5 ms·

The young child has some fair merits, NPR has heavily moved its programming toward progressive political ideology compared to day to day life.

by epa 6y ago

bpodgursky 6y ago
I'm absolutely sure NPR would be happy to run a story on racial disparities in paleontology dig crews and the moral challenges and ownership rights when digging up fossils on historically Native American lands.
ch4s3 6y ago
I'm not sure that's how I would describe it, but they have really narrowed their focus in a way that's becoming tedious. Their narrow focus on elite media/academic preoccupations has really made their coverage unappealing. I mean I'm interested in that stuff to an extent, but no everything in the world needs to be examined that way.
- war1025 6y ago
  I had a Facebook memory from four years ago commenting on how I was proud of NPR for covering the beginnings of the Trump presidency in a fair and balanced way. Could only look back and laugh. Not sure where they took a wrong turn, but "fair and balanced" or even "well-rounded" are not terms I would use to describe current NPR.
  - mc32 6y ago
    On their national broadcast they have a couple of reporters who do their best to be balanced (Shapiro and Greene), the rest don't try to balance stories (for example on a budget issue they’ll go to a Democrat and not also add an IND or Republican. Or on immigration, or on workers rights, etc. Those two guys though at least make an effort to have multiple sides for a story and also don’t try to spike the story as others do (from the outset frame something with great bias).
    - war1025 6y ago
      Steve Inskeep is the worst offender in my opinion. I wouldn't say he did it single-handedly, but I went from tripling my monthly donation in the Spring to cancelling my membership and getting rid of my radio in October.
      - hntrader 6y ago
        What's a good contemporary replacement for NPR that gives consistently unmotivated coverage? It's a shame that I'm struggling to think of one example that fits into that category...
        jdminhbg 6y ago
        I think the era of single sources for news coverage is over, for better and for worse. On the one hand, it's harder to just dial to one place on the radio/TV/internet and be well-informed; on the other hand, if you do the work, you get way deeper into interesting subjects than was ever possible before. You can get way more info on Covid out of This Week In Virology than even the competent NPR reporters of yore could have ever given you, for example. Esoteric interviewers like Tyler Cowen (on Conversations With Tyler) are vastly smarter and more perceptive than Terry Gross et al. That said, they are not all located on the same place on a radio dial that you can just trust, and you have to sift through the muck to find them.
  - ch4s3 6y ago
    I don't think that happened in a vacuum, but they have acquitted themselves poorly over the last 4 years. To a large extent media audiences self segregate and demand certain content, and media companies have responded by tailoring their products. That probably further narrows their appeal. I have to imagine that some of these news orgs will simply fail once they become too narrow and audience preferences shift again. News operates in a market just like anything else.
nexthash 6y ago
What does the second part of your sentence have to do with the first part?
- 1123581321 6y ago
  The second part of the sentence describes some of the non-dinosaur content.
- at_a_remove 6y ago
  NPR only has so much content, even if it broadcasts twenty-four hours per day. We can call this total content, TC for short. Now, if NPR has more and more content about "progressive political ideology" (PPIC), there would therefore be less content about any other topical content (AOTC). If PPIC + AOTC = TC, and NPR increases PPIC as TC is held constant, means that AOTC must decrease. I hope that clears it up for you.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Basically some people would prefer that (say) LGBT people just shut up and got on with things rather than address any systemic problems in the world around them. Besides, from an outsider's perspective (not my Tax money!), NPR seems to be a bit like the BBC in that it is continuously mischaracterized as some bastion of the left, when the left usually don't want much of anything to do with it - rather that the correct "ideology" is effectively liberal capitalism (Think Obama, middle of the road type politics) bend over the status quo's knee.
rbanffy 6y ago
What day to day life is and what is political depends on whether you like the current state of affairs or not. For example, if you think minimum wage should be living wage, then saying it's an undue interference with the market will be perceived as a political statement. What happens now in the federal government is immensely important and impactful for every American and NPR can't really avoid covering it. It's essentially their job.
hctaw 6y ago
That take is absurd for two reasons, the biggest that NPR doesn't have "programming" (local member stations decide their schedules) and the second that there is very little "progressive political ideology" on display for the national broadcasts - its remarkably neutral. But anything neutral looks liberal to contemporary conservatives, so what do I know.
- neartheplain 6y ago
  I’m a daily listener to my local NPR station (WAMU). I can’t speak to all stations, but mine is very heavy on the racial justice/equity/reckoning programming. One frustrating thing is that this type of programming takes precedence over all other sorts of local news. I’ve begun to tune out NPR and listen to another news radio station, a CBS affiliate, for coverage that has direct and actionable relevance to my daily life. I’m probably not the only one. It’s not like I’m uninterested in progressive politics, either. What turns me off about NPR’s political programming lately is simply that it’s become boring, predictable, and repetitive.
  - war1025 6y ago
    > What turns me off about NPR’s political programming lately is simply that it’s become boring, predictable, and repetitive. I think the focus on "diversity" or "intersectionality" is largely to blame. If you need to check off 6 boxes on your diversity checklist to cover a story, that rules out the vast majority of subjects.
  - hctaw 6y ago
    NPR isn't news radio, it's talk radio.
    - neartheplain 6y ago
      The local shows on WAMU, such as the Kojo Nnamdi Show, tend to focus on local issues— not news per se, but things like school board decisions and the new Amazon office in Northern Virginia. Lately, these local shows have also shifted more to an equity beat.

