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I love NPR. My wife makes fun of me because sometimes I sit in the car with the battery / radio on after I park just to hear a story finish. New Hampshire Publ

by throwaway2016a 9y ago

I love NPR. My wife makes fun of me because sometimes I sit in the car with the battery / radio on after I park just to hear a story finish. New Hampshire Public radio has a lot of local news and features too, which I can't hear anywhere else. I'm sure other markets are the same. You can get it on Alexa too because most of the shows are also podcasts which is also great. I've also heard a lot from my conservative friends that NPR is too liberal but to be honest, I haven't seen that at all. The more entertainment like programs like "Wait Wait" do sometimes have liberal jokes but I think anyone who can take a joke would laugh at them even if they are conservative.[1] [1] I'm a Libertarian and thus social liberal and economically conservative which puts me in the great position of being able to laugh at jokes at the expense of either of the two major parties.

abrowne 9y ago
> Libertarian and thus social conservative and economically liberal Isn't that the opposite of a libertarian?
- barsonme 9y ago
  _Probably_ just a typo, imo. Then again, I've never found two libertarians who could agree on what being libertarian actually means, so maybe not.
  - astrodust 9y ago
    Doesn't libertarian mean whatever the hell you want it to be because libertarian?
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      For quite a while recently, Libertarian meant "Embarrassed Republican Who Doesn't Want To Admit He Votes Republican Every Election Even Though He Swears He Doesn't Like Either Candidate"
      - cylinder 9y ago
        "Trust me, I'm an intellectual! I'm not like that awful Sarah Palin."
        pyroinferno 9y ago
        To that, they're right. The Libertarian's man, Ron Paul, refused to endorse MCcain or Obama because "because there were no real differences between them, and because neither of them, if elected, would seek to make the fundamental changes in governance that were necessary". He then went on to tell his fellow Libertarians to vote 3rd party "rather than contribute to the “charade” that the two-party election system had become".
    - barsonme 9y ago
      I believe it does have the general premise of very limited government, though.
      - matt-attack 9y ago
        I believe it's more about defending the rights of minorities. Don't forget that the individual is the ultimate minority group.
        barsonme 9y ago
        See, this is what I mean when even libertarians can't agree what libertarianism means ;)
      - vacri 9y ago
        Limited government, except for the massive expansion of the court system, so that everything can be decided post-facto in the courts rather than beforehand with regulations.
    - vacri 9y ago
      Libertarianism is, at its core, an ethos where skilled people with in-demand skills get to keep all their stuff and pretend that their wealth has nothing to do with other people's inputs. If you want to keep all your stuff, libertarianism is for you. If you want to make it sound like you're being noble when you're actually being selfish, libertarianism is for you. How many libertarians are poor? How many are minorities? How many are women? The libertarian deck is pretty obviously stacked - it's all about maintaining property rights with zero responsibility; for example, somehow 'taxes' are 'violence', but 'enforcing property rights through the courts and the exact same sheriff that would recover taxes' is 'not violence'. Pick on any libertarian thread and the cloth unravels pretty fast. The biggest trick the libertarians have pulled, in my opinion, is convincing people that they're the only ones interested in civil rights.
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        How's that Drug War working out for you? Are you glad that lots of black men are in prison, just like Nixon intended?
        vacri 9y ago
        Perhaps you should re-read the last sentence in my comment.
        jessaustin 9y ago
        Oh sure if I re-read it about 829 more times while CNN plays in the background, I might care about that. Hypnotizing! Libertarians aren't angels (except perhaps in a relative sense, when considering any POTUS other than Carter elected in my lifetime), but they never get 3% of the vote, for one office. Yet they're some sort of crazy powerful bogeyman that every progressive of correct thought must constantly fear and agitate against on threads that originally had nothing to do with that. Besides didn't you get the memo? Instead of caring about Libertarians, now you're supposed to care about a much smaller and stupider group of statue enthusiasts! They're going to destroy the nation with their passion for old statues! In the meantime please ignore the wars and brutality that the two wings of the mainstream party keep doing...
    - coldtea 9y ago
      That's "whetevergoesarian".
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  You're absolutely right. It is late at night here but regardless I have no excuse. I have no clue why I typed it that way (fixed the original post since it was within the edit window)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- w0de 9y ago
  He's using conservative and liberal in their classical senses, whereby conservative connotes restraint in legislating social issues and liberal connotes freedom of the marketplace.
  - throwaway2016a 9y ago
    I know you got down-voted and you are wrong about my intentions (it was just a typo) but I up-voted you because I do appreciate that the definitions of liberal and conservative have not always been the same.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
