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I grew up listening to NPR, it was always on. Car talk with my dad on the weekends, Prarie home, etc. It's been programed in every car I've owned since I was a

I grew up listening to NPR, it was always on. Car talk with my dad on the weekends, Prarie home, etc. It's been programed in every car I've owned since I was a teenager. My wife and I have listened together and donated for years. But starting around 2019ish it gotten harder and harder to stay engaged with the programming. Almost every piece of reporting is now some kind of soft-outrage human-interest pseudo news. I want to listen but every other story is a tale of victim hood and oppression. It's just too much.

karpatic 2y ago
A lil game I play is to see how long until a pandering buzzword is said from the time I turn on the radio. Usually T < 3 seconds if not the very first word I hear.
kelipso 2y ago
Same, used to be my default radio and podcast listening, then a few years ago they had a major jump in their style/producers/journalists and just couldn't keep listening anymore.
- resource_waste 2y ago
  Their podcasts went from non-fiction stories to advertisements for peoples random cultural book.
jmbwell 2y ago
In fairness, all that soft-outrageous shit is actually happening. But yes, turning off the news from time to time is, in general, good for your health.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  Some years ago I had a deeply weird conversation with a conservative political operative in my area wherein (among other things) they advanced the claim that liberals had demonstrably and totally won the culture wars, and then proceeded to go totally off the rails. I balked at the notion at the time but as the years have gone by I've come to the sullen realization that they had a point.
- bradleyjg 2y ago
  There are 8 billion people on the planet. You can fill 24/7 with whatever kinds of stories you wish—-sad, maddening, inspiring, funny, joyful, and outrageous too. It’s pure choice to pick the last one, it’s not in any way forced by reality.
  - josephg 2y ago
    Yeah. I always find it a strong tell when people make statements like “make the world a bit less shitty” or “… in reaction to the horribleness of everything”. The world is no more shitty than it was 40 years ago - but the general public perception of the world seems to have gotten much bleaker. Like you, I attribute a lot of that to social media. I left Twitter and Facebook a few years ago and my outlook on life got much better. I want my news to be balanced. Not all positive or all negative. I want to be pandered to sometimes, and sometimes challenged on my world views. So I found sources that would give me that. I totally agree with your comment - you media diet is pure choice. Make it a healthy diet for you.
    - justin66 2y ago
      > The world is no more shitty than it was 40 years ago - but the general public perception of the world seems to have gotten much bleaker. I'll call bullshit (what is it about a thread on the media that so often necessitates this?). I don't have an objective measure for shittiness, but in terms of the bleakness of public perception of the world I feel more confident in making a comment: forty years ago, The Day After had just aired.
      - bradleyjg 2y ago
        GenX wasn’t moping around not having sex or kids or fun because they were upset about the state of the world. Even in the freaking blitz they were having more sex and kids and fun than Generation Eeoyore.
        justin66 2y ago
        I don't know how to comment on how much sex the kids are having these days without sounding like a creep, but if you weren't there, you'll need to take my word that the cold war had its highly bleak moments involving fear of armageddon and the AIDS epidemic, with which nothing today really compares. Today has more ennui and blatant idiocy, perhaps, but we were pretty good at that too.
wumeow 2y ago
Every time I tune in, I measure the time-to-race, which is the amount of time that passes before race becomes the main topic of discussion. Usually it’s less than 15 minutes.
- unethical_ban 2y ago
  Similar! I think some of the flagship programs talk nonstop about LGBT and minority issues, but this has been a thing for some years. I remember pre COVID driving to work chuckling at how every time I turned on the radio, it was a story on those topics. There is a lot more going on in the world that can also be discussed. I like Weekend edition and All Things Considered, and their hourly news updates. Finally: there is a distinction between a faux "both sides" centrism and constant focus on identity. Having a liberal bias can exist while providing a wide range of coverage and de-emphasizing identity politics.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    If my local affiliate talked about LGBTQ stuff I would probably start turning the radio on again.
  - superb_dev 2y ago
    If we could solve these issues, maybe we could stop talking about them
    - willis936 2y ago
      Does force feeding develop an appetite?
      - hackable_sand 2y ago
        [flagged]
        chris_wot 2y ago
ordinaryradical 2y ago
A useful heuristic for measuring news quality is to ask yourself, “Am I more informed about what’s happening or about what people are angry about.” Like you, I was a life-long listener and donater. I stopped both during the pandemic when I noticed NPR was playing the anger game, like every other outlet, for social media points.
- lainga 2y ago
  Big context shift for me was realising roughly 2019 that Portal:Current events could efficiently replace 95% of my news scrolling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
  - vraylle 2y ago
    I had no idea this existed. Me likey. Now if I can just get this as an RSS feed....
    - wizardwes 2y ago
      Same here. Let me know if you find a good solution
      - pulpfictional 2y ago
        https://www.to-rss.xyz/wikipedia/ https://www.to-rss.xyz/wikipedia/
      - lainga 2y ago
