afghanistan."
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I'm not sure why anyone would listen to the crap that Vivian Schiller and the Nation Propaganda radio gang air on NPR (other than to criticize it, that is)
This well researched and written article (Paid Lying: What Passes for Major Media Journalism )is very apt, given most of NPR's reporting.
"Today's major media deliver propaganda and junk food news"
"Most don't know they're getting the same corporate propaganda and "junk food news" or that
NPR calls itself "public" to conceal its real agenda, and why critics call it "National Pentagon or Petroleum Radio" with good reason. "
"FAIR found that NPR relies on the same dominant sources as the major media that include government officials, professional experts, and corporate representatives nearly two-thirds of the time."
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Thanks for the heads-up about Inskeep's promo for "Call of Duty".
This is one of the first-person shooters used in the Army Experience Center's "gaming arena" to attract teens as young as 13:
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/first-person-sho0ter/
Yes, this AM we here that the Poles, the Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Las Vegese are all happy post-communist consumer capitalist workers and the Copenhagen is some vague futurist non-concern. The NPR universe is a well-oiled pecking-order machine with great lumps of coal in everyone's Santa sock.
We here hear with ears there on either side of our capitated organs.
NPR's Morning Edition is clearly using TV's happy AM yak shows: Good Morning American, Today, etc. infotainment as their template.
To call it superficial second rate journalism, would be overpraise.
I guess this is what happens when you become "a mainstream news outlet".
Damn I miss Bob.
Couldn't help it, as NoPR McFluff brings out nothing but the sardonic in me - "...it's a very kind of masculine metal dense in your hand, kind of feel, not curvy like the iPhone" conjured up the notion of the radio peddler fondling his very own Steely Dan. Not the band, mind you, but its original Burroughsian affiliation.
http://revver.com/video/1057435/thinking-drinking-with-amy-goodman-part-1/
Amy Goodman talking about how we must take back the public in public media.
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