Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by hoopism » Wed, May 20, 2015, 12:50 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #13

hoopism wrote: post #3

Naive question... with the influx of cash from larger and larger underwriters and the public funds becoming a smaller and smaller % of overall funding how does public radio handle the natural tendency to chase the big funds? What's the % breakdown today? I don't think it's evil, but when 80% of funding starts rolling in for projects like invisibilia I could see it as tempting to head more into a "reality show" type p…

The key is to limit advertising to the point where there is always demand for the spot, and/or not reliant on major sponsors. eg. If coke is willing to spend $15 million and pepsi $10 million if you sell the ad to coke for $10 million you know you can always sell to pepsi for $10 should you piss coke off. Ideally you should have a bunch of smaller advertisers such that it's easy to find another person to take the spo…

Thanks. That's a great explanation.

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

#52

Post by drjesusphd » Wed, May 20, 2015, 3:54 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #44

drjesusphd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So Fox and Pravda are better because they're worse? Do I have that right?

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

#53

Post by kbenson » Wed, May 20, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

pervycreeper wrote: post #50

kbenson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I tried to make it clear that my statement was predicated on whether or not you've listened to it much. Not because it's impossible to be correct in your appraisal of something with little exposure, but the weight I give your opinion is a function of both your exposure to the topic, and the variation the topic exhibits. I think TAL has quite a bit of variation in message, topic and to a lesser degree quality. I don't think limited exposure will, in the average case, produce very accurate opinions about it. Of course, I don't truly know how much exposure you've had (which I also tried to allude to by using "I can't imagine," which is meant to be left open for correction).

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

#54

Post by jasonmp85 » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

3d8995163 wrote: post #34

jasonmp85 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "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." Thats exactly the sort of thing that I imagine NPR listeners would like to hear, so they can nod their heads and feel progressive

This American Life is not an NPR show.

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

#55

Post by jasonmp85 » Wed, May 20, 2015, 5:55 PM UTC

ebfe wrote: post #42

jasonmp85 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> Did you bristle at it?

Point taken.

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

No, but I did generally assume they had something so debilitating they were incapable of working. The show basically pointed out that some doctors in areas of high unemployment were signing off on disabilities for people who basically just had outdated skill sets. My impression was that in lieu of any real progressive safety net (basic income, etc.) citizens have started leaning heavily on disability insurance.

I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Do some Googling to see the other side of the argument about that episode.

Also, why is this being discussed at all? This (and shows like it) are basically Chicken Soup for the Soul in podcast form. They're emotional filler but I've fallen for discussing them like they should be some sort of hard-hitting journalism or policy discussions. In a discussion of media responsibility, does Ira really deserve to be the first head on the chopping block?

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

#56

Post by mc32 » Wed, May 20, 2015, 8:53 PM UTC

drjesusphd wrote: post #52

mc32 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So Fox and Pravda are better because they're worse? Do I have that right?

Yes because they are upfront about it. You know what you ate getting --which is blatant propaganda. Everyone knows this. With NPR they have people believe they are unbiased and have no ideological framework. It's way more subversive, because for most inane things they appear unbiased so when they want you to buy into something you are predisposed to believe their delivery.

Take a good liar. Do they lie at every occasion? No, for the most part all they say is plausible and they use that believability to their advantage. Note I am not comparing NPR to liars, I'm comparing the phenomenon.