        Here's as close as I got with a bit of fiddling. You may or may not be able to winnow out minor changes using the inverttags parameter [] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1&urlversion=2&days=7&target=Category%3A2024_by_day&action=feedrecentchanges&feedformat=rss https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?hidebots=1&hidecategoriza... [] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=help&modules=feedrecentchanges https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=help&modules=feedr...
aaronax 2y ago
Images of what I imagine to be their yearly performance goals rush through my head as soon as it turns to victim, race, oppression, etc. "25% of stories uplifting Black voices" etc. It just seems so forced.
- kenjackson 2y ago
  Would “a focus on making sure we also give the conservative angle“ also seem forced?
  - unethical_ban 2y ago
    My opinion is that news coverage and liberal politics should focus less on race and identity, not more. That isn't to say we ignore it, but not every issue in cities and states and countries revolves around identity, and an over-emphasis on it comes off as ideological.
    - kenjackson 2y ago
      But your position starts from the basis that we were race-neutral to begin with. I think part of the reason that there is an emphasis on "positive black voices" is the belief that the default narrative is implicitly negative toward blacks. So without intention you'll simply perpetuate the negative voices. For example, would the same people who say "we focus too much on race" view Desantis's policies and opinions as "race neutral"?
      - unethical_ban 2y ago
        >the belief that the default narrative is implicitly negative toward blacks Well, I disagree with that. I just said NPR specifically focuses too much on identity politics, and I think Desantis is implementing anti-LGBT, anti-education, anti-freedom and anti-democracy legislation. I dont support the dichotomy that one must either desire an abundance of identity-based journalism or be blind to the issues minorities face. I think many of the problems this country faces, which may disproportionately affect minorities, can be covered without it being race-based. Poverty, healthcare, education, environment, climate change, foreign policy affect all.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
The indicator on NPR is one of my favorite podcasts, and doesn't play the outrage games.
- photonthug 2y ago
  And Berliner apparently helped to start planet money, which indicator is a spin off of. That’s almost the sum total of real news that’s still available at npr :(
  - unethical_ban 2y ago
    They have an editorial bent but they still get facts right. Not to mention the invaluable local news that is miles above most other local coverage.
  - justin66 2y ago
    Oh, bullshit. Marketplace is also a great podcast.
    - markkennedy 2y ago
      Maybe pedantic, but Marketplace is produced by American Public Media[1], not National Public Radio, though you hear it on NPR affiliate stations. [1] https://www.americanpublicmedia.org/ https://www.americanpublicmedia.org/
    - aranchelk 2y ago
      It is excellent, but it’s distributed by American Public Media, not NPR.
      - justin66 2y ago
        Oh my - that’s a really good point, and I should know better. It’s not like those distinctions don’t come up all the time when taking about public radio.
xracy 2y ago
Is this discomfort with the state of the world? Cause I think the goal is that you feel inclined towards action on that. The state of the world isn't... all good. We've got some serious issues right now. And it seems like a lot of people are complaining that they have to hear about that (I will point out almost no other news station is doing this, so also as a proportion of news this seems kinda reasonable) rather than that others are experiencing the bad things. It's funny to me because their used to be a conservative take that liberals needed safe spaces to talk about all of this stuff, and when it's actually in the media people don't want to grapple with it. I would bet that the most vocal proponents of changing this dialogue lean conservative as well.
- BeetleB 2y ago
  > Is this discomfort with the state of the world? There are two separate critiques going on: 1. There is a lot of bias in the news coverage. 2. There is a lot more to a radio station than covering the state of the world (news, social issues, etc). There's stuff like entertainment, humor, etc. A lot of people are arguing about 2 above. There's always malnutrition somewhere in the world (and yes, in the US). But we don't criticize the existence of movie theaters.
  - xracy 2y ago
    I mean, I listen to a lot of NPR for entertainment/humor/etc... WWDTM, PCHH, This American Life, Planet Money. If the complaint is about #2, then I don't see it in these NPR shows. So I'm assuming they must be talking about #1. OR, they're complaining cause not all of the newscasters are white (they sampled Garrison Keillor, and the Car Talk guys as their examples)? Either way, feels like more of a problem the listener is grappling with than a problem with the actual content, to me.
- goatlover 2y ago
  I don't think it's the media's place to make us feel inclined to take action. What action, exactly? Progressive, conservative, green, techno-optimist, religious, etc? It's their job to report on whatever is news-worthy, and it's up to viewers what they want to do with that information. I don't agree with pushing agendas disguised as news. That used to be mainly a Fox News and AM-talk radio thing. It's dissapointing to see the rest of media follow suit.
johndhi 2y ago
Car Talk with my dad was so fun
resource_waste 2y ago
One time they said that fast food was cheaper than grocery food. It was so wrong, that I never listened to NPR since.
- krapp 2y ago
  > One time they said that fast food was cheaper than grocery food. It often is. I can get a burger and fries at McDonalds for far less than the cost in ingredients to make it myself.
  - tekla 2y ago
    You must be the type to buy ingredients in units of 1 of each and then complain that its more expensive than buying the fast food meal.
    - krapp 2y ago
      No. I never said I actually made that complaint, because I don't. I was just pointing out that contrary to resource_waste's assertion above, fast food can in fact be less expensive than grocery food. It is not a statement of error so egregious as to be worth writing off the content of an entire media organization.