ekianjo 9y ago
>I'm a Libertarian As a libertarian, don't you find the economic news reports from NPS cringeworthy though?
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  Economics is such a small portion of what NPR covers. And most of the time it is things like what the market did today which are fact based. Do I disagree with stuff they say sometimes? Absolutely. But not enough to change the station. Then again, I am more tolerant or opposing views than most, unfortunately.
  - tmnvix 9y ago
    > I am more tolerant or opposing views than most, unfortunately. Why do you say "unfortunately"? I would say it is a strength if you can tolerate opposing views without necessarily accepting them.
    - randallsquared 9y ago
      There are two ways that he could be just as tolerant...
    - albedoa 9y ago
      He is saying it is unfortunate that others are not as tolerant of opposing views.
      - tmnvix 9y ago
        D'oh! Of course.
- jms18 9y ago
  Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal? Cringeworthy? Edit: Or Planet Money?
  - ekianjo 9y ago
morganvachon 9y ago
> I'm a Libertarian and thus social conservative and economically liberally That's fascinating; I've been called Libertarian because I'm the opposite. I'm socially progressive yet fiscally conservative, and from what I've read, there are branches of Libertarianism that can embrace either extreme or a mixture. I've listened to NPR since I was a teenager in the early 90s, and while I don't always agree with the commentators, I usually find the subjects fascinating and the content entertaining. Here in Atlanta the "Second Cup Concert" classical music show kept me motivated at work, and Lois Reitzes' voice was as soothing as listening to Bob Ross talk about his paintings.
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  It was a mistake (see bellow - I edited my post). It's late at night and I'm tired. I in fact meant the opposite. I am most definitely not socially conservative or economically liberal.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    A whole flamewar erupted over defending a typo :)
  - dadoprso 9y ago
    you should add that you edited the post haha. I was very confused by the next comment.
- ams6110 9y ago
  There's liberal as in "tolerate how other people choose to live" and there's liberal as in "spend a lot of money on big government solutions to social problems" and nobody can claim to be libertarian and be liberal in the latter sense.
  - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    Why? One could argue that the goal of a libertarian is to maximize individual liberty, and plausibly argue that the loss of liberty via taxation is both a faux loss (eg, actually a charge for externalities, not an "extra" cost imposed by others) and liberty maximizing (eg, freedom from concern of unemployment ruining your life is more freeing than the loss of freedom to not pay taxes).
zcdziura 9y ago
Hey hey, another New Hampshire native! It also helps that, depending on where you live, NHPR is the most entertaining programming available. The Exchange is a very high quality current events show, and the host is incredibly good at her job. I would listen to that when traveling up to PSU for school during my senior year. If you find yourself north of Tilton, NH, you're not going to have much choice in radio programming. Unless, that is, you enjoy country or Christian radio.
- slackfan 9y ago
  Or, you know, the three NHPR signals, the multiple VPR state border blasters, Maine Public Radio, most of the tilton stations, or the Canadian border blasters we get.
mrbill 9y ago
> You can get it on Alexa too because most of the shows are also podcasts which is also great. "Alexa, play NPR" also works. It will use the ZIP code from your Amazon account and play the local NPR affiliate from either TuneIn or iHeartRadio. This is how I listen to it at home - one Echo Dot (connected to a Tivoli Audio Model One) in the "office", and another using its built-in speaker, in the bedroom.
- criddell 9y ago
  Do you know if you can get it to play out-of-state NPR stations? I'm not a fan of my local affiliate.
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - mrbill 9y ago
    By going to https://alexa.amazon.com https://alexa.amazon.com, "music, video and books", tunein, picking the Dot I wanted to play through, and then I searched for KGOU (Oklahoma City NPR), I was able to play that station. You might be able to say "Alexa, play KGOU" (or whatever station you want).
    - criddell 9y ago
      We've only had our Echos since Prime Day and it is simultaneously great and awful. We connected it to our light dimmer and ceiling fan and it was harder than it should be to make it work. We would say "Alexa, turn the lights on" and it would reply with something like "I don't know about a device named lights". So, the natural next question is "Alexa, what devices do you know about?" That should work, but it doesn't. In a quiet room, the microphones are amazing. But as soon as I turn on the fan over our stove, the white noise makes the Echo practically deaf. Other things like turning on drop-in was an exercise in frustration. Why can't I just say "Alexa, turn on drop-in for the household?" Instead I had to go to the app, give it access to my contacts, turn on drop in on our contact card, then turn on drop in on both devices. Frankly, I don't think there should even be a phone app. Go all in on the voice interface.
taurath 9y ago
In general it's about story selection. 80% of the "stories of the day" are related to minority rights, empathy stories and a bunch of others. Rural white people are rarely mentioned except in the context of an environmental disaster. I like the stories myself but I definitely feel like the average conservative doesn't feel like they're included in any of the coverage.
