NPR is going downhill

[lxskllr]

The only voice that bothers me is Diane Rehm. I could get over it if I liked the show better, but the show's kind of meh too.

 

[UglyCasanova]

More futile attempts to get us to - if not like - at least accept the redesign.


As for their voices, I don't find them to be dull or stiff. Like was said above, they are being professional.

 

[PricklyPete]

I liked Talk of the Nation. Neal Conan was always a pleasure to listen to.

Agreed...one of the best shows on NPR..will certainly be missed.

 

[cyclohexane]

Car talk is the greatest show on the planet, wait wait don't tell me is also good.

 

[zinfamous]

I carpool with someone who listens to NPR....

Is there a requirement for their reporters to speak in the manner that they do? They seem to talk slower and seem a bit 'stiff' (both males and females)...Very noticable difference versus the reporters/voice personalities of the other radio stations....

NPR doesn't suffer the radio delay that every other radio station must submit to.

If you aren't aware of what this is, it is the actual ~5-6 second? lag time between the signal being sent and what the listener hears. Why this lag?

Advertising.

Mainstream radio/media depends on advertising, and every signal broadcast is truncated by milliseconds at a time--the gaps and pauses that every normal person injects in their speech are immediately snipped through internal software so as to cut out every possible chance of dead air. As the speaker is talking, their audio is being filtered and snipped before hitting the stream, more or less instantaneously. It's not a delay in signal transfer, it's a delay in processing, because the demands of advertising must be met. (this is why you need to turn off your radio when calling these stations. The delay from what you hear and what they are asking you through the phone, as it is all broadcast at the same time, is jarring)

As such, DJs and broadcasters on all other stations (well, DJ's are pretty much robots now, anyway) speak noticeably and unnaturally faster than they should. On top of that, as others have said, they are in the entertainment business first and foremost. They are trained to speak with a bit more oomph, as it were.

 

[AdamK47]

NPR sure does love to put people on the air with British accents.

 

[Dankk]

Shame. I love NPR... I listen to it in my car almost every day. It's the only news station I can listen to without being inundated by loud rock music, techno, advertisements, and people yelling at me.

And the human interest stories are great. I love learning about people's lives on the other side of the world.

The only voice that bothers me is Diane Rehm. I could get over it if I liked the show better, but the show's kind of meh too.

When I first listened to her a few years ago, I thought she was just really old or something. Then I learned she had throat cancer (?) which explains why she talks the way she does. But yeah, other than that, everyone else's voices are fine. I don't know what people are talking about.

 

[zinfamous]

Am I the only one in here that thought Talk of the Nation was pretty terrible? They had frequently had some pretty good topics but that was undermined by Neal Conan being a pretty sub-par moderator and that the show had the WORST callers in existence. People would call in with the most leftist and rightist uneducated opinions and statements and it pretty much ruined every show.

well, that's pretty much what you get in most cases. Though, I only recall a few memorably extreme cases from such callers and I thought Neal handled them well with such comments as "Well, that's certainly one of the thoughts out there," or simply "Thanks for offering your comments." At which point, Neal and the guests gracefully ignore such diversionary and inconsequential thinking and get on with the normal discussion.

But when you open the lines to anyone, you will expect these things. And at the very least, you tend to get a nice mix of craziness from either side of the spectrum, and not the one-sided craziness that you would get listening to the MSNBC or Fox variants.

 

[zinfamous]

When I first listened to her a few years ago, I thought she was just really old or something. Then I learned she had throat cancer (?) which explains why she talks the way she does. But yeah, other than that, everyone else's voices are fine. I don't know what people are talking about.

Hey, maybe you learned that in this thread?

Diane Rehm is very hard to listen to, but she has some great interviews. I believe she has had throat cancer for some time now, and has gone through long periods of time where she simply can't talk. Her voice actually isn't age (I think she's far younger than she sounds?), it's the cancer. Got to admire her being able to continue doing what she loves despite the roadblocks.

But yeah, I think she's actually in her 60s or something. Very young for that kind of voice. It's a shame.

Oh, never mind. She was born in '36--and she was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia in 1998...so yeah, in her 60s at the time when the voice problems began.

 

[lupi]

If you are calling into a station, the main reason for the delay is to allow for a dump button.

 

[Dankk]

Hey, maybe you learned that in this thread?





But yeah, I think she's actually in her 60s or something. Very young for that kind of voice. It's a shame.

Oh, never mind. She was born in '36--and she was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia in 1998...so yeah, in her 60s at the time when the voice problems began.

You're right, I didn't carefully read the whole thread. My bad.

I agree it's fun sometimes (but also occasionally irritating) to hear extremists calling in from both sides. Neal Conan handles them expertly though.

 

[spacejamz]

NPR doesn't suffer the radio delay that every other radio station must submit to.

If you aren't aware of what this is, it is the actual ~5-6 second? lag time between the signal being sent and what the listener hears. Why this lag?

Advertising.