      - bombcar 2y ago
        It's a statement, that even if you "well acshually" it hard enough to make it work, is still useless. Can a particular fast food meal be cheaper than some similar grocery store meal? Yes. Is a fast food meal cheaper that the maximum cheapness calories per dollar than everything you can get at a grocery store? No. Will people who hear it hear the second or the first?
        a1369209993 2y ago
        > Will people who hear it hear the second or the first? Definitely unambiguously the first unless they're the ones trying to "well acshually" it. At the point of the second you're not even talking about burgers - the maximum cheapness calories per dollar is a five gallon jug of corn syrup or something.
BeetleB 2y ago
> I grew up listening to NPR, it was always on. Car talk with my dad on the weekends, Prarie home, etc. Note: These are not NPR shows. They're merely shows that your (and most) local NPR affiliates purchased for broadcasting. If you think your local affiliate doesn't have enough of these types of shows, let them know! Many local affiliates have wide discretion on the programming. More details: https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-public-media https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-pub...
- willcipriano 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - BeetleB 2y ago
    Did the affiliate say it or just some random show said it?
  - nostromo 2y ago
    The funny thing is that NPR's listenership is extremely white. National Review showed a while back that 90% of listeners are white. More recent numbers estimate it's around 80%. Believe it or not, Fox News' viewership is much more diverse than NPR's. NPR fails dramatically by the standards of diversity that they hold everyone else to. It makes sense that they now cater exclusively to self-hating white people, since that's the only market they have left after years of declines in programming quality.
    - wannacboatmovie 2y ago
      They have to cater to the group of people that would willingly spend $50 on a tote bag with their logo on it.
    - dingnuts 2y ago
      This isn't surprising and doesn't contradict the parent at all. The most obnoxiously nouveau-racist people are predominantly white, like Robin DiAngelo Like, seriously, do you think Latin people came up with the term "Latinx"? This strain of self-hating progressivism has been predominantly white for-ev-er
trashface 2y ago
I don't listen anymore but still like to use text.npr.org for news, its pretty easy to scan the headlines and mentally filter out most of the social justice pieces (and there are a lot of them). TBF I don't think NPR is really much different then most other mainstream lefty sources. I think axios is way worse than NPR (a lot of their "articles" are just vibes with really poor evidence, at least NPR still tries to do some traditional reporting).
- doublepg23 2y ago
  You may like https://brutalist.report/ https://brutalist.report/ - very easy to filter just by changing the URL query too.
- bevekspldnw 2y ago
  Same, and it’s pretty good. Not sure what the complaints are as I only use the text only version.
voidwtf 2y ago
It's hard to say how much of that is manufactured outrage and how much is an unsettling new reality. It may not be your reality, but for an increasing number of people quality of life is deteriorating. Not saying you're wrong, just saying that we shouldn't completely tune out everything that doesn't fit our own reality.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  > It's hard to say how much of that is manufactured outrage and how much is an unsettling new reality. There's plenty of unsettling new reality, I'll give you that. And it should be reported on, even if it makes people uncomfortable. But how is it reported on? There's a difference between "here's the economic reality of 20% of of the population" and "you should be outraged about the economy". And if you listen in order to analyze the way the story is told rather than to hear what the story is about, you can tell which is which fairly reliably. Much of the left has gone from "we're going to report the stories that happen" to "we're going to report the things we think need to be reported, like poverty" (which is all right, as long as they also report the news), to "we're going to report things so as to make you become politically active on the side that we think you should". That last step is highly problematic. For one thing, once you're that blatantly a cheerleader for one side, can I trust that you're telling the truth about what you're reporting on, or are you distorting it out of all resemblance to reality?
SubiculumCode 2y ago
NPR has been downgraded, intellectually. They follow the rest of the news, discussing the same topics with the same framing as the rest of the media, following whatever hot topic there is at the moment, no matter how trivial. News and discussion is often spoon-fed in bite sized chunks that miss nuance and lack the willingness to go past the headlines to the real meat of the issue for fear of boring less sophisticated listeners. Its become boring, repetitive, and uninformative in the vast majority of the stories I hear on NPR One. It is a sad state of affairs.
tick_tock_tick 2y ago
> Almost every piece of reporting is now some kind of soft-outrage human-interest pseudo news. God yes I hate it! I can listen for 20 minute and not walk away with a single fact or learn anything new.
Tokkemon 2y ago
Stick with Consider This and the NPR News. NPR Politics Podcast is great too. I tend to avoid the opinion stuff since, yes, it's definitely got an overly-lefty outrage-bait angle.
soAnd 2y ago
[dead]
Modified3019 2y ago
Yep, many years ago NPR was quite eclectic and a great way to satisfy my curiosity on weekends as a kid or later at my factory job. Incidentally, it now occurs to me that HN is basically my current replacement. Even if I have zero interest in a linked topic, I’ll often find a comment or discussion that’s enlightening and furthers my perspective of something in a meaningful and positive way.
