I listen to NPR during my long commute to and from work. On my ride home I especially like “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross. I really enjoy her interview style and usually like her guests.
@InnocuousFarmer actually, they’re not funded by NPR anymore, so even though a station that plays NPR news plays their show, they’re not technically an “NPR” show (at least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works). Same with This American Life.
@jitc I fear you are incorrect. While radiolab is no longer a production of npr as they were a few years back, they still have to pay WNYC to air the show. The price that is paid is based on the airing stations total revenue. Same goes for most of the non-news related shows, including TAL.
@thismyusername I don’t think that makes me incorrect, as I said they weren’t funded by NPR. In fact, it sounds by your description, that they are the ones doing the funding, since they have to pay to be aired.
I listen to WBOI Fort Wayne to and from work every day (BBC News Hour is great). “Car Talk” and “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” podcasts have gotten me through many a twelve-hour shift. I miss Diane Rehm. And my Rick Steves impression is friggin’ hilarious (“Join me, Rick Steves, as we pole our way through the majestic sewers of Prague!”).
@jburgess18 interesting how politicized NPR seems to be for a few people… did somebody use it as some symbolic government spending example at some point? I mean, where’d you hear about it in that context?
@RedOak That’s a fairly extreme libertarian world view that doesn’t get expressed evenly with respect to government spending in general. I’m curious as to why I’ve seen NPR get singled out. Have some vague idea that it came up in the last Presidential election or something.
@InnocuousFarmer right? my taxes pay for lots of things i either don’t like, don’t care about, or will never use but that’s how taxes work. i’m sure others feel the same about things their taxes pay for that i use. i mean, if you disagree with taxes in general and/or how they’re used that’s one thing, but i was caught off guard with NPR being a particular hot button issue. never heard that one before.
I’m pretty consistent about the boundaries for govt.
I can find no cogent argument for why the govt must fund a radio network when there are plenty of funding sources from the “enjoyers” of that network.
Labeling it “extreme” isn’t very tolerant of others’ principles and viewpoints.
It is easy to be agreeable with govt spending when the subject spending happens to lean heavily in your direction.
I’m under no illusions about the left-leaning tendency of the meh community. That doesn’t automatically make that tendency right - it only makes it louder here.
@RedOak We all love Ron Swanson, and I don’t think calling him “extreme” is insulting or dismissive (assuming you’ve watched a few episodes of Parks and Recreation).
It’s weird to see complaints about NPR outside a larger complaint about big government generally. I don’t see a big distinction between public radio, and say public parks. I feel fairly confident saying that the majority of people see some value in having a small amount of tax money go to those kinds of projects. The wholesale rejection of those kinds of uses of public funds is what I was referring to as “extreme”–because it is extreme, in that it’s the far end of one spectrum of preferences. Hope that didn’t come across as offensive.
@InnocuousFarmer it’s easy to be friendly to NPR support when you don’t see its bias or happen to be in agreement with that bias (perhaps one in the same).
There’s a big difference between an apolitical public park and a media outlet that might or might not have a political slant.
@InnocuousFarmer I have no idea who “Ron Swanson” is but if he’s a cute caricature character on a TV show then being endeared to him kinda is false-condescendingly mocking a viewpoint.
@RedOak
NPR flagship programs try to stay in the center or near it, and to give plenty of airtime to other POV’s And I’ve heard libertarian voices, among others, given a a decent and respectful amount of airtime. At NPR they are more likely to let a civilized and thoughtful person express himself/herself in full, rather that offering constant challenge by interruption, a practice that all the cable networks fall prey to.
They also give a lot of time to relevant stories that fall into the corners, but are worthy, just not cable-ratings-boosters.
Their rather slow storytelling methods are sometimes the best possible way to approach a subject.
As for what bias there is (all news sources have this, but not all news sources have this disease to the same degree), yeah, I presume it’s visible to any thinking person. NPR tries harder than most sources to counter it with alternative POV’s given plenty of air, and with a careful approach.
As is the case with many (but not all) news sources, NPR’s biggest “tell” can often be best seen in an inventory what they do not discuss or barely discuss.
Also we are all prone to assuming bias in others based on our own biases. There’s essentially no way to be completely pure here. Humans simply do not come to politics bias-free.