- morgante 9y ago
  Maybe it's my bias, but I feel like I actually hear a lot of stories about rural white people. Especially since the election, every outlet keeps wanting to do think pieces on their plight.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    I'd agree with taurath that if bias is there it's in the story framing or selection. And also sometimes interviewee: the various shows seem to like "Here's an archetype (e.g. soldier) who you would expect to be conservative, but actually has liberal views." If you summarize every story, you end up with a lot more "affirming a liberal view of the world" ones than "affirming a conservative view." That said, I still believe the content of the stories presented hews far closer to objective fact and truth than what I've seen from conservative media. So I wouldn't say it's nearly that biased.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    I think a lot of sources generally treated as liberal have swerved in their coverage over the last ~year, since Trump began to look credible. I'd argue that stretch is non-representative compared to, say, 2014, but I'd also argue you can still see a distinctive outlook when they do cover those topics. A source like Vox covers urban/coastal issues from the 'inside', treating first-hand sources as credible and writing like the reader is included in the topic. There's also a significant assumption that readers inherently care. It writes rural white plight stories as 'explainers', approaching them the way you would approach some international crisis your readers are unlikely to know about. One big human-interest frame example to make your readers care, lots of background and statistics, first-hand interviews that add flavor, but are aggressively contextualized by talking to professors and experts who aren't part of the community. And, of course, a necessity to say "which maybe caused Trump" or otherwise justify why such stories are relevant to their readers. Basically, I think NPR/Vox/etc have started covering rural plight stuff far more, but they're still explaining those people to their readers.
simonsarris 9y ago
Hello from Amherst/Nashua. Email me if you want to get a beer sometime. I used to listen to NHPR a lot when I had a long commute one summer and would occasionally tune in. My biggest complaint isn't that NPR is too liberal, only that it is very surface-thought in its discussion of topics. Too often a story will raise what seem to be obvious and interesting (but maybe difficult) questions and the journalist or interviewer will just move on. I dimly have one example in mind, a government agency (port authority?) in Oregon had millions in carbon credits (tax offsets) that it couldn't use, so it sold them to some other Oregon company for cheap to some corporation. Imagine its $5m tax credits that it sold for $1m. The company could then offset $5m of taxes. This was billed as a good deal for the port authority. Of course as described it's really the state of Oregon losing $4m by selling the credit on the cheap, which seems totally insane. This was never discussed. I gave up after that story.
- ethbro 9y ago
  > My biggest complaint isn't that NPR is too liberal, only that it is very surface-thought in its discussion of topics. Too often a story will raise what seem to be obvious and interesting (but maybe difficult) questions and the journalist or interviewer will just move on. Tom Ashbrook (On Point) does this especially egregiously. Some of his simplistic (or biased) "So what you're saying is..." moments make me cringe. I realize it's a call in show, but jesus, there isn't anyone out there with a less obvious liberal bias / more technical background who's interested in the job? Let callers or interviewees make their points fairly, then debate them. Rhetorically dancing around the topics with the advantage of being the host just makes me feel like I'm listening to Bill O'Reilly. (Ugh)
  - mediaright 9y ago
    You should both check out WNYC'S "On The Media." It's NPR style, but every interview you hear is a 40-60-120 minute interview that's been boiled down to 8-10 min for the show. It's truly bespoke radio in that way, so they get to cover the issues at the core of something. It's my favorite show week to week.
    - 9y ago
tarr11 9y ago
This is called a "driveway moment" in NPR lingo. They even made a series about it! http://www.npr.org/series/700000/driveway-moments http://www.npr.org/series/700000/driveway-moments
vacri 9y ago
In my own experience driving for a little while around the Four Corners area in the desert, there were more than a few spots where the only option was NPR, because all other stations on the dial were glassy-eyed christian proselytising, especially driving Utah -> Colorado. I mean, the kind of radio that even normal christians would be uncomfortable listening to. I like NPR's content anyway, but if you lived in some of those areas, it's the only option that isn't cult-ish.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Unfortunately many of these Christian stations have poorly maintained transmitters that broadcast not only on their assigned frequencies but also all over the adjacent NPR stations. Only Christian stations seem to get away with this.
TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
Check out ABC Radio National. http://abc.net.au/rn http://abc.net.au/rn They do some awesome shows also available as podcast. Bonus: Aussie accent is a barrel of laughs (I say that as an Australian!)
danmaz74 9y ago
Shouldn't a libertarian be against NPR because it's funded by the Federal government? I get confused sometimes.