- kulahan 2y ago
  I treasure this site and the insightful comments I read. It’s one of the last places I’ve found on the internet where someone can bring up a controversial topic and get legitimate responses.
  - ryanisnan 2y ago
    This is an under appreciated statement. Pre-Elon takeover of Twitter, I tried for months to engage in legitimate, argumentative yet constructive conversations. I was met time and time again with reductive, inflammatory, and disingenuous responses. And this was in the infosec community, one that for years was one of, in my opinion, last places on Twitter for that kind of discourse. I quit shortly after.
    - cvwright 2y ago
      This might be the first time I’ve heard someone refer to infosec Twitter in a positive light. They were always inflammatory and belligerent and spiteful. The same crowd has now migrated to ActivityPub. You can find them there still acting the same way today.
  - megous 2y ago
    Only about computer technology. Other topics here are undistinguashable from the rest of the general Internet.
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      I dunno, certainly there's much more a norm of politeness here, along with decent moderation. To contrast, the FT used to have good comments (and still does on really obscure topics) but overall they've gone massively downhill because of the lack of decent norms around thoughtful conversation.
DarmokJalad1701 2y ago
I used to listen to NPR quite a bit after moving to the US, mostly during my commutes. Over the last few years, it has gotten worse and worse. The point where I stopped listening to it and switched to podcasts was when they had someone claiming that office breakrooms were "basically white spaces" where non-white people do not belong (and calling for remote work as the alternative). And the interviewer essentially took them at face value. Have these people not heard of office breakrooms existing outside of white-majority countries? I would bet that having food together in a communal setting is a team-building and fun activity throughout the world regardless of skin-color. Most likely, this was some young, introverted person who was uncomfortable being in a group and wanted to somehow bring in race into that to justify their viewpoint. As someone who isn't white, this sort of coddling non-sense is simply infuriating. I do not want to be judged based on what I look like, and platforming/pushing these sort of views does exactly that. They have become the very caricature of what right-wing news makes out liberals to be.
- elevatedastalt 2y ago
  You've always had narcissistic people make everything about themselves or seeing victimhood everywhere. However what's new is that as long as claims being made are of a certain type, they are not only accepted uncritically, but in fact trying to challenge them can be dangerous for your employment status. So essentially no one can call BS on their ideas because no dissent on these topics is allowed.
- unholythree 2y ago
  I recall hearing an NPR piece in the past couple months that was discussing how best to handle reparations for slavery. The entire piece clearly came from the conceit that reparations would be good and desirable. All of the expert interviewees supported and spoke favorably of reparations with no counterpoints, the few opponents were extemporaneous "man on the street" interviews. The end effect was an one sided piece almost contemptuously disregarding any opposition. Certainly not a convincing message to the 68% of US adults (including 49% of Democrats) that don't support reparations. More than the staking a clear political position on the matter, it was the presumption and condescension that was the most off-putting. Far too often their pieces have adopted that tone. With the "right-thinking" guest or guests interviewed by the "right-thinking" host about a issue clearly the listener would agree with too... if they are "right-thinking."
chiefalchemist 2y ago
If you think NPR has fallen - and it has - try following The Economist on Instagram. Talk about a once reputable media outlet losing it's way. Nearly every post feels like they fell asleep next to a BuzzFeed pod.
- sandspar 2y ago
  The Economist has a firewall between its magazine and its social media team. The magazine is still good.
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    IDK, the articles they post on social are all over the road. More clickbait-y than The Economist-ic.
pkulak 2y ago
Yeah. There are sooo many good podcasts (so much so that I am still a “sustaining member” of OPB because of all the value they bring me), but if you turn it on in the car at a random time, you’re going to die of boredom.
listless 2y ago
I used to love listening to All Things Considered followed by Planet Money every day on my grueling commute home from work. It was my only companion. I haven't turned it on in years. I mourn the loss. Living in a red area NPR was a much-needed breath of Fresh Air.
WalterSear 2y ago
Sure. It's a real problen. But that was a verging-on-cover-story part of Berliner's criticism, which was just another crypto-fascist diatribe, of the kind that are currently so depressingly ubiquitious.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pyuser583 2y ago
I live in a very liberal part of America. Wokeness is not popular with anybody. 20% of America is outraged, 60% is willing to give woke media a try as long is it’s entertaining and not too preachy, 15% gives extra points for “representation” but still wants a good story, and 5% thinks it doesn’t go far enough. Part of this is generational. In the workplace, I suspect “representation” is a proxy for age discrimination. I’ve seen too many old white men pushed aside for much, much, much younger minorities. Seems like thats happening at NPR.
nsagent 2y ago
I similarly stopped listening to NPR around 2018, because they really leaned into news commentary with a very one-sided bias. I could no longer stand the preachiness of their newer programming, and it seemed that the more established folks like Robert Siegel and Steve Inskeep got roped into toeing the line as well. I think the Trump era really broke a lot of news sources I previously relied on.

