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Whom Do You Hope Takes The NPR Buy-Out Package?

F

FredLeonard

Guest
In other words, whom do you hope goes away?

My choices:

Steve Inskeep: An arrogantly bad interview. Thinks he's a personality. Keeps interrupting. Asks long-winded questions to show how smart he is and then cuts off guests before they can answer. Confuses Morning Edition with the Morning Zoo.

Chana, Kaitlin and Zoe: The Planet Money chicks. They have no business being on the air in any market in the top 150. They sound like high school girls - nasal, mush-mouthed.

The entire staff of "The Race Card Project" and "Code Switch:" Both are offensively racist.

Scott Simon: Thinks the world revolves around him. That Weekend Edition is "A Week In The Life of Scott Simon." His sensitive new age guy act was old in 1971.

Edward Schumacher Matos, NPR Ombudsman: What a waste. Disappears for weeks at a time. Doesn't do much and when he does show up, always defends the company line.

Webmaster: Audio posting is incredibly sloppy. Late. Full of errors and omissions. Whoever is responsible, please go away and let them hire somebody who will take the job seriously.

Cokie Roberts: Is she still on the payroll? If she is, it's a waste. She spends all her time at ABC. Phones in once a week and recycles whatever she said on TV Sunday morning.
 
Agree about Inskeep and Roberts. After all these years Inskeep hasn't come close to filling Bob Edwards' shoes. And Roberts is just one more of the Washington pundits who don't do any homework and have no insight. They just recycle each others' conventional wisdom.
 
The entire "Here and Now" staff. Diane Rehm, "On Point", and "TOTN" are/were all much better filler for the typical day (when relatively little new news happens between the end of "Morning Edition" and the start of "All Things Considered").

I agree that the Inskeep/Montagne pairing on "Morning Edition" doesn't flow well. David Greene works much better with both of the existing hosts, and I'd like to see him get the job permanently.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
The entire "Here and Now" staff.
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I will be the first to admit that I don't understand all the behind the scenes deals and sausage making that goes on the programming world of public radio.....

But I will never understand WHY the common thinking seemed to be that a 2 hour mediocre program from WBUR (Hear and Now) was worthy of a national roll out. And WHY Talk of the Nation was deemed 'dead in the water'.

Hear and Now is just....OK. Not captivating, not compelling, not unique.

TOTN was a thoughtful, live, call-in show (NPR has no other) with the resources of NPR news behind it. It was also a good lead-in to All Things Considered.
 
JaneChristo said:
But I will never understand WHY the common thinking seemed to be that a 2 hour mediocre program from WBUR (Hear and Now) was worthy of a national roll out. And WHY Talk of the Nation was deemed 'dead in the water'.
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I'll give you two reasons: It's cheaper to partner with an existing Boston show that to originate one from Washington. And it gets NPR out of the talk radio business, which given the controversy, is good to do. Not all decisions are made for reasons of quality.
 
listener-in said:
Agree about Inskeep and Roberts. After all these years Inskeep hasn't come close to filling Bob Edwards' shoes. And Roberts is just one more of the Washington pundits who don't do any homework and have no insight. They just recycle each others' conventional wisdom.
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Roberts has credibility with part of the NPR audience. If they used her daily, it might be a bit much. I don't know if Roberts does enough homework or not, but she has life-long presence in the Capitol building and I suspect information is just handed to her by a sizeable group of people.... whether she does much digging for it or not. The older listeners have watched her grow-up. The younger listeners may share your view: "Why is THIS lady on here anyway?"
 
I certainly hope Cokie is not getting more than a per-appearance fee. Whatever the value of her Monday morning punditry, it's just recycled from ABC television the day before. She has "grown up" and doesn't live at NPR any more.

I see that Eric Deggans is going full-time. They want to cut the staff but they are hiring people. Deggans is leaving his paper in Tampa to become a full time TV critic. Does NPR really need one? Whatever the need, he is a terrible critic and continually spouts misinformation about the medium. He also has a lucrative side-line playing the race card with his book and lectures: "Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation." No matter how bad the financial picture, NPR still is driven by reverse discrimination. It's too much to hope Deggans will turn around and immediately take the buy-out.

Let's also get rid of anyone employed at NPR West in Culver City (and then sell the land building). Redundant. Unnecessary.

It seems that public radio politics was involved in the decision to scrap TOTN in favor of H&N. TOTN was in need of an overhaul. The way callers were handled was killing the interviews. NPR said they wanted more of a midday newsmagazine (after killing Day to Day in the last round of budget cuts) and TOTN could have adopted more of a magazine format. H&N was being distributed by PRI. Then WBUR's arch-rival, WGBH, bought PRI. PRI was becoming more aggressive in offering shows against NPR. Wouldn't be the first time NPR made programming changes just to thwart competitors; they moved ATC up an hour just to kill Monitor Radio.
 
FredLeonard said:
I see that Eric Deggans is going full-time. They want to cut the staff but they are hiring people.
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What's your point? Clear Channel and Cumulus cut staff all the time, yet their web sites are filled with job openings. Reverse discrimination? How many minorities do they have on air. Tell me.

