I happen to agree with some of what the economics editor said. There are times when I look at my radio or smart speaker and shake my head at some things I hear. I pointed out earlier this week that the American Public Media program Marketplace had an author on the show. She had written a book about the African American influence on country music pre Beyonce. Marketplace is a show about economics. The book had nothing to do with economics. No remote tie in whatsoever. Again...head shaking. The show isn’t an NPR show but NPR distributes the show.
I was listening to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me a few years back (an NPR program). For those of you who don't know, it is a game show on NPR where they have listeners call in and play games. One of the games is called "bluff the listener" where their 3 panelists tell a story from this week's news...but only one of the three stories is true. If the listener picks the right story, they get a prize. Well, the set up for this game was interesting vacation offerings (I promise I'm getting to the point) for those on a budget. The host is not playing the game. He's making a statement. On this segment, he sets up the game by stating the following--paraphrasing--"As most of us know, $4,000 isn't going to go very far on a vacation...." and the 3 panelists each told a story of someone offering a unique vacation for $4K. I don't know about you guys but for $4K...I can have a fucking incredible vacation. Maybe I'm just a savvy traveler...
At about the same time, another show I listened to--a news podcast called the Slate Political Gabfest--has these commentators. Slate is not NPR but they are essentially grapes from the same vine. The host can bring up topics that they discuss for 10-15 minutes and at the end they each get about 3 minutes to talk about whatever they want. The host brought up the fire at Notre Dame and these three commentators (I think you could call them all left or center-left safely) sat around and whined about losing this cathedral for a good 15 minutes citing the "many times" they were over there. Again, I don't know about you guys but Notre Dame catching fire didn't make me sad. I wish it hadn't burned of course but did this really shake the timbers of someone's life so much that it warranted this sort of attention? I would imagine many just kind of rolled their eyes at this caterwauling. What's next...are they going to interrupt regular programing to announce that Zabar's is closing their upper west side location? The horror...the horror.
The editor, Uri Berliner, said that NPR lost the trust of the American People. I think he’s wrong about that.
www.thefp.com
He writes:
"In recent years I’ve struggled to answer that question. Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None."
"So on May 3, 2021, I presented the findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting. When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse."
Well...what is the demographic of the newsroom in DC. Well read, college degreed, fact driven...does that sound like MAGA to you?
I don’t think the fault lines in the newsroom are on Democrat v. Republican. For one thing, I am pretty liberal but I have some real problems with the Democrats. MAGA has a lot of issues with the Republican Party. I think the fault line is between curious and not...engaged and not....intelligent and not. As for the listenership...the editor is silly to state that NPR has lost the trust. I mean...the right wing will not trust anything that pierces their delicate world view. Not all programming is for all audiences. Its probably that simple.
I think the fault lines in listenership are much less easy to see. I think it falls between the listeners they want and the listeners they have. They want well-heeled listeners who contribute. What they have are folks who listen and peruse the website because there are no paywalls and no commercials. Its truly refreshing!
I was listening to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me a few years back (an NPR program). For those of you who don't know, it is a game show on NPR where they have listeners call in and play games. One of the games is called "bluff the listener" where their 3 panelists tell a story from this week's news...but only one of the three stories is true. If the listener picks the right story, they get a prize. Well, the set up for this game was interesting vacation offerings (I promise I'm getting to the point) for those on a budget. The host is not playing the game. He's making a statement. On this segment, he sets up the game by stating the following--paraphrasing--"As most of us know, $4,000 isn't going to go very far on a vacation...." and the 3 panelists each told a story of someone offering a unique vacation for $4K. I don't know about you guys but for $4K...I can have a fucking incredible vacation. Maybe I'm just a savvy traveler...
At about the same time, another show I listened to--a news podcast called the Slate Political Gabfest--has these commentators. Slate is not NPR but they are essentially grapes from the same vine. The host can bring up topics that they discuss for 10-15 minutes and at the end they each get about 3 minutes to talk about whatever they want. The host brought up the fire at Notre Dame and these three commentators (I think you could call them all left or center-left safely) sat around and whined about losing this cathedral for a good 15 minutes citing the "many times" they were over there. Again, I don't know about you guys but Notre Dame catching fire didn't make me sad. I wish it hadn't burned of course but did this really shake the timbers of someone's life so much that it warranted this sort of attention? I would imagine many just kind of rolled their eyes at this caterwauling. What's next...are they going to interrupt regular programing to announce that Zabar's is closing their upper west side location? The horror...the horror.
The editor, Uri Berliner, said that NPR lost the trust of the American People. I think he’s wrong about that.
I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.
Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.
www.thefp.com
He writes:
"In recent years I’ve struggled to answer that question. Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None."
"So on May 3, 2021, I presented the findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting. When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse."
Well...what is the demographic of the newsroom in DC. Well read, college degreed, fact driven...does that sound like MAGA to you?
I don’t think the fault lines in the newsroom are on Democrat v. Republican. For one thing, I am pretty liberal but I have some real problems with the Democrats. MAGA has a lot of issues with the Republican Party. I think the fault line is between curious and not...engaged and not....intelligent and not. As for the listenership...the editor is silly to state that NPR has lost the trust. I mean...the right wing will not trust anything that pierces their delicate world view. Not all programming is for all audiences. Its probably that simple.
I think the fault lines in listenership are much less easy to see. I think it falls between the listeners they want and the listeners they have. They want well-heeled listeners who contribute. What they have are folks who listen and peruse the website because there are no paywalls and no commercials. Its truly refreshing!