karpatic 2y ago

A lil game I play is to see how long until a pandering buzzword is said from the time I turn on the radio. Usually T < 3 seconds if not the very first word I hear.

kelipso 2y ago

Same, used to be my default radio and podcast listening, then a few years ago they had a major jump in their style/producers/journalists and just couldn't keep listening anymore.

resource_waste 2y ago
Their podcasts went from non-fiction stories to advertisements for peoples random cultural book.

jmbwell 2y ago

In fairness, all that soft-outrageous shit is actually happening. But yes, turning off the news from time to time is, in general, good for your health.

forgetfreeman 2y ago
Some years ago I had a deeply weird conversation with a conservative political operative in my area wherein (among other things) they advanced the claim that liberals had demonstrably and totally won the culture wars, and then proceeded to go totally off the rails. I balked at the notion at the time but as the years have gone by I've come to the sullen realization that they had a point.
bradleyjg 2y ago
There are 8 billion people on the planet. You can fill 24/7 with whatever kinds of stories you wish—-sad, maddening, inspiring, funny, joyful, and outrageous too. It’s pure choice to pick the last one, it’s not in any way forced by reality.
- josephg 2y ago
  Yeah. I always find it a strong tell when people make statements like “make the world a bit less shitty” or “… in reaction to the horribleness of everything”. The world is no more shitty than it was 40 years ago - but the general public perception of the world seems to have gotten much bleaker. Like you, I attribute a lot of that to social media. I left Twitter and Facebook a few years ago and my outlook on life got much better. I want my news to be balanced. Not all positive or all negative. I want to be pandered to sometimes, and sometimes challenged on my world views. So I found sources that would give me that. I totally agree with your comment - you media diet is pure choice. Make it a healthy diet for you.
  - justin66 2y ago
    > The world is no more shitty than it was 40 years ago - but the general public perception of the world seems to have gotten much bleaker. I'll call bullshit (what is it about a thread on the media that so often necessitates this?). I don't have an objective measure for shittiness, but in terms of the bleakness of public perception of the world I feel more confident in making a comment: forty years ago, The Day After had just aired.
    - bradleyjg 2y ago
      GenX wasn’t moping around not having sex or kids or fun because they were upset about the state of the world. Even in the freaking blitz they were having more sex and kids and fun than Generation Eeoyore.
      - justin66 2y ago
        I don't know how to comment on how much sex the kids are having these days without sounding like a creep, but if you weren't there, you'll need to take my word that the cold war had its highly bleak moments involving fear of armageddon and the AIDS epidemic, with which nothing today really compares. Today has more ennui and blatant idiocy, perhaps, but we were pretty good at that too.

wumeow 2y ago

Every time I tune in, I measure the time-to-race, which is the amount of time that passes before race becomes the main topic of discussion. Usually it’s less than 15 minutes.

unethical_ban 2y ago
Similar! I think some of the flagship programs talk nonstop about LGBT and minority issues, but this has been a thing for some years. I remember pre COVID driving to work chuckling at how every time I turned on the radio, it was a story on those topics. There is a lot more going on in the world that can also be discussed. I like Weekend edition and All Things Considered, and their hourly news updates. Finally: there is a distinction between a faux "both sides" centrism and constant focus on identity. Having a liberal bias can exist while providing a wide range of coverage and de-emphasizing identity politics.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  If my local affiliate talked about LGBTQ stuff I would probably start turning the radio on again.
- superb_dev 2y ago
  If we could solve these issues, maybe we could stop talking about them
  - willis936 2y ago
    Does force feeding develop an appetite?
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - chris_wot 2y ago

ordinaryradical 2y ago

A useful heuristic for measuring news quality is to ask yourself, “Am I more informed about what’s happening or about what people are angry about.” Like you, I was a life-long listener and donater. I stopped both during the pandemic when I noticed NPR was playing the anger game, like every other outlet, for social media points.

lainga 2y ago
Big context shift for me was realising roughly 2019 that Portal:Current events could efficiently replace 95% of my news scrolling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
- vraylle 2y ago
  I had no idea this existed. Me likey. Now if I can just get this as an RSS feed....
  - wizardwes 2y ago
    Same here. Let me know if you find a good solution
    - pulpfictional 2y ago
      https://www.to-rss.xyz/wikipedia/ https://www.to-rss.xyz/wikipedia/
    - lainga 2y ago
      Here's as close as I got with a bit of fiddling. You may or may not be able to winnow out minor changes using the inverttags parameter [] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1&urlversion=2&days=7&target=Category%3A2024_by_day&action=feedrecentchanges&feedformat=rss https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?hidebots=1&hidecategoriza... [] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=help&modules=feedrecentchanges https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=help&modules=feedr...