- ajmarsh 9y ago
  Yes but we also have to live in the real world. It's on the air so you might as well take advantage of that.
- alphakappa 9y ago
  Gets some funding from the federal government != funded by the federal government.
eighthnate 9y ago
> I've also heard a lot from my conservative friends that NPR is too liberal but to be honest, I haven't seen that at all. Are you being facetious? NPR is extremely liberal. > [1] I'm a Libertarian and thus social liberal and economically conservative which puts me in the great position of being able to laugh at jokes at the expense of either of the two major parties. I'm moderate independent so I too laugh at both sides. I also don't listen to NPR or watch foxnews as they are a terrible waste of time.
- ericcholis 9y ago
  NPR's newsroom is very liberal. But, I find their lifestyle pieces or non-news series to be extremely rich.
- RankingMember 9y ago
  > I also don't listen to NPR or watch foxnews as they are a terrible waste of time. You seem to have a lot to say about something you never listen to because it's a "terrible waste of time".
  - eighthnate 9y ago
    > You seem to have a lot to say about something you never listen to because it's a "terrible waste of time". Did I say I never listened to them? I used to as a teen and young adult. I was a big fan of NPR. Even was a supporting member and have their tote bag somewhere( WNYC is my station )... I also used to watched a bit of foxnews, but that was only at work when they had it on. But the past few years, I grew up. I will still listen to radio lab once in a while if they have an interesting topic and maybe catch wait wait don't tell me ( especially if they have an interesting guest ). But for the most part, it's gotten old and boring. But that's my opinion. I'm sure yours is different.
    - DataWorker 9y ago
      It's gotten so dumbed down it's painful to listen to. There are highlights such as Michael Krazny for us locals. But mostly too stupid to bother with. And though I don't watch tv, from what I gather of the Jim Lehrer Newshour on YouTube, PBS seems to be headed in the same direction. I guess it's a reflection of American culture and intellect in general. Sad.
cafard 9y ago
If I ever had to move a lot of Make America Great Again merchandise, I would license clips from "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." I have two main difficulties with NPR. First, as a baby boomer, I wonder whether my generation will let go. WAMU still plays old Car Talk shows on Saturday morning, a couple of years after one of the brothers died. Garrison Keillor did, finally, let go, but it took him a while. Second, so much of it seems to me the self-esteem of the college-bred classes. After a while, I wonder whether it isn't as restrictive to the listeners' viewpoint as the private school. (I suppose that this doesn't apply to truckers so much.) "being able to laugh at jokes at the expense of either of the two major parties". Shouldn't one be able to laugh at jokes that are funny in general? [edit: added missing comma]
- murph-almighty 9y ago
  >WAMU still plays old Car Talk shows on Saturday morning, a couple of years after one of the brothers died. I occasionally listen to the syndicated podcast. I know next to nothing about cars. Minus the 'forwards from grandma' style jokes that occasionally pop up in the beginning it's a quality program.
- extra88 9y ago
  Ask Me Another is a newish humorous public radio quiz show hosted by Gen. Xer Ophira Eisenberg with Jonathan Colton (also Gen. X). My impression is public radio quiz shows don't depend on a college education but reward the accumulation of knowledge and attention paid to current events. The college-educated are more likely to to appreciate those rewards. I'm sure there's also the occasional joke or comment that assumes a shared experience found in college but I expect that's rare enough to not completely put off someone who can't relate to that experience (sometimes they'll say it knowingly, making a joke out of assuming everyone has the same background, especially whiteness). http://www.wnyc.org/shows/ask-me-another http://www.wnyc.org/shows/ask-me-another
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I've also heard a lot from my conservative friends that NPR is too liberal but to be honest, I haven't seen that at all. As with the media more general, the “NPR is liberal” line is a decades old part of the effort to pressure coverage to move further to the right that generations of conservatives have been indoctrinated into as an article of faith; its been quite successful, and if it was ever true in any sense other than maybe the coverage not being as far right as the (rightward moving) center of mass of the Republican Party, it hasn't been for a long time.
woodandsteel 9y ago
>I've also heard a lot from my conservative friends that NPR is too liberal but to be honest, I haven't seen that at all. The reason conservatives think NPR is wildly liberal is they don't listen to it. They only listen to conservative media, and it tells them NPR is 100% pro-communism and also is pro-Sharia law. Which anyone who actually listens to it knows is utter nonsense. The lesson here is you should listen directly to both sides, and not just listen to one side and take for granted it is telling you the truth about the other side. NPR is itself is pretty good here. It regularly has conservatives presenting their views. But I also subscribe to a conservative magazine, just to make sure I am getting the whole story.
dang 9y ago
This subthread went full generic-ideological so we detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15068327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15068327 and marked it off-topic.

