NPR - grrrrrrrr!!

[central scrutinizer]

I rarely listen to National Poodle Radio anymore, but it snowed yesterday and I needed to see if there were any changes in the school bus schedule for my daughter. To get to the local weather and road report, I had to listen to a long advertisement, er I mean report, on the Republican/AARP Medicare plan. They had it sound like only a handful of loony seniors were protesting the plan and most would keep their membership so they could get discounts on cruises and other shit. No criticism of the bill at all.

[La_Serpiente]

1. The AFL-CIO

should be putting out some ads soon.

[redqueen]

2. By design...

Gingrich et al lobbied hard for cuts to public broadcasting, so they now get more $$$ from corporate interests ... the payoff of his work for his buddies is obvious.

:puke:

[ozone_man]

3. What is it with NPR?

I was listening this morning about the possibility of 10,000 demonstrators in London. I think it will be much bigger than that, maybe 50,000 or even 100,000.

[Scott Lee]

7. Ever since Terri "Bush" Gross badmouthed the antiwar movement

I have given the finger to NPR. Not just for that, mind you....it had been going downhill for quite sometime. My theory is that it was too damned scared of losing it's government money (guess which party currently holds the purse strings on their funding) so it wanted to make nice.

'Twas a sad day to watch a formerly powerful radio tool against fascist groupthink fade into political irrelevence.

[Selwynn]

4. They had a very long thing on the medicare plan yesterday

And another one the day before that.

Just because you click on the radio one time and don't hear what you want doesn't mean much of anything.

No media source is perfect, but all in all I love NPR.

[felonious thunk]

8. Exactly

they have been doing reports on it all week. From different angles, and attempting to report the story from all sides. I applaud NPR for it's efforts at balanced coverage. I don't want NPR to be biased left or right. Just fair, and I think that most of the time, they do that.

[Junkdrawer]

5. It's hard to listen to NPR anymore...

It's like watching a grandparent sink into alcoholism after a long and productive career.

[Jack The Tab]

6. I've been watching PBS sink farther and farther...

Although there is still quality programming, I see they are running commercials now for ADM, Monsanto, and even just two nights ago....ORTHO EXTERMINATORS....it's a real shame to see them break up programming exactly like a commercial TV station.

9. is there hope?

... that the $200 million bequest they just got from Kroc will improve things at NPR? That's what I'm hoping.

[supernova]

10. Actually, I heard this differently

They had it sound like only a handful of loony seniors were protesting the plan and most would keep their membership so they could get discounts on cruises and other shit. No criticism of the bill at all.

What I got out of it was, due to the aforementioned discounts on hotels, and cruises, etc, that AARP is achieving a certain irrelevance among the 50+ set, especially the turning-50 Baby Boomers. IWO, all they want from AARP is the travel and vitamin discounts. The percieved political influence isn't so important to the general AARP audience anymore.

That doesn't mean seniors are inactive, they're the most politically active of all age groups. Maybe it's true for a generation used to active participation in the community anyway that AARP isn't going to be the way to go about it. Bad news for AARP.

And yeah, it doesn't help AARP in any way that the new guy (whathisname) was a Nixon WH staffer. :puke: Something else I learned from NPR.

The fact they supported the repub bill will go down in flames with seniors. It is a political as well as PR disaster in the making. You just watch. Have you checked out the AARP board? They are up in arms!