It’s been decades since I listened. But I know of many people who believed or believe that legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, for instance, is a raving liberal simply because she is based at NPR.
Those who assume this are usually unaware that she was one of Justice Scalia’s close personal friends, and the two famously had many long private discussions of Constitutional Law, going back for decades.
@RedOak As you say, Ron Swanson is a caricature. (I still like that caricature, and don’t think he’s a bad mascot for libertarianism, if not (not) a considered representation of the same.)
It may be the case that any news would be perceived to be slanted by one side or the other. I’m not sure that that implies that government should avoid funding any news, but maybe that is the case.
I feel like I should probably note, nobody’s replied to my actual question, about NPR being a topic of conversation, all of a sudden.
i listen mostly to the podcasts but do have NPR as one of my radio presets as well. it’s nice to catch the news in the morning (i don’t like listening to music or people yelling over each other so soon after i’ve woken up) and i also like it if i happen to be driving alone at night, especially if i catch the moth radio hour.
@heartny same i know i could just look it up but i kind of like how often someone just shows up to tell me a good story that keeps me awake and relaxed on my way home.
@f00l the moth is live storytelling. it’s true stories told by ‘regular’ people (though some have appeared on the moth before.) they can be funny or serious but usually a bit of both and emotional in some way. i’d have to look up whether it’s NPR or not - i listen on my local npr station (WBUR) but i’m not sure how intertwined they are if at all.
@f00l - The Moth - it’s so great. It’s real people telling real stories from their life. The stories are told in front of an audience without notes so it’s nerve-racking for some, but the stories are really personal. You must check it out!
I does it run as a standalone program or within another program?
I wont be using the radio. i just dont anymore unless local something or other.
I know KERA quite well, they have gotten a lot of my money, but they need to make sure everything is podcast to the various podcast locs, not just in NPR ONE.
I don’t really like NPR one that much. I wanna pick and choose and play it at chosen speed. and I want ATC and ME as podcasts. not in a proprietary app. For a while WBUR was podcastings ME and ATC, but they stopped last Dec.
But if The Moth is worth it, I’ll try to find it and give a listen.
The Moth Podcast features re-airs of all new episodes of The Moth Radio Hour, plus additional stories from our vast archive recorded over the past two decades. Episodes are released every Tuesday. Subscribe via iTunes, RSS or your favorite podcast app.
Also, there are usually several stories per show, so you can listen in smaller snippets.
@f00l i see @KDemo has beaten me to the punch i was going to paste the same link.
it runs as its own program, but again i only catch it on the radio so i’ve not checked out the podcast. i haven’t exhausted every episode, but i’ve enjoyed every story i’ve heard with the exception of one, and it was quite short so i didn’t have to suffer through it long and of course if you’re listening to it via podcast, you have the option of skipping forward as opposed to the radio, though i of course could have just changed the channel. (it was one of those stories without a point…it never went anywhere, and the woman who was reading it seemed like she was trying extremely hard to sound deeply affected by her pointless story, and a bit like she wanted to win a bad slam poetry contest.) but i digress - i really do find it enjoyable the other 99.9% of the time.
@jerk_nugget
The choice of speed is one big reason to strongly prefer traditional podcasts (as opposed to apps) as a format.
The second is the the one you mention: skip forward or back an amount of time you set yourself, using bluetooth controls if you wish.
NPR does have very high quality content. There can be a slight “ultra-civilized Georgetown coffee-bar” sameness to it tho, sometimes, even when the programming is created far from the East Coast.
I usually can get too much of it after a while, esp since I can’t set the speed or ffw using the tools they prefer me to use.
And there are so many news and audio content sources around now. I don’t even have nearly time for all my favorites.
I miss listening to new episodes of Car Talk. Even tho I would take years off from it now and then. There are many episodes i’ve yet to hear tho.
@f00l i agree - for awhile i was listening to npr via our amazon echo at home…i would put it on for the news portion in the morning but then just leave it on. not bad for background noise but even that after awhile i had to take a break from. now i mostly just catch the news on the radio but listen to podcasts otherwise. i have a couple regular housekeeping jobs so i have time during the week to listen purposefully but also be productive. (it’s hard for me to listen and do nothing else, but other tasks i’ve tried to do while listening make it so i end up not paying attention to what’s being played.)
the first season of serial and the more recent “s-town” have been my favorites, but i also regularly listen to this american life, modern love, and invisibilia.
i too really enjoyed car talk and with talk of it here perhaps i’ll start putting a couple episodes of those on as well.
