Monday, December 21, 2009

Q Tips

All precious NPR related comments are welcomed.

23 comments:

bloodog said...

Apparently this tidbit was off message or something - it didn't make the annals of ME criers:

Report: Obama Ordered US Military Strike on Yemen

ABC News is reporting the US military bombed two sites in the Middle Eastern nation of Yemen on Thursday on direct orders from President Obama. The strikes are seen as a major escalation of the Obama administration’s campaign against al-Qaeda. US officials told ABC the target of the strikes was a pair of suspected al-Qaeda training camps. A human rights activist in Yemen said twenty-three children and seventeen women were among the sixty-four people killed. Earlier this month, President Obama hinted that Yemen could soon be attacked.

biig!piink!fuuzy!buuny! said...

Ahh, the conunundrom of the "suspected."

From BushCo to BushBro. Shameful.

Benoit Balz said...

Guy Raz Get Off The Air!

With all the problems this country faces, we can count on NPR to focus on meaningless puff-piece garbage. Three in a row on Sunday, December 20:

1.Snow Cuts Into 'Super Saturday' Sales

2.The Symbolism Of Disney's Princess Tiana

3.Significant Objects: A Doll With A Story (!)

What was that? Malls, meaningless consumerism, stupid dolls, and "marketing"? That is journalism, this crap's important? Just asking...

Hey, Guy, guess what? You should be embarrassed to participate in that kind of fluff. It's infuriating hear that on the radio. Who at NPR generates those ridiculous story ideas, and how can they look at themselves in the mirror? Or - are there some more nefarious, propagandistic forces at work here?

Guy Raz Get Off The Air!!

showdog said...

Benoit,

There must be a workplace sort of ethic of

"I do my compartmentalized part according to how the reward structure is organized and I get my reward. If I show extra effort in the endeavor, I may advance within the confines of the system."

For the readers, the job is to make it sound like they're actual investigative reporters, instead of actors playing the part of investigative reporters. Like brainwashed proletariat of 1984, they may actually take pride in doing their little bit with pizazz...or maybe they just want you to believe that they believe that...because, who knows? You may inform Big Brother on them. Thought crimes are punishable by torture.

Unknown said...

This morning, Nine Totenberg was profiling America's first female solicitor general.

The lady refused to discuss partisan politics and refused to disclose her political affiliation.

At the end of the piece, Totenberg said the lady, "asked, 'what more do you want?'

"I told her she could show more leg. Then I looked down. She was wearing pants."

mmm, WHAT? WTF! Nina - I'm sure you and the other Kewl Kidz think that's a laugh riot... but, really... WTF?

dogeatdog said...

It seems Brooks fancies himself as some kind of Bourgeois Bohemian (Bobo) with all the grit to groove on Springsteen and the greed to grab what he can no matter what. If getting and keeping power means letting the senator rest his hand on your upper thigh for extended periods, so be it.

Boulder Dude said...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121712227

Oddly, in this story the radio and online audio versions have a line where Nina Totenberg says to Elana Kagen to "show a little Leg", oddly this is not in the published transcript.

diggitydog said...

Hey, did you catch the in depth reporting on Haiti in the last few days...few weeks...few years? Probably not, huh? In would be like being hit by invisible lightning.

dogdrool said...

must hear
Pick The Best Shopping Mall Convention Story Ever

I think they're just yanking on our chain here. It's a caricature of everything that seems must foolish about the Planet Monkeys and their subservience to the Chamber of Commerce. An in-your-face burlesque in which you are invited to stroke the painted lady's pantie hose and emblazon your name on their buttocks with a sharpie. Must be the season.

god said...

dogschool writes:

I most egregiously must have made an error by writing "must" when I meant "most" and vice versa

Unknown said...

Did you hear yesterday's hand job to Lindsey Graham... who declared that from now on, all bills will be bi-partisan... as though the Democrats had crammed healthcare reform down Republican's throat (you mean, the way the Republican's rammed THE PATRIOT ACT down the Democrats' throat?).