abrowne 9y ago

> Libertarian and thus social conservative and economically liberal Isn't that the opposite of a libertarian?

barsonme 9y ago
_Probably_ just a typo, imo. Then again, I've never found two libertarians who could agree on what being libertarian actually means, so maybe not.
- astrodust 9y ago
  Doesn't libertarian mean whatever the hell you want it to be because libertarian?
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    For quite a while recently, Libertarian meant "Embarrassed Republican Who Doesn't Want To Admit He Votes Republican Every Election Even Though He Swears He Doesn't Like Either Candidate"
    - cylinder 9y ago
      "Trust me, I'm an intellectual! I'm not like that awful Sarah Palin."
      - pyroinferno 9y ago
        To that, they're right. The Libertarian's man, Ron Paul, refused to endorse MCcain or Obama because "because there were no real differences between them, and because neither of them, if elected, would seek to make the fundamental changes in governance that were necessary". He then went on to tell his fellow Libertarians to vote 3rd party "rather than contribute to the “charade” that the two-party election system had become".
  - barsonme 9y ago
    I believe it does have the general premise of very limited government, though.
    - matt-attack 9y ago
      I believe it's more about defending the rights of minorities. Don't forget that the individual is the ultimate minority group.
      - barsonme 9y ago
        See, this is what I mean when even libertarians can't agree what libertarianism means ;)
    - vacri 9y ago
      Limited government, except for the massive expansion of the court system, so that everything can be decided post-facto in the courts rather than beforehand with regulations.
  - vacri 9y ago
    Libertarianism is, at its core, an ethos where skilled people with in-demand skills get to keep all their stuff and pretend that their wealth has nothing to do with other people's inputs. If you want to keep all your stuff, libertarianism is for you. If you want to make it sound like you're being noble when you're actually being selfish, libertarianism is for you. How many libertarians are poor? How many are minorities? How many are women? The libertarian deck is pretty obviously stacked - it's all about maintaining property rights with zero responsibility; for example, somehow 'taxes' are 'violence', but 'enforcing property rights through the courts and the exact same sheriff that would recover taxes' is 'not violence'. Pick on any libertarian thread and the cloth unravels pretty fast. The biggest trick the libertarians have pulled, in my opinion, is convincing people that they're the only ones interested in civil rights.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      How's that Drug War working out for you? Are you glad that lots of black men are in prison, just like Nixon intended?
      - vacri 9y ago
        Perhaps you should re-read the last sentence in my comment.
        jessaustin 9y ago
        Oh sure if I re-read it about 829 more times while CNN plays in the background, I might care about that. Hypnotizing! Libertarians aren't angels (except perhaps in a relative sense, when considering any POTUS other than Carter elected in my lifetime), but they never get 3% of the vote, for one office. Yet they're some sort of crazy powerful bogeyman that every progressive of correct thought must constantly fear and agitate against on threads that originally had nothing to do with that. Besides didn't you get the memo? Instead of caring about Libertarians, now you're supposed to care about a much smaller and stupider group of statue enthusiasts! They're going to destroy the nation with their passion for old statues! In the meantime please ignore the wars and brutality that the two wings of the mainstream party keep doing...
  - coldtea 9y ago
    That's "whetevergoesarian".
throwaway2016a 9y ago
You're absolutely right. It is late at night here but regardless I have no excuse. I have no clue why I typed it that way (fixed the original post since it was within the edit window)
- deleted 9y ago
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w0de 9y ago
He's using conservative and liberal in their classical senses, whereby conservative connotes restraint in legislating social issues and liberal connotes freedom of the marketplace.
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  I know you got down-voted and you are wrong about my intentions (it was just a typo) but I up-voted you because I do appreciate that the definitions of liberal and conservative have not always been the same.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

ekianjo 9y ago

>I'm a Libertarian As a libertarian, don't you find the economic news reports from NPS cringeworthy though?

