WTH? What happened to NPR? I'm interrupting some serious gardening

[Skidmore]

to rant! I hadn't listened to NPR for quite some time, but it's one of the few stations in our area that I used to be able to enjoy listening to in the garden. Who is this Michelle or Melissa or some M name creature on "Talk of the Nation"? Sounded like a Paula Zahn wannabe. And that Political Junkie guy she was talking to? I want Ray Suarez back. Seemed like everything was tinged with a blush of deferring to the "faithbased community."

Sometimes I think I've died and gone to hell but just haven't acknowledged it yet.

[DS1]

1. It's gone to shit. Some winger took over, and it's been downhill since

They report on totally meaningless shite, and never ever get into the reason why things are happening when they do report the news.

[rodeodance]

2. just a question-were they in favor?--a lot of Fed funds are to grants to

these faith based organizations.

[Skidmore]

5. Kind of engaged in a lot of mealy mouthed but reverential

inclusion of faithbased in every topic. Really noticeable, and managed to promise that tomorrow's discussion would be on the faithbased czar's departure from the WH.

[rodeodance]

15. is there a faith based czar in the WH? -i mean someone esp. appointed?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. NPR took a right turn a while back

I knew something was up when WalMart became one of their underwriters.

[ceile]

4. That's when I stopped listening.

I only listen to our NPR station when it's local programming.

[Burried News]

6. Started about two years ago when they got rid of Jonathan Edwards.

Yeah as soon as Public Broadcasting got a hundred million from Ray Kroc's widow they were taken over by the Bushevik propagandists.
Don't forget they were part of the Hatchet Team for the Dean Scream machine.

[Orrex]

12. That would have happened even if Edwards were still there

He was a cornerstone, but he was hardly the entire edifice.

At times NPR is still capable of greatness. They had excellent reports during the Katrina disaster, for example.

On their worst day, they're still head and shoulders above any MSM station.

I can only hear Pacifica about 20 minutes per day, due to my commute. NPR fills in nicely, when my other options on terrestrial radio are a half dozen ClearChannel Top40 stations, a robo-radio station, and a horde of rightwing AM/FM loonies.

[Burried News]

17. Agree. I saw Edwards as the Canary in the coal mine, not as the Dutch

Boy holding back the North Sea.

[SmokingJacket]

19. It's true they're better than MSM...

but that's saying almost nothing. They're not what they used to be.

I still listen to Garrison Keillor's little poetry minute in the mornings, and put the news on most nights -- so often, though, they have some wingnut commentator or a long faith-based pap story, and I get mad and have to shut it off. Most of the personality has gone out of the programming, too.

[Orrex]

21. Mostly I agree with you

I still like the literary pieces, and often the musical stories are of interest to me, but there are too many puff pieces for my taste. Usually these appear at the end of a given hour, but they can be horrible.

A while back, within a three month period, they aired two completely separate 10-minute segments on flip-flops. That's the footwear, as opposed to Dubya's policy oscillations. Whom does this benefit? Is the public better informed following a long disertation on the discomfort of toe-straps?

And you're exactly right about the abundance of reports on faith-related issues. I frankly couldn't care less if some writer learned to meditate while being eaten by mosquitos in India--give me a story with relevance.

Enough!

My assertion that they're better than the MSM wasn't meant as a blanket forgiveness of NPR, but rather a resignation that there's little else that I can listen to on the drive to or from work that offers anything of interest, so NPR's better than just about any other option.

[SmokingJacket]

22. No, I totally agree with you.

And I think if times change, maybe it'll come back to its roots.

[terip64]

7. I can't listen either. I listen to music, it's better for my health.

I stopped listening because I couldn't take hearing Neil Conan saying, "This is the talk of the nation." Yeah right.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. This came up in Crawford last week

One of the things we MUST do is take our airwaves back from the right. It is very sad what has happened to NPR. Also a soldier just back from Iraq told us the only TV news the soldiers can watch is fauz snooze and until recently, rush was the only radio.

We absolutely MUST take back Congress and get this stuff fixed.

[Warpy]

9. I stopped listening about a year ago

when I woke up to the clock radio and they featured a parade of right wing talking heads trying to sell Stupid's social security destruction plan, ending up with Ken Mehlman. I switched the station that day to the classical station and haven't bothered with NPR since. Nobody who gives that Mehlman character air time is going to get my consideration unless they're deconstructing him and making him cry.

They've had a change in management and dumped the right wing extremists at the top whose idea of balance was nothing but right wing shit spewers, but I guess all their guests are booked far in advance and they have to honor contractural bullshit before they can fumigate the studios and get back to rational programming.

Let me know if and when they do. I miss "All Things Considered."

[RufusEarl]

10. I still watch the program "NOW"

it comes on here on Friday night 7pm. It's been informative, on a couple of levels.

[bananas]

11. Switch to Pacifica

or listen on-line to the many independant stations not affiliated with Pacifica, but which play shows like Democracy Now anyway.

http://www.pacifica.org/stations/affiliates/

http://democracynow.org/stations.shtml

http://democracynow.org/stations.pl?op=fullsearch&broadcast=radio

[Skidmore]

13. Can't get it in Iowa and I'm on dial-up which doesn't handle streaming

sites very well.

[catmandu57]

14. Time was

I had the radio set to npr, I'd wake up with it, go to sleep with it, and depended on it for in depth analysis of events.
They just got so far out in right field for me, as hard as it was I turned them off, I'll still listen to local programs, and prairie home, but, I just can't listen to them like I did, nor, support them financially.

[rodeodance]

16. I wrote them a letter (snal mail)--a few months back--

[Burried News]

18. Same here. They can color me gone. I'll get the classical

music from the town Library.

[TreasonousBastard]

20. Sorry, but I like Michel Martin...

although I do miss Ray Suarez.

Martin usually has a reasonably diverse and balanced mix of viewpoints on her show, but I suppose diversity of views isn't good enough for some when one of them is a rightwinger.