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Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

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Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#241

Post by Bartweiss »

morgante wrote: post #57
taurath wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general it's about story selection. 80% of the "stories of the day" are related to minority rights, empathy stories and a bunch of others. Rural white people are rarely mentioned except in the context of an environmental disaster. I like the stories myself but I definitely feel like the average conservative doesn't feel like they're included in any of the coverage.

Maybe it's my bias, but I feel like I actually hear a lot of stories about rural white people. Especially since the election, every outlet keeps wanting to do think pieces on their plight.

I think a lot of sources generally treated as liberal have swerved in their coverage over the last ~year, since Trump began to look credible. I'd argue that stretch is non-representative compared to, say, 2014, but I'd also argue you can still see a distinctive outlook when they do cover those topics.

A source like Vox covers urban/coastal issues from the 'inside', treating first-hand sources as credible and writing like the reader is included in the topic. There's also a significant assumption that readers inherently care.

It writes rural white plight stories as 'explainers', approaching them the way you would approach some international crisis your readers are unlikely to know about. One big human-interest frame example to make your readers care, lots of background and statistics, first-hand interviews that add flavor, but are aggressively contextualized by talking to professors and experts who aren't part of the community. And, of course, a necessity to say "which maybe caused Trump" or otherwise justify why such stories are relevant to their readers.

Basically, I think NPR/Vox/etc have started covering rural plight stuff far more, but they're still explaining those people to their readers.

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#242

Post by Bartweiss »

voltagex_ wrote: post #114
criddell wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know if you can get it to play out-of-state NPR stations? I'm not a fan of my local affiliate.

I'm Australian, I understand how the affiliate stations work but can you explain what you mean when you say you don't like your local station? I'm assuming it's the same as wanting to listen to ABC Melbourne when you live in Sydney - but that means missing out on the local news or particular presenters.

In addition to the other comment, there's simply a huge amount of format variation between local affiliates. Some are mostly music, often classical or jazz, with nothing else except daily news. Others are almost all in-depth news and programming like quiz shows and interview channels.

So there are places where the local station carries almost no NPR content.

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#243

Post by Bartweiss »

mediaright wrote: post #103
ethbro wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My biggest complaint isn't that NPR is too liberal, only that it is very surface-thought in its discussion of topics. Too often a story will raise what seem to be obvious and interesting (but maybe difficult) questions and the journalist or interviewer will just move on. Tom Ashbrook ( On Point ) does this especially egregiously. Some of his simplistic (or biased) "So what you're saying is..." moments make me cring…

You should both check out WNYC'S "On The Media." It's NPR style, but every interview you hear is a 40-60-120 minute interview that's been boiled down to 8-10 min for the show. It's truly bespoke radio in that way, so they get to cover the issues at the core of something. It's my favorite show week to week.

On The Media is fantastic. It's really hard to find succinct sources that don't totally misrepresent their subject, and they do an impressive job of it.

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#244

Post by Bartweiss »

ethbro wrote: post #98
simonsarris wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello from Amherst/Nashua. Email me if you want to get a beer sometime. I used to listen to NHPR a lot when I had a long commute one summer and would occasionally tune in. My biggest complaint isn't that NPR is too liberal, only that it is very surface-thought in its discussion of topics. Too often a story will raise what seem to be obvious and interesting (but maybe difficult) questions and the journalist or intervi…

> My biggest complaint isn't that NPR is too liberal, only that it is very surface-thought in its discussion of topics. Too often a story will raise what seem to be obvious and interesting (but maybe difficult) questions and the journalist or interviewer will just move on. Tom Ashbrook ( On Point ) does this especially egregiously. Some of his simplistic (or biased) "So what you're saying is..." moments make me cring…

Yeah, this gets exhausting with some of their shows. The ones where the interviews are interviewee-focused like Fresh Air are good, but some shows just get infuriating.

Diane Rehm, for all her awards, has an awful tendency to cut people off in ways that destroy clarity. Things like letting someone give "on one hand..." and cutting them off as they say "but on the other hand...", so that only half their opinion gets aired.

On the "more technical" side, Science Friday really needs a host who understands something about science. Flatow's digested 'restatements' tend to be flatly wrong, and he's often two or three laps behind what an interested layman would pick up. I can understand going slowly in the name of accessibility, but he sort of forfeits that right by arriving at completely inaccurate final summaries.

