4 ms·

I hope this means NPR will stop pimping this garbage during their pledge drives (a $450 value) and lending what little credibility they have left to junk scienc

I hope this means NPR will stop pimping this garbage during their pledge drives (a $450 value) and lending what little credibility they have left to junk science. It is genuinely something that puts me off pledging... It just reminds me of their general decline in standards and terrible science reportage... And funnily enough since I stopped pledging I stopped listening pretty much, just catch it occasionally at the parents, but i digress. I suppose the broader point I'm trying to make is they won't have to change as it is hardly like there's any scientifically literate mainstream media to hold them to account, and they've bought off the public media alternative.

rdl 14y ago
They definitely have gone down in quality from 1998 to now. What caused this? Trying to be more commercial?
- learc83 14y ago
  Their market changed. NPR used to be your only option when stuck in the car (for that kind of content), now you can listen to podcasts on any topic you can think of.
- lutusp 14y ago
  > They definitely have gone down in quality from 1998 to now. What caused this? A gradual decline in public interest in public television and radio. That, in turn, has been caused by the increasing diversity of offerings on cable and satellite TV and radio, compared to 30 years ago. There was a time when the only way to see anything resembling scientific or educational programming was to tune into public TV or radio. Not any more -- there are dozens of channels offering this kind of content now, of widely varying quality, but certainly competing with public TV. As the number of advertisements and pledge drives on public TV has increased, the public has begun to see public TV as just another commercial-supported TV offering, nothing special. And guess what? They're right -- there's no difference.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    "A gradual decline in public interest in public television and radio" Don't forget the conservatives in management who want to "diversity" the programming and defunding due to the "socialist" content.
    - lutusp 14y ago
      > Don't forget the conservatives in management who want to "diversity" the programming and defunding due to the "socialist" content. Yes, very true. Management reacts to a conservative social trend by avoiding content that might be looked on as too liberal, this offends liberals, which causes a further drop in audience numbers, and a death spiral begins. This speaks to a general rule in television programming -- everybody want to have the "least offensive program". The least offensive program is the program that is so bland that it gets the largest audience simply because it offended the smallest number of viewers.
- richardjordan 14y ago
  I think though perhaps the opposite was part of it too. They became comfortable in their baby boomer audience (every pledge drive featuring Joan Baez being the giveaway) and they haven't really groomed a younger audience coming up. A certain smugness and belief that they were just naturally a superior option to the mainstream garbage meant they didn't put the effort in to innovate and improve their product. Where they did innovate is in sponsorships which are no different to ads nowadays - often npr-washing unsavory companies through extended "brought to you by..." then a bunch of copy worse than any ad, stated unchallenged. I stopped listening partly because I was getting really offended by some of that stuff, and as stated above this brain science stuff really got on my wick. But also because the quality of the news in the morning was garbage. Firstly very little news, way too much human interest story. Secondly the reportage was pretty shoddy. Thirdly the analysis was facile, ill-informed and wrong way too often. Certainly not as bad as something like CNN, Fox etc. but not the quality they boast about. And when you can now get the BBC news anywhere in the world you can easily see what a poor product the NPR news has become. I guess finally the talking heads are just so outdated. They represent a washington-insider-y worldview that has little or no bearing on reality. They're an aging media corps which still thinks things run the way they do at their cozy DC cocktail parties, genteel disagreements but we all get along. They have little to say that matches the bitter corrupt partisan nature of things in the US today. It's not that I want them to perpetuate that, but denying it exists helps no-one. Describing debates as though they're these deep seated points of principle and taking every statement at face value benefits no-one when it's easily determined, and apparent to anyone listening what's really going on. IMNSHO
- illuminate 14y ago
  They're literally selling hours of commercials to snake-oil peddlers.

rdl 14y ago

They definitely have gone down in quality from 1998 to now. What caused this? Trying to be more commercial?

learc83 14y ago
Their market changed. NPR used to be your only option when stuck in the car (for that kind of content), now you can listen to podcasts on any topic you can think of.
lutusp 14y ago
> They definitely have gone down in quality from 1998 to now. What caused this? A gradual decline in public interest in public television and radio. That, in turn, has been caused by the increasing diversity of offerings on cable and satellite TV and radio, compared to 30 years ago. There was a time when the only way to see anything resembling scientific or educational programming was to tune into public TV or radio. Not any more -- there are dozens of channels offering this kind of content now, of widely varying quality, but certainly competing with public TV. As the number of advertisements and pledge drives on public TV has increased, the public has begun to see public TV as just another commercial-supported TV offering, nothing special. And guess what? They're right -- there's no difference.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "A gradual decline in public interest in public television and radio" Don't forget the conservatives in management who want to "diversity" the programming and defunding due to the "socialist" content.
  - lutusp 14y ago
    > Don't forget the conservatives in management who want to "diversity" the programming and defunding due to the "socialist" content. Yes, very true. Management reacts to a conservative social trend by avoiding content that might be looked on as too liberal, this offends liberals, which causes a further drop in audience numbers, and a death spiral begins. This speaks to a general rule in television programming -- everybody want to have the "least offensive program". The least offensive program is the program that is so bland that it gets the largest audience simply because it offended the smallest number of viewers.
richardjordan 14y ago
I think though perhaps the opposite was part of it too. They became comfortable in their baby boomer audience (every pledge drive featuring Joan Baez being the giveaway) and they haven't really groomed a younger audience coming up. A certain smugness and belief that they were just naturally a superior option to the mainstream garbage meant they didn't put the effort in to innovate and improve their product. Where they did innovate is in sponsorships which are no different to ads nowadays - often npr-washing unsavory companies through extended "brought to you by..." then a bunch of copy worse than any ad, stated unchallenged. I stopped listening partly because I was getting really offended by some of that stuff, and as stated above this brain science stuff really got on my wick. But also because the quality of the news in the morning was garbage. Firstly very little news, way too much human interest story. Secondly the reportage was pretty shoddy. Thirdly the analysis was facile, ill-informed and wrong way too often. Certainly not as bad as something like CNN, Fox etc. but not the quality they boast about. And when you can now get the BBC news anywhere in the world you can easily see what a poor product the NPR news has become. I guess finally the talking heads are just so outdated. They represent a washington-insider-y worldview that has little or no bearing on reality. They're an aging media corps which still thinks things run the way they do at their cozy DC cocktail parties, genteel disagreements but we all get along. They have little to say that matches the bitter corrupt partisan nature of things in the US today. It's not that I want them to perpetuate that, but denying it exists helps no-one. Describing debates as though they're these deep seated points of principle and taking every statement at face value benefits no-one when it's easily determined, and apparent to anyone listening what's really going on. IMNSHO
illuminate 14y ago
They're literally selling hours of commercials to snake-oil peddlers.