Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Q Tips

NPR related comments are always appreciated.

9 comments:

George said...

Uuggghhh. Mara Liaison just did a piece on Dick Cheney, which featured Bloody Bill Kristol. She gave Cheney plenty of airtime too, and gave the other side but a quick few words from Robert Gibbs.

So now NPR joins the Cheney campaign to say torture is OK. Sure they mention that Cheney is unpopular, but the point of the story was to build his credibility.

Disgusting propaganda.

GRUMPY DEMO said...

Let not forget that Mara Liasson, is a full time FOX News employee and has been for more than ten years.

http://www.foxnews.com/bios/talent/mara-liasson

She just plagiarized a FOX broadcast.

Love the fact that she used her Sunday Morning FOX buddy Kristol, his track record at the NYT were he got canned, is all you need to kown.

macon d said...

There's a long discussion thread on NPR suckiness at this intelligent blog. I joined the thread late, but added a rec of this blog.

I would comment here on something I heard on NPR recently, but I just can't listen to it anymore. Oh, okay, Frank Sports-Voice was on this morning, waxing nostalgic about some old-school, lovably tough sports heroes from the past. I couldn't pay attention, though. I did a bit of my own nostalgic waxing instead, remembering the time he said something worthwhile for once, a solid blast of real, articulate, convincing indignation about racist team names and mascots.

Those were the days. No, wait--that was the day.

Porter Melmoth said...

I've mentioned it before, but aside from DN! and other like sources, I have long been getting some essentials news-wise from none other than 'Vanity Fair'.

In another thread, we were talking about NPR's 'infotainment' factor. I fully understand that in a magazine-format radio show, human interest and other lightweight items are mixed into the stew (an ancient formula, of course), but it just seems to me that many of NPR's choices in this approach are of poor and even dubious quality, though some moments still shine (last I heard).

Now VF of course is a glamour mag - at least ostensibly. That's the starting point, but editor Graydon Carter, a media mogul I like, always injects a strong sense of reality and good, tart investigative splash to his mag. Gratuitous it ain't. Fluffball stuff is unabashedly fluffball, but readers can easily discern what they want to absorb and what they want to skip. Case in point: the latest issue has Jessica Simpson on the cover, but inside is part 2 of the most revealing, probing, and insightful discussion of the Madoff scandal I've run across. NPR may have tinkered with the story, but VF is down in the ditch with it. Madoff's secretary, who tells her tale in this second part, says that VF's reporter was the ONLY reporter who even bothered to contact her.

The 'New Yorker' also demonstrates that popular print media still has some teeth. Witness Sy Hersh's ongoing gutsy exposes, stuff that makes Garrels & Co.'s hackery totally forgettable, if it weren't so offensive.


As an NPR defender might say to me, 'well, I guess NPR's not to your taste.' True enough, but as far as I know, Conde Nast (VF's and NYer's owner) does not get public funding - yet. Because NPR does, the public service mandate shall not be abused. But we know it is. The old argument.

(No, I don't work for Conde Nast. Just noting the Grey Poupon jar in the rubbish heap...)

Anonymous said...

Elizabeth Warren "interviewed" on Planet Money. The rights talking points used by the interviewer?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/05/hear_elizabeth_warren_checks_i.html

Anonymous said...

A short transcript of Warren's interview:

http://www.correntewire.com/nprs_adam_davidson_assaults_our_defender_elizabeth_warren

Juan "Toss" Ensalada said...

All,

Mara Liarsson is especially foxy this morning regarding her Dick. However, from the blog comments thus far, nobody is swallowing her story.

Also, two small stories of note today, where NPR uses biased boosters to report "the news" to its listeners.

This one, about how realtors are upbeat about housing industry, is especially optimistic, considering that CNN Money reports that, "Foreclosures in April exceeded even March's blistering pace with a record 342,000 homes receiving notices of default, auction notices or undergoing bank repossessions, according to a regular industry report."

And this 45-second business bunk about energy prices, read by our buddy Steve Inscreep, is similarly bad considering that while pump prices might be creeping up, oil company stocks (large and small) are in the crapper.

NPR's bubble reporting: torture, housing and energy. What news, eh?

-JET

gopol said...

I get my news from FSRN (Free Speach Radio News) and commentary from KPFA programs at kpfa.

No Iron Mara, no David Fromme, no AEI, etc. Only trouble is, gee whiz, I have to get it off the internet.

gopol said...

oops. Still working on my html.

kpfa