I think this raises some questions. Who comments and why? How does the blog benefit NPR?
NPR is a program service. They do not own radio stations. Public radio stations subscribe to programming, paying for content. NPR researches audiences like any other programmer or station.
NPR is accountable to its customers, the Public Radio station that subscribes and pays for its service. The Public Radio station is then accountable to the listener, especially that listener that donates to fund the station.
Those that would post a comment comprise a small percentage of radio listeners, likely 2% or less although I base that figure on what I was told for years was the percentage that requested songs at stations I worked. I suspect comments are open to anyone, not limited to just Public Radio supporters as there would be no way to verify if they were. Any person commenting can easily contact the station airing the program. It is here that the comment might carry weight because for the Public Supported station, the listener weighs heavily for them. All NPR site comments would not be from Public Radio listeners and/or supporters. Since one cannot know which comment is from actual listeners and supporters, there is no way to gauge the 'findings' gleaned from the NPR comment section. Certainly an outraged listener would direct their ire at the station they donated to, not the program provider.
I actually see the NPR comment section as a nice but unneeded feature. The saying 'there are more ways than one to skin a cat' applies here. Given the randomness and unqualified nature of the posts, they would be, at best, misdirected. The most effective is the local station airing the program. Second would be your local Congress representative.
If NPR is not reflecting programming desired by the masses of Public Radio listeners, then Public Radio station subscribers will demand it. If Public Radio stations are not seeing happy listeners from NPR offerings, then they will not pay the affiliation fee. No affiliation fee and the money is gone to produce the program in the first place regardless of tax dollars. In other words, comments on their site or not, makes no difference. Comments to Public Radio stations does matter and donors to those stations matters much more. At best, with all the research that is done to provide programming that appeals to a Public Radio audience, the comment section is misdirected and ineffective.
I wouldn't call it contempt for the audience. It sounds to me like NPR thinks the time and money spent allowing it in this manner can be better utilized elsewhere.
And I'm not a NPR supporter. NPR programming just isn't my cup of tea for radio listening. I'm merely looking at this from the standpoint of a radio broadcaster. I'd personally listen very carefully to listeners that contact my station but I wouldn't see comments directed at the program source as being that important because those comments would be 'unqualified'. IfI pay attention to the NPR comments, I'm not paying attention to my station's audience.