throwaway2016a 9y ago
Economics is such a small portion of what NPR covers. And most of the time it is things like what the market did today which are fact based. Do I disagree with stuff they say sometimes? Absolutely. But not enough to change the station. Then again, I am more tolerant or opposing views than most, unfortunately.
- tmnvix 9y ago
  > I am more tolerant or opposing views than most, unfortunately. Why do you say "unfortunately"? I would say it is a strength if you can tolerate opposing views without necessarily accepting them.
  - randallsquared 9y ago
    There are two ways that he could be just as tolerant...
  - albedoa 9y ago
    He is saying it is unfortunate that others are not as tolerant of opposing views.
    - tmnvix 9y ago
      D'oh! Of course.
jms18 9y ago
Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal? Cringeworthy? Edit: Or Planet Money?
- ekianjo 9y ago

morganvachon 9y ago

> I'm a Libertarian and thus social conservative and economically liberally That's fascinating; I've been called Libertarian because I'm the opposite. I'm socially progressive yet fiscally conservative, and from what I've read, there are branches of Libertarianism that can embrace either extreme or a mixture. I've listened to NPR since I was a teenager in the early 90s, and while I don't always agree with the commentators, I usually find the subjects fascinating and the content entertaining. Here in Atlanta the "Second Cup Concert" classical music show kept me motivated at work, and Lois Reitzes' voice was as soothing as listening to Bob Ross talk about his paintings.

throwaway2016a 9y ago
It was a mistake (see bellow - I edited my post). It's late at night and I'm tired. I in fact meant the opposite. I am most definitely not socially conservative or economically liberal.
- kobeya 9y ago
  A whole flamewar erupted over defending a typo :)
- dadoprso 9y ago
  you should add that you edited the post haha. I was very confused by the next comment.
ams6110 9y ago
There's liberal as in "tolerate how other people choose to live" and there's liberal as in "spend a lot of money on big government solutions to social problems" and nobody can claim to be libertarian and be liberal in the latter sense.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  Why? One could argue that the goal of a libertarian is to maximize individual liberty, and plausibly argue that the loss of liberty via taxation is both a faux loss (eg, actually a charge for externalities, not an "extra" cost imposed by others) and liberty maximizing (eg, freedom from concern of unemployment ruining your life is more freeing than the loss of freedom to not pay taxes).

zcdziura 9y ago

Hey hey, another New Hampshire native! It also helps that, depending on where you live, NHPR is the most entertaining programming available. The Exchange is a very high quality current events show, and the host is incredibly good at her job. I would listen to that when traveling up to PSU for school during my senior year. If you find yourself north of Tilton, NH, you're not going to have much choice in radio programming. Unless, that is, you enjoy country or Christian radio.

slackfan 9y ago
Or, you know, the three NHPR signals, the multiple VPR state border blasters, Maine Public Radio, most of the tilton stations, or the Canadian border blasters we get.

mrbill 9y ago

> You can get it on Alexa too because most of the shows are also podcasts which is also great. "Alexa, play NPR" also works. It will use the ZIP code from your Amazon account and play the local NPR affiliate from either TuneIn or iHeartRadio. This is how I listen to it at home - one Echo Dot (connected to a Tivoli Audio Model One) in the "office", and another using its built-in speaker, in the bedroom.

criddell 9y ago
Do you know if you can get it to play out-of-state NPR stations? I'm not a fan of my local affiliate.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mrbill 9y ago
  By going to https://alexa.amazon.com https://alexa.amazon.com, "music, video and books", tunein, picking the Dot I wanted to play through, and then I searched for KGOU (Oklahoma City NPR), I was able to play that station. You might be able to say "Alexa, play KGOU" (or whatever station you want).
  - criddell 9y ago
    We've only had our Echos since Prime Day and it is simultaneously great and awful. We connected it to our light dimmer and ceiling fan and it was harder than it should be to make it work. We would say "Alexa, turn the lights on" and it would reply with something like "I don't know about a device named lights". So, the natural next question is "Alexa, what devices do you know about?" That should work, but it doesn't. In a quiet room, the microphones are amazing. But as soon as I turn on the fan over our stove, the white noise makes the Echo practically deaf. Other things like turning on drop-in was an exercise in frustration. Why can't I just say "Alexa, turn on drop-in for the household?" Instead I had to go to the app, give it access to my contacts, turn on drop in on our contact card, then turn on drop in on both devices. Frankly, I don't think there should even be a phone app. Go all in on the voice interface.

taurath 9y ago

In general it's about story selection. 80% of the "stories of the day" are related to minority rights, empathy stories and a bunch of others. Rural white people are rarely mentioned except in the context of an environmental disaster. I like the stories myself but I definitely feel like the average conservative doesn't feel like they're included in any of the coverage.