aaronax 2y ago

Images of what I imagine to be their yearly performance goals rush through my head as soon as it turns to victim, race, oppression, etc. "25% of stories uplifting Black voices" etc. It just seems so forced.

kenjackson 2y ago
Would “a focus on making sure we also give the conservative angle“ also seem forced?
- unethical_ban 2y ago
  My opinion is that news coverage and liberal politics should focus less on race and identity, not more. That isn't to say we ignore it, but not every issue in cities and states and countries revolves around identity, and an over-emphasis on it comes off as ideological.
  - kenjackson 2y ago
    But your position starts from the basis that we were race-neutral to begin with. I think part of the reason that there is an emphasis on "positive black voices" is the belief that the default narrative is implicitly negative toward blacks. So without intention you'll simply perpetuate the negative voices. For example, would the same people who say "we focus too much on race" view Desantis's policies and opinions as "race neutral"?
    - unethical_ban 2y ago
      >the belief that the default narrative is implicitly negative toward blacks Well, I disagree with that. I just said NPR specifically focuses too much on identity politics, and I think Desantis is implementing anti-LGBT, anti-education, anti-freedom and anti-democracy legislation. I dont support the dichotomy that one must either desire an abundance of identity-based journalism or be blind to the issues minorities face. I think many of the problems this country faces, which may disproportionately affect minorities, can be covered without it being race-based. Poverty, healthcare, education, environment, climate change, foreign policy affect all.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

The indicator on NPR is one of my favorite podcasts, and doesn't play the outrage games.

photonthug 2y ago
And Berliner apparently helped to start planet money, which indicator is a spin off of. That’s almost the sum total of real news that’s still available at npr :(
- unethical_ban 2y ago
  They have an editorial bent but they still get facts right. Not to mention the invaluable local news that is miles above most other local coverage.
- justin66 2y ago
  Oh, bullshit. Marketplace is also a great podcast.
  - markkennedy 2y ago
    Maybe pedantic, but Marketplace is produced by American Public Media[1], not National Public Radio, though you hear it on NPR affiliate stations. [1] https://www.americanpublicmedia.org/ https://www.americanpublicmedia.org/
  - aranchelk 2y ago
    It is excellent, but it’s distributed by American Public Media, not NPR.
    - justin66 2y ago
      Oh my - that’s a really good point, and I should know better. It’s not like those distinctions don’t come up all the time when taking about public radio.

xracy 2y ago

Is this discomfort with the state of the world? Cause I think the goal is that you feel inclined towards action on that. The state of the world isn't... all good. We've got some serious issues right now. And it seems like a lot of people are complaining that they have to hear about that (I will point out almost no other news station is doing this, so also as a proportion of news this seems kinda reasonable) rather than that others are experiencing the bad things. It's funny to me because their used to be a conservative take that liberals needed safe spaces to talk about all of this stuff, and when it's actually in the media people don't want to grapple with it. I would bet that the most vocal proponents of changing this dialogue lean conservative as well.

BeetleB 2y ago
> Is this discomfort with the state of the world? There are two separate critiques going on: 1. There is a lot of bias in the news coverage. 2. There is a lot more to a radio station than covering the state of the world (news, social issues, etc). There's stuff like entertainment, humor, etc. A lot of people are arguing about 2 above. There's always malnutrition somewhere in the world (and yes, in the US). But we don't criticize the existence of movie theaters.
- xracy 2y ago
  I mean, I listen to a lot of NPR for entertainment/humor/etc... WWDTM, PCHH, This American Life, Planet Money. If the complaint is about #2, then I don't see it in these NPR shows. So I'm assuming they must be talking about #1. OR, they're complaining cause not all of the newscasters are white (they sampled Garrison Keillor, and the Car Talk guys as their examples)? Either way, feels like more of a problem the listener is grappling with than a problem with the actual content, to me.
goatlover 2y ago
I don't think it's the media's place to make us feel inclined to take action. What action, exactly? Progressive, conservative, green, techno-optimist, religious, etc? It's their job to report on whatever is news-worthy, and it's up to viewers what they want to do with that information. I don't agree with pushing agendas disguised as news. That used to be mainly a Fox News and AM-talk radio thing. It's dissapointing to see the rest of media follow suit.

johndhi 2y ago

Car Talk with my dad was so fun

resource_waste 2y ago

One time they said that fast food was cheaper than grocery food. It was so wrong, that I never listened to NPR since.

krapp 2y ago
> One time they said that fast food was cheaper than grocery food. It often is. I can get a burger and fries at McDonalds for far less than the cost in ingredients to make it myself.
- tekla 2y ago
  You must be the type to buy ingredients in units of 1 of each and then complain that its more expensive than buying the fast food meal.
  - krapp 2y ago
    No. I never said I actually made that complaint, because I don't. I was just pointing out that contrary to resource_waste's assertion above, fast food can in fact be less expensive than grocery food. It is not a statement of error so egregious as to be worth writing off the content of an entire media organization.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      It's a statement, that even if you "well acshually" it hard enough to make it work, is still useless. Can a particular fast food meal be cheaper than some similar grocery store meal? Yes. Is a fast food meal cheaper that the maximum cheapness calories per dollar than everything you can get at a grocery store? No. Will people who hear it hear the second or the first?
      - a1369209993 2y ago
        > Will people who hear it hear the second or the first? Definitely unambiguously the first unless they're the ones trying to "well acshually" it. At the point of the second you're not even talking about burgers - the maximum cheapness calories per dollar is a five gallon jug of corn syrup or something.

