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Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

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Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#41

Post by mc32 »

thorfish wrote: post #38
zorpner wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence that the result you found was the result this professor was citing? It's not generally possible to gain an understanding of a field by "[looking] at some of those studies". This is why graduate students spend hours every week doing literature review. It's why news stations get an expert in the field to comment on a topic. Such experts can never be completely free of bias, but the idea that ev…

Such experts can never be completely free of bias, but the idea that every expert should be coupled with someone with an opposing viewpoint (and if there's consensus in the field on the topic, who?) is ludicrous at best. I actually think reaching some goal of being "bias free" is neither possible nor desirable. I would have had a less of an issue with that NPR segment if they had only presented one side - but it was…

Exactly. Like when they find it almost painful to call out Isis/isil as bad. They do but it pains them to take a side when it's obvious there is a side. But then if someone they have an obvious stance against, they have no issue calling them out, say Russia vs Ukraine. I guess they feel safe calling out Putin. There are fewer "allegeds" qualifiers.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#42

Post by ebfe »

jasonmp85 wrote: post #7
pervycreeper wrote: post #4

Hard to take the message seriously when his show, This American Life, is so incredibly bland. In my appraisal, it does nothing but pander to its "middlebrow" audience, never daring to tell them anything they don't already know. Maybe he's just not aware of it.

Like how this week they interviewed a black man who when asked if his young daughter's nascent understanding of the history of racial relations in this country might alienate some of their white acquaintances and he replied "I don't really care about the emotions of the white man in this country; perhaps they should spend some time thinking about things they enjoy that no one else in this nation can." That's not dari…

>That's not daring to present a viewpoint at which the show's white bread audience might bristle?

Did you bristle at it?

>What about the show that was generously interpreted as positing that perhaps certain individuals were on disability insurance because they had been left behind by the economy and this isn't a judgment of them but rather of our lack of any other option for those individuals? I guess that wasn't a challenging issue for the listeners, either.

Was it a challenging issue for you? I.e., prior to the episode, you believed that everyone on disability insurance was lazy?

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#43

Post by lvs »

mc32 wrote: post #32
lvs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your description is an accurate portrayal of one particular host on NPR who runs a discussion/talk show (Ashbrook), but it's unfair to cast that brush across all their shows; certainly NPR News does not do what you describe.

Off the top of my head, a news item about water conservation. One guy, perh some official, stated, paraphrasing here, that it was ridiculous given the drought, that we had not started curtailing the offering of free water at restaurants earlier, making the audience believe that this step was a cornerstone of conserving water. It's not credible, but the host agreed and didn't question the reasoning. Ok sure, I grant y…

These both seem like incredibly niche objections. They're not somehow in bed with the anti-almond, anti-ice water lobby. I'm not saying they don't run a lousy report now and then -- that obviously happens.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#44

Post by mc32 »

drjesusphd wrote: post #33
mc32 wrote: post #8

Public radio is a mixed bag. It's better than most but I dislike the pretense of being better, because in my view they are only marginally better when presenting news. One of the things I'm most disenchanted with is how on uncontroversial things they'll offer an opinion. "lack of oversight is bad". But on controversial issues they tend to appear neutral (offering no opinion) while at the same time couching the questi…

> the blatant left and blatant right, who at least aren't pretending to be objective You mean like when they adopt taglines like "Fair and Balanced"?

Yes. Like in the ussr, everyone knew Pravda was a farce. Few people bought it wholesale. They knew what it was. There was no thinking it was truthful. Same for fox.

It's the entities who try to pass as unbiased that you have to be careful about. Fox and cnbc one knows where they're coming from. Just like Pravda.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#45

Post by [deleted] »

jasonmp85 wrote: post #7
pervycreeper wrote: post #4

Hard to take the message seriously when his show, This American Life, is so incredibly bland. In my appraisal, it does nothing but pander to its "middlebrow" audience, never daring to tell them anything they don't already know. Maybe he's just not aware of it.