The young child has some fair merits, NPR has heavily moved its programming toward progressive political ideology compared to day to day life.

by epa 6y ago

The young child has some fair merits, NPR has heavily moved its programming toward progressive political ideology compared to day to day life.

bpodgursky 6y ago

I'm absolutely sure NPR would be happy to run a story on racial disparities in paleontology dig crews and the moral challenges and ownership rights when digging up fossils on historically Native American lands.

ch4s3 6y ago

I'm not sure that's how I would describe it, but they have really narrowed their focus in a way that's becoming tedious. Their narrow focus on elite media/academic preoccupations has really made their coverage unappealing. I mean I'm interested in that stuff to an extent, but no everything in the world needs to be examined that way.

war1025 6y ago
I had a Facebook memory from four years ago commenting on how I was proud of NPR for covering the beginnings of the Trump presidency in a fair and balanced way. Could only look back and laugh. Not sure where they took a wrong turn, but "fair and balanced" or even "well-rounded" are not terms I would use to describe current NPR.
- mc32 6y ago
  On their national broadcast they have a couple of reporters who do their best to be balanced (Shapiro and Greene), the rest don't try to balance stories (for example on a budget issue they’ll go to a Democrat and not also add an IND or Republican. Or on immigration, or on workers rights, etc. Those two guys though at least make an effort to have multiple sides for a story and also don’t try to spike the story as others do (from the outset frame something with great bias).
  - war1025 6y ago
    Steve Inskeep is the worst offender in my opinion. I wouldn't say he did it single-handedly, but I went from tripling my monthly donation in the Spring to cancelling my membership and getting rid of my radio in October.
    - hntrader 6y ago
      What's a good contemporary replacement for NPR that gives consistently unmotivated coverage? It's a shame that I'm struggling to think of one example that fits into that category...
      - jdminhbg 6y ago
        I think the era of single sources for news coverage is over, for better and for worse. On the one hand, it's harder to just dial to one place on the radio/TV/internet and be well-informed; on the other hand, if you do the work, you get way deeper into interesting subjects than was ever possible before. You can get way more info on Covid out of This Week In Virology than even the competent NPR reporters of yore could have ever given you, for example. Esoteric interviewers like Tyler Cowen (on Conversations With Tyler) are vastly smarter and more perceptive than Terry Gross et al. That said, they are not all located on the same place on a radio dial that you can just trust, and you have to sift through the muck to find them.
- ch4s3 6y ago
  I don't think that happened in a vacuum, but they have acquitted themselves poorly over the last 4 years. To a large extent media audiences self segregate and demand certain content, and media companies have responded by tailoring their products. That probably further narrows their appeal. I have to imagine that some of these news orgs will simply fail once they become too narrow and audience preferences shift again. News operates in a market just like anything else.

nexthash 6y ago

What does the second part of your sentence have to do with the first part?

1123581321 6y ago
The second part of the sentence describes some of the non-dinosaur content.
at_a_remove 6y ago
NPR only has so much content, even if it broadcasts twenty-four hours per day. We can call this total content, TC for short. Now, if NPR has more and more content about "progressive political ideology" (PPIC), there would therefore be less content about any other topical content (AOTC). If PPIC + AOTC = TC, and NPR increases PPIC as TC is held constant, means that AOTC must decrease. I hope that clears it up for you.
mhh__ 6y ago
Basically some people would prefer that (say) LGBT people just shut up and got on with things rather than address any systemic problems in the world around them. Besides, from an outsider's perspective (not my Tax money!), NPR seems to be a bit like the BBC in that it is continuously mischaracterized as some bastion of the left, when the left usually don't want much of anything to do with it - rather that the correct "ideology" is effectively liberal capitalism (Think Obama, middle of the road type politics) bend over the status quo's knee.

rbanffy 6y ago

What day to day life is and what is political depends on whether you like the current state of affairs or not. For example, if you think minimum wage should be living wage, then saying it's an undue interference with the market will be perceived as a political statement. What happens now in the federal government is immensely important and impactful for every American and NPR can't really avoid covering it. It's essentially their job.

hctaw 6y ago

That take is absurd for two reasons, the biggest that NPR doesn't have "programming" (local member stations decide their schedules) and the second that there is very little "progressive political ideology" on display for the national broadcasts - its remarkably neutral. But anything neutral looks liberal to contemporary conservatives, so what do I know.

neartheplain 6y ago
I’m a daily listener to my local NPR station (WAMU). I can’t speak to all stations, but mine is very heavy on the racial justice/equity/reckoning programming. One frustrating thing is that this type of programming takes precedence over all other sorts of local news. I’ve begun to tune out NPR and listen to another news radio station, a CBS affiliate, for coverage that has direct and actionable relevance to my daily life. I’m probably not the only one. It’s not like I’m uninterested in progressive politics, either. What turns me off about NPR’s political programming lately is simply that it’s become boring, predictable, and repetitive.
- war1025 6y ago
  > What turns me off about NPR’s political programming lately is simply that it’s become boring, predictable, and repetitive. I think the focus on "diversity" or "intersectionality" is largely to blame. If you need to check off 6 boxes on your diversity checklist to cover a story, that rules out the vast majority of subjects.
- hctaw 6y ago
  NPR isn't news radio, it's talk radio.
  - neartheplain 6y ago
    The local shows on WAMU, such as the Kojo Nnamdi Show, tend to focus on local issues— not news per se, but things like school board decisions and the new Amazon office in Northern Virginia. Lately, these local shows have also shifted more to an equity beat.