BeetleB 2y ago

> I grew up listening to NPR, it was always on. Car talk with my dad on the weekends, Prarie home, etc. Note: These are not NPR shows. They're merely shows that your (and most) local NPR affiliates purchased for broadcasting. If you think your local affiliate doesn't have enough of these types of shows, let them know! Many local affiliates have wide discretion on the programming. More details: https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-public-media https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-pub...

willcipriano 2y ago
[flagged]
- BeetleB 2y ago
  Did the affiliate say it or just some random show said it?
- nostromo 2y ago
  The funny thing is that NPR's listenership is extremely white. National Review showed a while back that 90% of listeners are white. More recent numbers estimate it's around 80%. Believe it or not, Fox News' viewership is much more diverse than NPR's. NPR fails dramatically by the standards of diversity that they hold everyone else to. It makes sense that they now cater exclusively to self-hating white people, since that's the only market they have left after years of declines in programming quality.
  - wannacboatmovie 2y ago
    They have to cater to the group of people that would willingly spend $50 on a tote bag with their logo on it.
  - dingnuts 2y ago
    This isn't surprising and doesn't contradict the parent at all. The most obnoxiously nouveau-racist people are predominantly white, like Robin DiAngelo Like, seriously, do you think Latin people came up with the term "Latinx"? This strain of self-hating progressivism has been predominantly white for-ev-er

trashface 2y ago

I don't listen anymore but still like to use text.npr.org for news, its pretty easy to scan the headlines and mentally filter out most of the social justice pieces (and there are a lot of them). TBF I don't think NPR is really much different then most other mainstream lefty sources. I think axios is way worse than NPR (a lot of their "articles" are just vibes with really poor evidence, at least NPR still tries to do some traditional reporting).

doublepg23 2y ago
You may like https://brutalist.report/ https://brutalist.report/ - very easy to filter just by changing the URL query too.
bevekspldnw 2y ago
Same, and it’s pretty good. Not sure what the complaints are as I only use the text only version.

voidwtf 2y ago

It's hard to say how much of that is manufactured outrage and how much is an unsettling new reality. It may not be your reality, but for an increasing number of people quality of life is deteriorating. Not saying you're wrong, just saying that we shouldn't completely tune out everything that doesn't fit our own reality.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
> It's hard to say how much of that is manufactured outrage and how much is an unsettling new reality. There's plenty of unsettling new reality, I'll give you that. And it should be reported on, even if it makes people uncomfortable. But how is it reported on? There's a difference between "here's the economic reality of 20% of of the population" and "you should be outraged about the economy". And if you listen in order to analyze the way the story is told rather than to hear what the story is about, you can tell which is which fairly reliably. Much of the left has gone from "we're going to report the stories that happen" to "we're going to report the things we think need to be reported, like poverty" (which is all right, as long as they also report the news), to "we're going to report things so as to make you become politically active on the side that we think you should". That last step is highly problematic. For one thing, once you're that blatantly a cheerleader for one side, can I trust that you're telling the truth about what you're reporting on, or are you distorting it out of all resemblance to reality?

SubiculumCode 2y ago

NPR has been downgraded, intellectually. They follow the rest of the news, discussing the same topics with the same framing as the rest of the media, following whatever hot topic there is at the moment, no matter how trivial. News and discussion is often spoon-fed in bite sized chunks that miss nuance and lack the willingness to go past the headlines to the real meat of the issue for fear of boring less sophisticated listeners. Its become boring, repetitive, and uninformative in the vast majority of the stories I hear on NPR One. It is a sad state of affairs.

tick_tock_tick 2y ago

> Almost every piece of reporting is now some kind of soft-outrage human-interest pseudo news. God yes I hate it! I can listen for 20 minute and not walk away with a single fact or learn anything new.