Like how this week they interviewed a black man who when asked if his young daughter's nascent understanding of the history of racial relations in this country might alienate some of their white acquaintances and he replied "I don't really care about the emotions of the white man in this country; perhaps they should spend some time thinking about things they enjoy that no one else in this nation can." That's not dari…

[deleted]

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#46

Post by mc32 »

lvs wrote: post #43
mc32 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off the top of my head, a news item about water conservation. One guy, perh some official, stated, paraphrasing here, that it was ridiculous given the drought, that we had not started curtailing the offering of free water at restaurants earlier, making the audience believe that this step was a cornerstone of conserving water. It's not credible, but the host agreed and didn't question the reasoning. Ok sure, I grant y…

These both seem like incredibly niche objections. They're not somehow in bed with the anti-almond, anti-ice water lobby. I'm not saying they don't run a lousy report now and then -- that obviously happens.

Oh this kind of occurrence happens every morning. I still listen to them because they are marginally better than other news and much better than jocular morning shows.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#47

Post by secabeen »

kbenson wrote: post #10
lfowles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. I'm curious, what do you think will replace FM NPR in cars? In Wichita, KS, I'm lucky to get cell data service before I'm a mile out of the city. Maybe I'm reading too much into an "FM Radio will not last" interpretation.

I've switched to listening to NPR exclusively using podcasts. I do find I'm behind on current events though, even major ones, such as riots, but I attribute that to me not having added any current event shows, such as morning edition, which I believe also comes in podcast form. I use Pocket Casts for android to handle automatic downloading of specific sets of podcasts when my phone is on wifi and plugged in, out of t…

You're also missing local news and much of the mid-tier state news. That doesn't always matter, but when it does, it really does.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#48

Post by mc32 »

vectorpush wrote: post #29
mc32 wrote: post #8

Public radio is a mixed bag. It's better than most but I dislike the pretense of being better, because in my view they are only marginally better when presenting news. One of the things I'm most disenchanted with is how on uncontroversial things they'll offer an opinion. "lack of oversight is bad". But on controversial issues they tend to appear neutral (offering no opinion) while at the same time couching the questi…

> But on controversial issues they tend to appear neutral (offering no opinion) while at the same time couching the questions and loading their questions. I disagree with this as a general characterization. I do think it's true that NPR presents a neutral facade while most of the hosts and commentators harbor leftist views under the surface (or in their public life), but I think in general they make a pretty good eff…

I agree on some of what you say. However, I disagree with the interpretation of the result. On the surface that veneer is tantalizing, but in actuality it's more damaging than blatant leftists and rightists. Do you recall the Movie "They live". It's like that. Insidious. Pretends to be nice and psychologically it's more sophisticated, but also more believable and people tend to give their pieces more credence with less critical questioning than say a Fox news or MSNBC, because they mask it well.

But as I said in other comments, they're the best available option (to me), but that does not mean they are a good option. so long as you keep your ears open for their biases, they're okay to listen to.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#49

Post by cplease »

derefr wrote: post #16
lfowles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. I'm curious, what do you think will replace FM NPR in cars? In Wichita, KS, I'm lucky to get cell data service before I'm a mile out of the city. Maybe I'm reading too much into an "FM Radio will not last" interpretation.

Instead of the "directly-streamed linear programming" model, you could do radio audio broadcast the same way you do GPS: just have the local radio towers spraying some selection of podcasts on a loop (with high enough frequency+bandwidth+compression that the effective audio rate is faster-than-real-time, unlike satellite radio), and then have "radios" in cars (or wherever) which catch the files and cache them. You ca…

That's not how GPS works.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#50

Post by pervycreeper »

kbenson wrote: post #6
pervycreeper wrote: post #4

Hard to take the message seriously when his show, This American Life, is so incredibly bland. In my appraisal, it does nothing but pander to its "middlebrow" audience, never daring to tell them anything they don't already know. Maybe he's just not aware of it.

Do you listen to TAL much? I ask because if you find it bland when you do, I can't imagine you listening to it much, and if you don't listen to it much, I'm not sure I trust your appraisal to be accurate. Not every episode is interesting to me, so I skip some, but others I find extremely interesting (Radiolab, Planet Money and Freakonomics are my bread and butter NPR shows). To me that just indicates that have a fair…

>if you find it bland when you do, I can't imagine you listening to it much, and if you don't listen to it much, I'm not sure I trust your appraisal to be accurate

I've heard enough of it to form a decent impression. I don't agree with that kind of argument, otherwise no one would ever be able to criticize any piece of media for any reason.

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