I have the local college npr station as a car radio preset the alternate between classical music and the morning and afternoon news shows. I the carolinas npr tv is mostly cooking shows and kids shows. and judy woodruff.
Haven’t listened in a long time.
1310 AM / 96.7 FM The Ticket everyday.
I listen a lot for in-depth news, and few corporate messages. Worth a small monthly contribution.
No wonder some pols want to kill it.
KUOW, University of Washington. I keep it on in the kitchen, and learn something every time I walk in there.
(Still rockin’ that Sony dock/radio from the first fuku after the Kickstarter, thanks again meh!).
I miss cartalk
@Pantheist - They play reruns here Saturdays from 9-10 a.m. Never gets old.
@Pantheist Here’s a link to the rerun that aired this past Saturday. Great joke in the first minutes.
http://www.cartalk.com/player5/player.php?a=show
@Pantheist If you get the NPR One app, there are literally thousands of episodes available.
Michele Norris was in my high school class. I can’t hear her read news without picturing her cheerleading getup.
This is like The Buggles’ follow-up hit, “Television killed the NPR star”.
Missing option:
@RedOak funding from the feds is at an all time low (fact checking not done)
WNYC and WHYY!
i mostly listen whenever i’m driving, but i wish they’d back off the politics a bit and do more other random stories
NPR is nice, but Amy kicks ass.
Too slow. I grab some of the podcasts.
I miss Susan Stamberg being on the air every afternoon tho.
I listen to NPR during my long commute to and from work. On my ride home I especially like “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross. I really enjoy her interview style and usually like her guests.
http://www.radiolab.org/
https://www.sciencefriday.com/
https://www.marketplace.org/
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/
WHYY every weekday when I’m driving to and from work. Then You Bet Your Garden, Wait Wait and Ask Me Another on the weekends!
Oh yeah, RadioLab is NPR. Guess I still do listen to it, then.
So much media, so little time.
@InnocuousFarmer actually, they’re not funded by NPR anymore, so even though a station that plays NPR news plays their show, they’re not technically an “NPR” show (at least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works). Same with This American Life.
@jitc I fear you are incorrect. While radiolab is no longer a production of npr as they were a few years back, they still have to pay WNYC to air the show. The price that is paid is based on the airing stations total revenue. Same goes for most of the non-news related shows, including TAL.
@thismyusername I don’t think that makes me incorrect, as I said they weren’t funded by NPR. In fact, it sounds by your description, that they are the ones doing the funding, since they have to pay to be aired.
I listen to WBOI Fort Wayne to and from work every day (BBC News Hour is great). “Car Talk” and “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” podcasts have gotten me through many a twelve-hour shift. I miss Diane Rehm. And my Rick Steves impression is friggin’ hilarious (“Join me, Rick Steves, as we pole our way through the majestic sewers of Prague!”).
@dannybeans gotta love that w8 w8
If you like it, then pay for it - just like Sirius. I don’t like it and I do not want my tax dollars funding a bunch of boring shit.
@jburgess18 interesting how politicized NPR seems to be for a few people… did somebody use it as some symbolic government spending example at some point? I mean, where’d you hear about it in that context?
@InnocuousFarmer “politicized”?
Even if NPR were neutral, it shouldn’t be funded by tax dollars.
If you like it, you pay for it.
@RedOak That’s a fairly extreme libertarian world view that doesn’t get expressed evenly with respect to government spending in general. I’m curious as to why I’ve seen NPR get singled out. Have some vague idea that it came up in the last Presidential election or something.
@InnocuousFarmer right? my taxes pay for lots of things i either don’t like, don’t care about, or will never use but that’s how taxes work. i’m sure others feel the same about things their taxes pay for that i use. i mean, if you disagree with taxes in general and/or how they’re used that’s one thing, but i was caught off guard with NPR being a particular hot button issue. never heard that one before.
@RedOak
(Speaking from old listening, decades old, haven’t listened much for 20 years or more):
It was not that far from center. Or they tried: they reached out and tried to present a good selection of articulate voices of various popular POV’s.