Tokkemon 2y ago

Stick with Consider This and the NPR News. NPR Politics Podcast is great too. I tend to avoid the opinion stuff since, yes, it's definitely got an overly-lefty outrage-bait angle.

soAnd 2y ago

[dead]

Modified3019 2y ago

Yep, many years ago NPR was quite eclectic and a great way to satisfy my curiosity on weekends as a kid or later at my factory job. Incidentally, it now occurs to me that HN is basically my current replacement. Even if I have zero interest in a linked topic, I’ll often find a comment or discussion that’s enlightening and furthers my perspective of something in a meaningful and positive way.

kulahan 2y ago
I treasure this site and the insightful comments I read. It’s one of the last places I’ve found on the internet where someone can bring up a controversial topic and get legitimate responses.
- ryanisnan 2y ago
  This is an under appreciated statement. Pre-Elon takeover of Twitter, I tried for months to engage in legitimate, argumentative yet constructive conversations. I was met time and time again with reductive, inflammatory, and disingenuous responses. And this was in the infosec community, one that for years was one of, in my opinion, last places on Twitter for that kind of discourse. I quit shortly after.
  - cvwright 2y ago
    This might be the first time I’ve heard someone refer to infosec Twitter in a positive light. They were always inflammatory and belligerent and spiteful. The same crowd has now migrated to ActivityPub. You can find them there still acting the same way today.
- megous 2y ago
  Only about computer technology. Other topics here are undistinguashable from the rest of the general Internet.
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    I dunno, certainly there's much more a norm of politeness here, along with decent moderation. To contrast, the FT used to have good comments (and still does on really obscure topics) but overall they've gone massively downhill because of the lack of decent norms around thoughtful conversation.

DarmokJalad1701 2y ago

I used to listen to NPR quite a bit after moving to the US, mostly during my commutes. Over the last few years, it has gotten worse and worse. The point where I stopped listening to it and switched to podcasts was when they had someone claiming that office breakrooms were "basically white spaces" where non-white people do not belong (and calling for remote work as the alternative). And the interviewer essentially took them at face value. Have these people not heard of office breakrooms existing outside of white-majority countries? I would bet that having food together in a communal setting is a team-building and fun activity throughout the world regardless of skin-color. Most likely, this was some young, introverted person who was uncomfortable being in a group and wanted to somehow bring in race into that to justify their viewpoint. As someone who isn't white, this sort of coddling non-sense is simply infuriating. I do not want to be judged based on what I look like, and platforming/pushing these sort of views does exactly that. They have become the very caricature of what right-wing news makes out liberals to be.

elevatedastalt 2y ago
You've always had narcissistic people make everything about themselves or seeing victimhood everywhere. However what's new is that as long as claims being made are of a certain type, they are not only accepted uncritically, but in fact trying to challenge them can be dangerous for your employment status. So essentially no one can call BS on their ideas because no dissent on these topics is allowed.
unholythree 2y ago
I recall hearing an NPR piece in the past couple months that was discussing how best to handle reparations for slavery. The entire piece clearly came from the conceit that reparations would be good and desirable. All of the expert interviewees supported and spoke favorably of reparations with no counterpoints, the few opponents were extemporaneous "man on the street" interviews. The end effect was an one sided piece almost contemptuously disregarding any opposition. Certainly not a convincing message to the 68% of US adults (including 49% of Democrats) that don't support reparations. More than the staking a clear political position on the matter, it was the presumption and condescension that was the most off-putting. Far too often their pieces have adopted that tone. With the "right-thinking" guest or guests interviewed by the "right-thinking" host about a issue clearly the listener would agree with too... if they are "right-thinking."

chiefalchemist 2y ago

If you think NPR has fallen - and it has - try following The Economist on Instagram. Talk about a once reputable media outlet losing it's way. Nearly every post feels like they fell asleep next to a BuzzFeed pod.

sandspar 2y ago
The Economist has a firewall between its magazine and its social media team. The magazine is still good.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  IDK, the articles they post on social are all over the road. More clickbait-y than The Economist-ic.

pkulak 2y ago

Yeah. There are sooo many good podcasts (so much so that I am still a “sustaining member” of OPB because of all the value they bring me), but if you turn it on in the car at a random time, you’re going to die of boredom.

listless 2y ago

I used to love listening to All Things Considered followed by Planet Money every day on my grueling commute home from work. It was my only companion. I haven't turned it on in years. I mourn the loss. Living in a red area NPR was a much-needed breath of Fresh Air.

WalterSear 2y ago

Sure. It's a real problen. But that was a verging-on-cover-story part of Berliner's criticism, which was just another crypto-fascist diatribe, of the kind that are currently so depressingly ubiquitious.

deleted 2y ago

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pyuser583 2y ago

I live in a very liberal part of America. Wokeness is not popular with anybody. 20% of America is outraged, 60% is willing to give woke media a try as long is it’s entertaining and not too preachy, 15% gives extra points for “representation” but still wants a good story, and 5% thinks it doesn’t go far enough. Part of this is generational. In the workplace, I suspect “representation” is a proxy for age discrimination. I’ve seen too many old white men pushed aside for much, much, much younger minorities. Seems like thats happening at NPR.

nsagent 2y ago

I similarly stopped listening to NPR around 2018, because they really leaned into news commentary with a very one-sided bias. I could no longer stand the preachiness of their newer programming, and it seemed that the more established folks like Robert Siegel and Steve Inskeep got roped into toeing the line as well. I think the Trump era really broke a lot of news sources I previously relied on.