The NPR handler just let it slide... even though the main problem with the legislation is that the Democrats let the Republicans screw with it... and THEN not vote for it...

Mr. Graham should have been APOLOGIZING for the Republicans' lack of bi-partisan participation in the healtcare bill... not blaming the Democrats for it...

pamela said...

Bill, I missed that TOTN installment, but would have LOVED to hear Baker take apart Knealy's "reasoning." All I heard was the hour on Iran's evil nuclear ambitions. Oooh scaaary!

Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!) said...

"(How the GOP) rammed THE PATRIOT ACT down the Democrats' throat?)."

yano that's not the way i remember it at all. The Dims were damp with enthusiasm; only one Dim senator voted against it (Feingold), the dim caucus in the House split down the middle...

The Boss of You said...

Hey guys--

Thought you might find this blog post interesting. It deals with the problem of savviness in the media and how it prevents the MSM from actually practicing, you know, journalism:

http://jayrosen.posterous.com/the-savvy-press-and-their-exemption-from-the

GRUMPY DEMO said...

Anyone catch the ME's by the book (never ever mention the uninsured) on the Senate's Health Care bill?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121791736&plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:8a801db5-88a5-40ed-928c-4f8d8c69e8f7

Loved the quote by McConnell:

"Americans are outraged by the last-minute, closed-door, sweetheart deals that were made to gain the slimmest margin for passage of a bill that is all about their health care," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday."

Let review the bill passed with 60 votes after numerous delays by McConnell including blocking funding for US Troops, and he complains that it was passed late.

Best part: 60 out of 100 votes in 60% not "the slimmest margin for passage of a bill". Dude that would be 51 votes.

Today's GOP, not only Constitutionally illiterate, can't count maybe math has a liberal bias, just like science, economics, history, etc.

pamela said...

How the "progressives" blew it.

http://counterpunch.org/redmond12232009.html

RepubLiecan said...

In their great zeal to talk about natural gas extracted via hydrofracking I wonder if NPR news will mention this item which was reported by Democracy Now!.

New York City Calls for Ban on Gas Drilling in Upstate Watershed

You know in the interest of fair and balanced reporting. Maybe if ANGA approves of the story first.

===================================

goopdog said...

ANGA may have also squashed this story. It was in the NYT but nothing at NPR about how fracking also causes earthquakes.

goopdog said...

Er...I should have said "is disturbingly correlated with" rather than "causes."

Nate Bowman said...

On WNYC's "Brian Lehrer Show" on 12/24 Steve Lawitts, acting commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, discussed the city’s findings that hydraulic drilling for natural gas would contaminate the watershed serving the city.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2009/12/24/segments/147011

Nate Bowman said...

Happy Holidays everybody!

geoff said...

Merry Christmas!

http://www.blip.tv/file/2837830/

Anonymous said...

I was listening to WHYY on a Sunday and they stated that a "snow emergency" had been declared and if you didn't "need" to go out stay home. This was followed by a live-at-the MALL spot where the intrepid WHYY "newsperson" urged people to disregard the declaration and get out there ans shop.

There was 6 hours of Holiday Begging (this is the season after all-to get your tax deductions in order) on WHYY. They constantly told their listeners/supporters they were "intelligent, caring, and concerned". But . . . if that is true why do I often hear, "Remind us again, Refresh our listeners",and my personal favorite, "That's so-and-so .. . Cause the truth (imo) is these listeners/supporters are no more and no less "intelligent, caring and concerned" than people that watch/support FOX.

I also wonder when Kestenbaum will ask Lonborg about Danish carbon foorprint in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And another new year marches in to the same old drum beat for war, same old corporate shilling, and geberal condescention to the "intelligent, committed, caring" listeners/supporters. Just as an aside I would be willing to bet that if I cared enough to go back and look at the self-described listener/supporter (in a survey done by NPR) view of themselves I would find them to be , "intelligent, caring, and concerned".

edk