morgante 9y ago
Maybe it's my bias, but I feel like I actually hear a lot of stories about rural white people. Especially since the election, every outlet keeps wanting to do think pieces on their plight.
- ethbro 9y ago
  I'd agree with taurath that if bias is there it's in the story framing or selection. And also sometimes interviewee: the various shows seem to like "Here's an archetype (e.g. soldier) who you would expect to be conservative, but actually has liberal views." If you summarize every story, you end up with a lot more "affirming a liberal view of the world" ones than "affirming a conservative view." That said, I still believe the content of the stories presented hews far closer to objective fact and truth than what I've seen from conservative media. So I wouldn't say it's nearly that biased.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  I think a lot of sources generally treated as liberal have swerved in their coverage over the last ~year, since Trump began to look credible. I'd argue that stretch is non-representative compared to, say, 2014, but I'd also argue you can still see a distinctive outlook when they do cover those topics. A source like Vox covers urban/coastal issues from the 'inside', treating first-hand sources as credible and writing like the reader is included in the topic. There's also a significant assumption that readers inherently care. It writes rural white plight stories as 'explainers', approaching them the way you would approach some international crisis your readers are unlikely to know about. One big human-interest frame example to make your readers care, lots of background and statistics, first-hand interviews that add flavor, but are aggressively contextualized by talking to professors and experts who aren't part of the community. And, of course, a necessity to say "which maybe caused Trump" or otherwise justify why such stories are relevant to their readers. Basically, I think NPR/Vox/etc have started covering rural plight stuff far more, but they're still explaining those people to their readers.

simonsarris 9y ago

Hello from Amherst/Nashua. Email me if you want to get a beer sometime. I used to listen to NHPR a lot when I had a long commute one summer and would occasionally tune in. My biggest complaint isn't that NPR is too liberal, only that it is very surface-thought in its discussion of topics. Too often a story will raise what seem to be obvious and interesting (but maybe difficult) questions and the journalist or interviewer will just move on. I dimly have one example in mind, a government agency (port authority?) in Oregon had millions in carbon credits (tax offsets) that it couldn't use, so it sold them to some other Oregon company for cheap to some corporation. Imagine its $5m tax credits that it sold for $1m. The company could then offset $5m of taxes. This was billed as a good deal for the port authority. Of course as described it's really the state of Oregon losing $4m by selling the credit on the cheap, which seems totally insane. This was never discussed. I gave up after that story.

ethbro 9y ago
> My biggest complaint isn't that NPR is too liberal, only that it is very surface-thought in its discussion of topics. Too often a story will raise what seem to be obvious and interesting (but maybe difficult) questions and the journalist or interviewer will just move on. Tom Ashbrook (On Point) does this especially egregiously. Some of his simplistic (or biased) "So what you're saying is..." moments make me cringe. I realize it's a call in show, but jesus, there isn't anyone out there with a less obvious liberal bias / more technical background who's interested in the job? Let callers or interviewees make their points fairly, then debate them. Rhetorically dancing around the topics with the advantage of being the host just makes me feel like I'm listening to Bill O'Reilly. (Ugh)
- mediaright 9y ago
  You should both check out WNYC'S "On The Media." It's NPR style, but every interview you hear is a 40-60-120 minute interview that's been boiled down to 8-10 min for the show. It's truly bespoke radio in that way, so they get to cover the issues at the core of something. It's my favorite show week to week.
  - 9y ago

tarr11 9y ago

This is called a "driveway moment" in NPR lingo. They even made a series about it! http://www.npr.org/series/700000/driveway-moments http://www.npr.org/series/700000/driveway-moments

vacri 9y ago

In my own experience driving for a little while around the Four Corners area in the desert, there were more than a few spots where the only option was NPR, because all other stations on the dial were glassy-eyed christian proselytising, especially driving Utah -> Colorado. I mean, the kind of radio that even normal christians would be uncomfortable listening to. I like NPR's content anyway, but if you lived in some of those areas, it's the only option that isn't cult-ish.

jessaustin 9y ago
Unfortunately many of these Christian stations have poorly maintained transmitters that broadcast not only on their assigned frequencies but also all over the adjacent NPR stations. Only Christian stations seem to get away with this.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

Check out ABC Radio National. http://abc.net.au/rn http://abc.net.au/rn They do some awesome shows also available as podcast. Bonus: Aussie accent is a barrel of laughs (I say that as an Australian!)

danmaz74 9y ago

Shouldn't a libertarian be against NPR because it's funded by the Federal government? I get confused sometimes.

ajmarsh 9y ago
Yes but we also have to live in the real world. It's on the air so you might as well take advantage of that.
alphakappa 9y ago
Gets some funding from the federal government != funded by the federal government.