It's not bad overall, but there's an aggravating tendency for the interviewers to 'participate' when they're not really qualified to have a dialogue instead of simply offering prompts.

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#245

Post by Bartweiss »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #197

This is a PR piece. It has no correlative relationship to reality. Source: knowing truckers, having them in my family, extended family, friends of family etc. for 40 years. They all have XM/Sirius at this point. None listen to NPR. Why were no statistics about truckers and NPR quoted? Because they wouldn't have supported the thrust of the article.

I suspect this was true a decade ago, and I suspect it's still true in some of the wilder parts of the country. I'm surprised at how often I'll be out in the mountains somewhere and find no cell signal, no satellite radio, and one lonely NPR channel coming in clear as day.

But today, and in general? I don't really buy it. Truckers listen to Audible books, or XM, or a great many other things, and I'd want actual numbers to believe a majority of them listen to NPR.

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#246

Post by jessaustin »

vacri wrote: post #173
jessaustin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's that Drug War working out for you? Are you glad that lots of black men are in prison, just like Nixon intended?

Perhaps you should re-read the last sentence in my comment.

Oh sure if I re-read it about 829 more times while CNN plays in the background, I might care about that. Hypnotizing!

Libertarians aren't angels (except perhaps in a relative sense, when considering any POTUS other than Carter elected in my lifetime), but they never get 3% of the vote, for one office. Yet they're some sort of crazy powerful bogeyman that every progressive of correct thought must constantly fear and agitate against on threads that originally had nothing to do with that. Besides didn't you get the memo? Instead of caring about Libertarians, now you're supposed to care about a much smaller and stupider group of statue enthusiasts! They're going to destroy the nation with their passion for old statues! In the meantime please ignore the wars and brutality that the two wings of the mainstream party keep doing...

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#247

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Brendinooo wrote: post #121
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, well there are many different networks that are syndicated everywhere. The question is if they could control the same frequency everywhere, which I don't think makes sense with how our radio stations are structured.

Fair enough. Just as banter, what other networks are syndicated everywhere? I drive a fair bit and will hear K-Love and NPR everywhere. Sports talk will sometimes syndicate later at night, and of course the political talk stations will have programming from elsewhere. But apart from the Christian stuff, I've never heard music syndication as I go between markets.

Well the biggest ones are on AM, though they seem to be starting to cross over to FM more recently. So Premiere Networks, Salem etc... all syndicate the conservative talk guys and things like Coast to Coast AM.

By the way Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell is how I got into radio in the first place and was probably the widest reaching single AM show worldwide.

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#248

Post by thebooktocome »

scarface74 wrote: post #185
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just sounds like a standard progressive liberal (and there's nothing wrong with that). What viewpoints do you consider specifically libertarian?

I haven't heard liberals talk too much about legalizing all drugs. Clinton in the 90s started the whole tough on crime, 3 strikes you're out, crusade. I am against the minimum wage - I think it skews supply and demand and contorts the free market -- but I do believe in the basic income for people who work in the form of an expansion of the earned income tax credit.

Come to Ohio, it's the main plank of the liberal platform here.

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#249

Post by ilamont »

damnfine wrote: post #212
ilamont wrote: post #31

Surprised that more truckers haven't discovered podcasts.

I know about a dozen truckers, more than half listen to podcasts. Not sure why you would say this. NPR is popular, but nowhere near a majority market imho.

Point was: Article made it seem like radio in general and NPR in particular are the only options for truckers.

Re: Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio

#250

Post by dadoprso »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #24
morganvachon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a Libertarian and thus social conservative and economically liberally That's fascinating; I've been called Libertarian because I'm the opposite. I'm socially progressive yet fiscally conservative, and from what I've read, there are branches of Libertarianism that can embrace either extreme or a mixture. I've listened to NPR since I was a teenager in the early 90s, and while I don't always agree with the comment…

It was a mistake (see bellow - I edited my post). It's late at night and I'm tired. I in fact meant the opposite. I am most definitely not socially conservative or economically liberal.

you should add that you edited the post haha. I was very confused by the next comment.
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