And they were assiduous about getting a good spectrum of voices, experts, and politicians on, and interviewing their guests with respect.
The biggest downside I found with them was that they handled economic discussions very poorly.
(But then, so does every other source whose medium is not print. Economics is not a “broadcast-friendly” or “soundbite-friendly” topic.)
Even a program that contains only readings of fact headlines (and nothing else) can be accused if non-neutrality.
They are not much of a source for me anymore. For starters, they have too little content, delivered too slowly, to meet my tastes now.
@InnocuousFarmer
I’m pretty consistent about the boundaries for govt.
I can find no cogent argument for why the govt must fund a radio network when there are plenty of funding sources from the “enjoyers” of that network.
Labeling it “extreme” isn’t very tolerant of others’ principles and viewpoints.
It is easy to be agreeable with govt spending when the subject spending happens to lean heavily in your direction.
I’m under no illusions about the left-leaning tendency of the meh community. That doesn’t automatically make that tendency right - it only makes it louder here.
@RedOak We all love Ron Swanson, and I don’t think calling him “extreme” is insulting or dismissive (assuming you’ve watched a few episodes of Parks and Recreation).
It’s weird to see complaints about NPR outside a larger complaint about big government generally. I don’t see a big distinction between public radio, and say public parks. I feel fairly confident saying that the majority of people see some value in having a small amount of tax money go to those kinds of projects. The wholesale rejection of those kinds of uses of public funds is what I was referring to as “extreme”–because it is extreme, in that it’s the far end of one spectrum of preferences. Hope that didn’t come across as offensive.
@InnocuousFarmer it’s easy to be friendly to NPR support when you don’t see its bias or happen to be in agreement with that bias (perhaps one in the same).
There’s a big difference between an apolitical public park and a media outlet that might or might not have a political slant.
@InnocuousFarmer I have no idea who “Ron Swanson” is but if he’s a cute caricature character on a TV show then being endeared to him kinda is false-condescendingly mocking a viewpoint.
@RedOak
NPR flagship programs try to stay in the center or near it, and to give plenty of airtime to other POV’s And I’ve heard libertarian voices, among others, given a a decent and respectful amount of airtime. At NPR they are more likely to let a civilized and thoughtful person express himself/herself in full, rather that offering constant challenge by interruption, a practice that all the cable networks fall prey to.
They also give a lot of time to relevant stories that fall into the corners, but are worthy, just not cable-ratings-boosters.
Their rather slow storytelling methods are sometimes the best possible way to approach a subject.
As for what bias there is (all news sources have this, but not all news sources have this disease to the same degree), yeah, I presume it’s visible to any thinking person. NPR tries harder than most sources to counter it with alternative POV’s given plenty of air, and with a careful approach.
As is the case with many (but not all) news sources, NPR’s biggest “tell” can often be best seen in an inventory what they do not discuss or barely discuss.
Also we are all prone to assuming bias in others based on our own biases. There’s essentially no way to be completely pure here. Humans simply do not come to politics bias-free.
It’s been decades since I listened. But I know of many people who believed or believe that legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, for instance, is a raving liberal simply because she is based at NPR.
Those who assume this are usually unaware that she was one of Justice Scalia’s close personal friends, and the two famously had many long private discussions of Constitutional Law, going back for decades.
@RedOak As you say, Ron Swanson is a caricature. (I still like that caricature, and don’t think he’s a bad mascot for libertarianism, if not (not) a considered representation of the same.)
It may be the case that any news would be perceived to be slanted by one side or the other. I’m not sure that that implies that government should avoid funding any news, but maybe that is the case.
I feel like I should probably note, nobody’s replied to my actual question, about NPR being a topic of conversation, all of a sudden.
For what it’s worth, this graphic has NPR pretty close to the center, & to the right of most network news. Less bias than you think.
@KDemo
What’s the source? Politifact or elsewhere?
@KDemo haha, i like the ‘garbage’ categories XD why isn’t buzzfeed squarely in the can? must be an old graphic, heh.
i listen mostly to the podcasts but do have NPR as one of my radio presets as well. it’s nice to catch the news in the morning (i don’t like listening to music or people yelling over each other so soon after i’ve woken up) and i also like it if i happen to be driving alone at night, especially if i catch the moth radio hour.