eighthnate 9y ago

> I've also heard a lot from my conservative friends that NPR is too liberal but to be honest, I haven't seen that at all. Are you being facetious? NPR is extremely liberal. > [1] I'm a Libertarian and thus social liberal and economically conservative which puts me in the great position of being able to laugh at jokes at the expense of either of the two major parties. I'm moderate independent so I too laugh at both sides. I also don't listen to NPR or watch foxnews as they are a terrible waste of time.

ericcholis 9y ago
NPR's newsroom is very liberal. But, I find their lifestyle pieces or non-news series to be extremely rich.
RankingMember 9y ago
> I also don't listen to NPR or watch foxnews as they are a terrible waste of time. You seem to have a lot to say about something you never listen to because it's a "terrible waste of time".
- eighthnate 9y ago
  > You seem to have a lot to say about something you never listen to because it's a "terrible waste of time". Did I say I never listened to them? I used to as a teen and young adult. I was a big fan of NPR. Even was a supporting member and have their tote bag somewhere( WNYC is my station )... I also used to watched a bit of foxnews, but that was only at work when they had it on. But the past few years, I grew up. I will still listen to radio lab once in a while if they have an interesting topic and maybe catch wait wait don't tell me ( especially if they have an interesting guest ). But for the most part, it's gotten old and boring. But that's my opinion. I'm sure yours is different.
  - DataWorker 9y ago
    It's gotten so dumbed down it's painful to listen to. There are highlights such as Michael Krazny for us locals. But mostly too stupid to bother with. And though I don't watch tv, from what I gather of the Jim Lehrer Newshour on YouTube, PBS seems to be headed in the same direction. I guess it's a reflection of American culture and intellect in general. Sad.

cafard 9y ago

If I ever had to move a lot of Make America Great Again merchandise, I would license clips from "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." I have two main difficulties with NPR. First, as a baby boomer, I wonder whether my generation will let go. WAMU still plays old Car Talk shows on Saturday morning, a couple of years after one of the brothers died. Garrison Keillor did, finally, let go, but it took him a while. Second, so much of it seems to me the self-esteem of the college-bred classes. After a while, I wonder whether it isn't as restrictive to the listeners' viewpoint as the private school. (I suppose that this doesn't apply to truckers so much.) "being able to laugh at jokes at the expense of either of the two major parties". Shouldn't one be able to laugh at jokes that are funny in general? [edit: added missing comma]

murph-almighty 9y ago
>WAMU still plays old Car Talk shows on Saturday morning, a couple of years after one of the brothers died. I occasionally listen to the syndicated podcast. I know next to nothing about cars. Minus the 'forwards from grandma' style jokes that occasionally pop up in the beginning it's a quality program.
extra88 9y ago
Ask Me Another is a newish humorous public radio quiz show hosted by Gen. Xer Ophira Eisenberg with Jonathan Colton (also Gen. X). My impression is public radio quiz shows don't depend on a college education but reward the accumulation of knowledge and attention paid to current events. The college-educated are more likely to to appreciate those rewards. I'm sure there's also the occasional joke or comment that assumes a shared experience found in college but I expect that's rare enough to not completely put off someone who can't relate to that experience (sometimes they'll say it knowingly, making a joke out of assuming everyone has the same background, especially whiteness). http://www.wnyc.org/shows/ask-me-another http://www.wnyc.org/shows/ask-me-another

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I've also heard a lot from my conservative friends that NPR is too liberal but to be honest, I haven't seen that at all. As with the media more general, the “NPR is liberal” line is a decades old part of the effort to pressure coverage to move further to the right that generations of conservatives have been indoctrinated into as an article of faith; its been quite successful, and if it was ever true in any sense other than maybe the coverage not being as far right as the (rightward moving) center of mass of the Republican Party, it hasn't been for a long time.

woodandsteel 9y ago

>I've also heard a lot from my conservative friends that NPR is too liberal but to be honest, I haven't seen that at all. The reason conservatives think NPR is wildly liberal is they don't listen to it. They only listen to conservative media, and it tells them NPR is 100% pro-communism and also is pro-Sharia law. Which anyone who actually listens to it knows is utter nonsense. The lesson here is you should listen directly to both sides, and not just listen to one side and take for granted it is telling you the truth about the other side. NPR is itself is pretty good here. It regularly has conservatives presenting their views. But I also subscribe to a conservative magazine, just to make sure I am getting the whole story.

dang 9y ago

This subthread went full generic-ideological so we detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15068327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15068327 and marked it off-topic.