Mainstream radio/media depends on advertising, and every signal broadcast is truncated by milliseconds at a time--the gaps and pauses that every normal person injects in their speech are immediately snipped through internal software so as to cut out every possible chance of dead air. As the speaker is talking, their audio is being filtered and snipped before hitting the stream, more or less instantaneously. It's not a delay in signal transfer, it's a delay in processing, because the demands of advertising must be met. (this is why you need to turn off your radio when calling these stations. The delay from what you hear and what they are asking you through the phone, as it is all broadcast at the same time, is jarring)

As such, DJs and broadcasters on all other stations (well, DJ's are pretty much robots now, anyway) speak noticeably and unnaturally faster than they should. On top of that, as others have said, they are in the entertainment business first and foremost. They are trained to speak with a bit more oomph, as it were.

Thanks for that...I was aware that there was a delay but I assumed that real-time 5 second delay that would not affect the voice at all...

 

[UglyCasanova]

well, that's pretty much what you get in most cases. Though, I only recall a few memorably extreme cases from such callers and I thought Neal handled them well with such comments as "Well, that's certainly one of the thoughts out there," or simply "Thanks for offering your comments." At which point, Neal and the guests gracefully ignore such diversionary and inconsequential thinking and get on with the normal discussion.

But when you open the lines to anyone, you will expect these things. And at the very least, you tend to get a nice mix of craziness from either side of the spectrum, and not the one-sided craziness that you would get listening to the MSNBC or Fox variants.

I've listened to most of the episodes of Talk of the Nation via podcast for the last few years (dish washing, laundry ritual). There have been a few instances of ignorant callers on either the right or left calling in, but like you said Neal would just politely say thank you and move on with the topic. Much more professional than you would get elsewhere, and one of the reasons I liked the show so much (as well as Warren Olney's To The Point from KCRW). The show is a discussion, not a shouting match, and the ignorant people and ideas are ignored as they should be.

That said, the amount of those callers seemed very few and far between, and I caught a good deal of the show.

 

[MetalMat]

I hate NPR except for Car Talk. My parents used to constantly listen to it and it drove me nuts.

Sucks that there are no more new episodes of Car Talk but 25 years was a very long run.

 

[LightPattern]

Now NPR CEO Gary Knell is leaving.

"His replacement will be NPR's seventh acting or full-time CEO in little over seven years."

At least he's not leaving after a scandal..

 

[Ksyder]

I thought talk of the nation going away was kind of sad, but I've enjoyed Here and Now which is what replaced it, at least in my city.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I'm discovering a lot of good podcasts that come from NPR, "Snap Judgement", "This American Life", and "NPR Ted Radio Hour".

Never listen to the actual NPR radio around here, that would be KQED in the Bay Area I think

 

[lxskllr]

I've enjoyed Here and Now which is what replaced it, at least in my city.

Same. It's a good show.

My biggest complaint is a Sunday quiz show they added. I forget what it's called, but it's word games using pop culture trivia. I don't like word games, and I don't like pop culture, so it's a waste of an hour for me. they also went part of the way by getting rid of the Smiley and West show, but they need to take it home by ditching Tavis Smiley also. It's a waste of bandwidth. That joker needs to be on MSNBC, or something like that.

 

[Drako]

Now NPR CEO Gary Knell is leaving.



At least he's not leaving after a scandal..

He lasted longer than the previous 6

 

[raildogg]

I don't lean one way or the other in terms of politics but I would rather listen to Rush Limbaugh than NPR. NPR show's have a bunch of intellectuals throwing off ideas and theories that simply do not work in the real world. They love to show off their intellectualism for the sake of it.

 

[Triumph]

I don't lean one way or the other in terms of politics but I would rather listen to Rush Limbaugh than NPR. NPR show's have a bunch of intellectuals throwing off ideas and theories that simply do not work in the real world. They love to show off their intellectualism for the sake of it.

So...you'd prefer to listen to uneducated opinions to educated ones?

 

[lxskllr]

So...you'd prefer to listen to uneducated opinions to educated ones?

I started replying to his post, but bailed on it. I never hear unorthodox politics or economics being discussed, but maybe I just tune it out. They tend to be liberally oriented, but I never hear anything really out there, and the discussion isn't that deep. It's usually just a light overview of current events.

 

[Jeff7]

I don't lean one way or the other in terms of politics but I would rather listen to Rush Limbaugh than NPR. NPR show's have a bunch of intellectuals throwing off ideas and theories that simply do not work in the real world. They love to show off their intellectualism for the sake of it.

:hmm:

So...you'd prefer to listen to uneducated opinions to educated ones?

It's the way a lot of people get voted in.
Someone educated and intelligent?
Or a guy who knows more about beer than he does about economic policy?

 

[unokitty]

So...you'd prefer to listen to uneducated opinions to educated ones?

I enjoy listening to the opinions of those that are educated beyond their intelligence much less that they enjoy listening to themselves.

Uno

 

[PokerGuy]

The only show on NPR that was worth listening to was Car Talk... the rest are mostly a bunch of left wing hacks pretending to be "neutral". NPR should receive no public dollars. If people want to donate money to a left wing outlet, that's their prerogative, but not public money.