I admit it. I occasionally listen to NPR. A quarter of a century ago, I even made contributions to the local outlets. No more, of course. There was an old joke about an elderly couple. It makes sense only if you can remember when automobiles came with three-in-the-tree and bench seats. The wife asks, “How come we don’t sit close together when we ride anymore?” To which the husband in his normal place behind the steering wheel replies, “I haven’t moved.” I sort of feel the same way about NPR and me.
https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
Heh. Love the anec-joke about the old folks.
I’m happy to see the Twitterati (where I largely am these days) suddenly discovering that NPR is biased, and frankly, I consider from 2016 onward to be quite recent.
NPR has sucked since Reagan was President, and I simply don’t know about before then. I haven’t listened in easily 20 years, and if it got even worse than the late 1990s, what the Hell were people listening to it for the last couple of decades?
The mind reels.
Locally produced content when I first moved to CA was pretty good. KQED had a weekend program called West Coast Weekend. It was a two hour long program with some interesting characters and bands. I’d never have discovered the band Bull Dyke in a China Shop if not for that program. Nor would I have heard Irene Krall, or the Back Dancing and Dynamite Society at Half Moon Bay. Politics got in the way at the station and it was a long time before I discovered that Thompson and Co. had moved to KALW. All are off the air now. Too bad.
I suspect that llike may things, the local radio / PBS / NPR balance used to tip more local. Just as the rise of the Dept of Ed has turned average schools into state-run indoctrination mills, so I suspect the Potomac swamp thing has consolidated its hold on PBS radio and TV stations over the decades. It starts with CTW and Big Bird, and ends in struggle sessions and taxpayer-funded calls for violent revolution.
Good to see you!