@jerk_nugget I like catching the Moth Radio Hour too. I have no idea when it’s on, it just happens to be there while I’m driving.
@heartny same
i know i could just look it up but i kind of like how often someone just shows up to tell me a good story that keeps me awake and relaxed on my way home.
@jerk_nugget
What is this mouth hour?
Is it on NPR one?
@f00l the moth is live storytelling. it’s true stories told by ‘regular’ people (though some have appeared on the moth before.) they can be funny or serious but usually a bit of both and emotional in some way. i’d have to look up whether it’s NPR or not - i listen on my local npr station (WBUR) but i’m not sure how intertwined they are if at all.
@f00l
https://themoth.org/radio-hour
at the very bottom (at least on mobile) there’s a ‘find a station near you’ widget.
@f00l - The Moth - it’s so great. It’s real people telling real stories from their life. The stories are told in front of an audience without notes so it’s nerve-racking for some, but the stories are really personal. You must check it out!
I listen on KUOW, and on podcasts.
@jerk_nugget
@kdemo
I does it run as a standalone program or within another program?
I wont be using the radio. i just dont anymore unless local something or other.
I know KERA quite well, they have gotten a lot of my money, but they need to make sure everything is podcast to the various podcast locs, not just in NPR ONE.
I don’t really like NPR one that much. I wanna pick and choose and play it at chosen speed. and I want ATC and ME as podcasts. not in a proprietary app. For a while WBUR was podcastings ME and ATC, but they stopped last Dec.
But if The Moth is worth it, I’ll try to find it and give a listen.
@f00l - It stands alone, like the cheese.
I’ll look for a link to the podcast . . .
https://themoth.org/podcast
Also, there are usually several stories per show, so you can listen in smaller snippets.
@f00l i see @KDemo has beaten me to the punch
i was going to paste the same link.
it runs as its own program, but again i only catch it on the radio so i’ve not checked out the podcast. i haven’t exhausted every episode, but i’ve enjoyed every story i’ve heard with the exception of one, and it was quite short so i didn’t have to suffer through it long
and of course if you’re listening to it via podcast, you have the option of skipping forward as opposed to the radio, though i of course could have just changed the channel. (it was one of those stories without a point…it never went anywhere, and the woman who was reading it seemed like she was trying extremely hard to sound deeply affected by her pointless story, and a bit like she wanted to win a bad slam poetry contest.) but i digress - i really do find it enjoyable the other 99.9% of the time.
@jerk_nugget
The choice of speed is one big reason to strongly prefer traditional podcasts (as opposed to apps) as a format.
The second is the the one you mention: skip forward or back an amount of time you set yourself, using bluetooth controls if you wish.
NPR does have very high quality content. There can be a slight “ultra-civilized Georgetown coffee-bar” sameness to it tho, sometimes, even when the programming is created far from the East Coast.
I usually can get too much of it after a while, esp since I can’t set the speed or ffw using the tools they prefer me to use.
And there are so many news and audio content sources around now. I don’t even have nearly time for all my favorites.
I miss listening to new episodes of Car Talk. Even tho I would take years off from it now and then. There are many episodes i’ve yet to hear tho.
@f00l i agree - for awhile i was listening to npr via our amazon echo at home…i would put it on for the news portion in the morning but then just leave it on. not bad for background noise but even that after awhile i had to take a break from. now i mostly just catch the news on the radio but listen to podcasts otherwise. i have a couple regular housekeeping jobs so i have time during the week to listen purposefully but also be productive. (it’s hard for me to listen and do nothing else, but other tasks i’ve tried to do while listening make it so i end up not paying attention to what’s being played.)
the first season of serial and the more recent “s-town” have been my favorites, but i also regularly listen to this american life, modern love, and invisibilia.
i too really enjoyed car talk and with talk of it here perhaps i’ll start putting a couple episodes of those on as well.
@jerk_nugget There were times I had cartalk on the boombox while I was working on my car.
yes, but i missed the vote, tragic
serial and stown (shittown) are very good podcasts, spinoffs from This American Life
NPRone app is a good option as well
I have the local college npr station as a car radio preset the alternate between classical music and the morning and afternoon news shows. I the carolinas npr tv is mostly cooking shows and kids shows. and judy woodruff.