FredLeonard said:
Let's also get rid of anyone employed at NPR West in Culver City (and then sell the land building). Redundant. Unnecessary.
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How do you know they own the building? How do you know it's redundant? NPR has 20 news bureaus in lots of places, including New York, Chicago, and London. Are they also redundant and unnecessary? It costs a lot of money to do news. And it's important to have a physical presence in places other than Washington DC, to remove the Washington-centric mentality that you yourself have talked about at NPR.

FredLeonard said:
It seems that public radio politics was involved in the decision to scrap TOTN in favor of H&N.
Click to expand...

Really? Here you go again, making accusations with no facts.

FredLeonard said:
Wouldn't be the first time NPR made programming changes just to thwart competitors; they moved ATC up an hour just to kill Monitor Radio.
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Huh? Explain that. I know for a fact that NPR only made the move to 4PM because of station demand. The company itself was opposed to the move.
 
You're right. They should sell the new DC building and relocate to Culver City.

You are confusing two distinct issues: Beltway Bias and Unnecessary Redundancy. Bureaus are one thing. They don't need two "headquarters" in case the entire East Coast is blown up. (If that happens, we have bigger things to worry about than NPR.) If for some reason, they lost the DC facility, they wouldn't need Culver City. Several "member stations" are capable of feeding the network.

You lie: Stations were happy with Monitor Radio from then APR. It was widely reported at the time that NPR moved ATC back an hour in a competitive move. Look it up.

And you are dismissing "accusations" with no facts. Just because you swallow the NPR line, is no reason anybody else should.
 
FredLeonard said:
You lie: Stations were happy with Monitor Radio from then APR. It was widely reported at the time that NPR moved ATC back an hour in a competitive move. Look it up.
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I don't have to look it up. I was there. Monitor Radio was shut down because the Christian Science Monitor over-extended itself and ran out of money. At the same time, they also shut down their TV show. Look it up.

http://www.current.org/wp-content/themes/current/archive-site/rad/rad711m.html

I'm really surprised at your posts on this public radio board. Your other posts on other boards are well researched and usually correct. The ones here aren't.
 
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The NYT article doesn't say anything about NPR causing the demise of Monitor, as you said. The facts, as reported by the article I posted, clearly said that Monitor was popular with affiliates. It didn't "lose a bunch of affiliates." It clearly blames the end of the radio show on the finances of CSM. Yet you refuse to accept the facts. Why are you unable to accept the facts on this issue?
 
There are facts. There are your opinions. Not necessarily the same.
 
Fred: I hesitate to post this... but: You do realize the Christian Science Monitor was a daily newspaper that was an early casualty of this era that is decimating many grand old newspapers?

I think your sparring partner is trying to convince you that the Monitor radio show may have simply been the casualty of the decline of daily newspaper finances.

And in an era when a major element in our political process is conservatism, some stations may not have been too excited about carrying a broadcast that a substantial number of listeners viewed as the propaganda tool of a "liberal church".

Unfortunately, some donors to local NPR stations can get their Spanx all bunched up over issues like that.
 
Stop lying. I said the NY Times article showed NPR as predatory.

Obviously, facts are only those things you want to hear.

Try deductive logic: NPR expands ATC to the 4pm hour. The 4pm hour is occupied by Monitor Radio. Many stations take the new hour of ATC instead of Monitor Radio. Fewer stations means less revenue for an already financially precarious program. Monitor Radio has to fold.

Sort like: Wal-Mart comes to town. Several mom and pop stores go out of business. I suppose you'll claim there is no "proof" Wal-Mart "caused" their demise. For years the tobacco industry likewise claimed there is no "proof" that cigarettes "cause" cancer. And evolution is "just a theory."
 
FredLeonard said:
Stop lying. I said the NY Times article showed NPR as predatory.
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You said NPR put Monitor Radio out of business. The New York Times did not. The Times article mentioned that Monitor was gone, but didn't take the opportunity to blame NPR for causing it. So clearly, you're making this all up.

You can make up all the "deductive logic" you want. It's based on a made-up story. If you'd just read the article I posted, it explains it very clearly. No one was attacking Monitor. This is non-commercial radio. The "revenue" isn't based on the number of stations that carry a show. And as the article I posted said, no one dropped Monitor Radio.

You said it was "widely reported" that NPR forced Monitor out of business. OK...show me ONE article that says that. Go ahead.
 
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It was a long time ago, before many publications were archived on line. I remember reading it. I don't lie to make a point. Believe what you want. Clearly, you are invested in the NPR company line.
 
FredLeonard said:
It was a long time ago, before many publications were archived on line. I remember reading it. I don't lie to make a point. Believe what you want. Clearly, you are invested in the NPR company line.
Click to expand...

We're talking about 1997, so all publications, including the New York Times, were archived online. Don't call people liars when you don't have any facts. I posted an article written in 1997 when the show ended and you haven't acknowledged it.

A book was written about the financial collapse of the Christian Science Monitor in 1992 that ultimately led to the end of Monitor Radio. PRI had the opportunity to buy Monitor Radio, but instead launched The World from WGBH Boston. This is published an accepted fact, but you're obviously too wrapped up in your dislike of NPR to accept any facts.
 
Okay then...

To try and get this thread back on topic, I'd really hope that Glynn Washington takes the buyout, now that NPR is co-funding "Snap Judgement" after PRX lost money on those "Snap Judgement Live" TV specials that literally no one watched.
 
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