Tom's rants about NPR

[nec13]

Similarly some showypants are smart and some are not.

What now? Is this a spoonerism?

[Sarah]

An observation about the vagaries of fashion trends, perhaps?

[LaunchCode]

Fair enuf-- but doesn't Tom want Liz from Chicago to get him in there?

I say Tom doth protesth too much!

[Steeley Chris]

I retract any negative statements about NPR. I think I just get burned out on it every once and a while. The RZA's on On Point right now. I think Tom Ashbrook's Friday round table should include Tom, Ted, PFT, Hodgman, and Wurster.   

[gravy boat]

This American Life, I really dig for the most part. Their "Giant Pools of Money" podcasts are the best, most accessible features on the causes of the global credit crisis that I've come across.

Going back through the backlog of podcasts and finally heard Patton on Fresh Air to talk about Big Fan. That's a great interview and he talks about TBSOWFMU as being inspiration --- Tom is a "Fringe Magnet" (this had to have been mentioned on other posts - so excuse any repetition...)

[fonpr]

I thought this was about New Port Richey.  I am crestfallen.

[Fido]

I retract any negative statements about NPR. I think I just get burned out on it every once and a while. The RZA's on On Point right now. I think Tom Ashbrook's Friday round table should include Tom, Ted, PFT, Hodgman, and Wurster.   

If it wasn't for NPR, how would white septuagenarians find out about RZA? They wouldn't. I rest my case. Good day.*



*Quoting the late great antediluvian broadcaster, Paul Harvey

[JohnU]

Everything on NPR is better than 95% of anything else available on the FM dial.

This thread is making me angry.

[JohnU]

Except "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me", which I can't stand.

[nec13]

Everything on NPR is better than 95% of anything else available on the FM dial.

This thread is making me angry.

Calm down. If I wrote a check to NPR, would that quell your rage?

[yesno]

Everything on NPR is better than 95% of anything else available on the FM dial.

That just shows how shitty most radio is.  I liked NPR more before podcasts made it largely obsolete.  The best public radio shows I know of are In Our Time (BBC Radio 4), Global News (daily 1/2 hr. podcast of news from the BBC), Quirks and Quarks (CBC), and Philosopher's Zone and Lingua Franca (ABC).  I actually get most of my news from listening to the audio edition (not the podcast, the actual full text of the magazine, read by actors) of the Economist.

NPR isn't bad, it's just that I don't really like most daily "news" shows that are mostly filler, predictable punditry, and vapid "important issues of the day" bloviation like you'll find on shows like Meet the Press.

I agree that This American Life's shows on economics are pretty good.

(Relatedly, the best TV news station is Al Jazeera, in my opinion. Mostly because when I rarely watch any TV news it's always a picture of someone's head, talking.  Why does that need to be a TV show?  Al Jazeera shows more actual footage. I basically agree with this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/al-jazeera)

[JohnU]

95% was an exaggeration... There is a lot of good non-commercial radio on the FM band below 92.0.  I lump it all together as "public radio".

But seriously, don't beat up on the stuff that is way, way better than the bad shit on the radio.

[Bryan]

(Relatedly, the best TV news station is Al Jazeera, in my opinion. Mostly because when I rarely watch any TV news it's always a picture of someone's head, talking.  Why does that need to be a TV show?  Al Jazeera shows more actual footage. I basically agree with this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/al-jazeera)

That's an interesting article, but I really don't get his point of view at the end, where he talks about the flaws of BBC, CNN and Fox News, then says:

Thus, we are left with the insidious despotism of Al Jazeera: and it is despotism, because we have really no other serious news channel to turn to.
[...]
Because its cause is that of the weak and the oppressed, it sees itself as always in the right, regardless of the complexity of the issues, and therein lies its power of oppression.

So: Al-Jazeera is despotic because its competition is shitty, and it's a powerful oppressor because it takes the cause of the weak and oppressed. Huh? Either the author needs to think a little harder about this stuff or I do.

[yesno]

I wouldn't think too hard about it, as the author is a known loon.  I just took him to be saying that "Al Jazeera is very influential because it's very good, but it's dangerous that it has no serious competition in many parts of the world, because it's very sure of its positions."  I'd agree that there needs to be another global, non-western news source.

I like it, not because of any editorial slant, but because it covers parts of the world ignored even by the BBC, and because it actually shows a lot of pictures of the world, instead of one talking head after the other.  (I don't know why cable news even has to be on TV.  They don't take advantage of it, and just show old people in boring clothes talking all the time.)

[Bryan]

I wouldn't think too hard about it, as the author is a known loon.  I just took him to be saying that "Al Jazeera is very influential because it's very good, but it's dangerous that it has no serious competition in many parts of the world, because it's very sure of its positions."  I'd agree that there needs to be another global, non-western news source.

Thanks - that's much more clear.

I think CNN is actually worse when they try to be more visually exciting - holograms, electoral maps, proto-fascist graphic effects... I dunno if it's the medium itself, but I think news on tv is almost always terrible. I like the radio for news. CBC's As It Happens is pretty good. It's done magazine-style, with lengthy interviews, but it succumbs to the vile folksiness that infects almost all of CBC's programming.