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What Makes NPR So Depressing

I have never had reason to stop contemplating my navel and focus on the more important philosophical question of the day: What Makes NPR So Depressing?

If NPR is depressing for you, Godspeed to you! Many of us will never know what we should do or say in your presence.

My memory is that sometimes NPR stories end with a bit of snarky humor, sometimes they end with a bit of old fashioned melancholy about how life used to be in this country when more of us lived in little towns... and before we had NPR, we had the old men in overalls sitting on the bench on the courthouse square, affectionately know as "The spitten and widlen Club".

You see, for some of us who grew up in plain ol' America, we look to NPR to help us know how to feel about ethnicity and how to feel about race, and how to feel about the various religions of the world. You see I grew up in a poor little town where we couldn't afford to buy our own Episcopal or Presbyterian Church. We thought ALL Germans were Catholic... and all Catholics were German. (My father in law never did figure me out: "How can someone claim to be German.... but he isn't Catholic!"

I'm sorry you find NPR to be depressing. I have found it to be my 'Window into the World'.... It's like a daily visit to see the wise-man who sits on a ledge to greet visitors way up on a mountain in Tibet. Now all of that works for me because I am brash enough to tell the old wiseman up on the mountain "to go get xxxxxxx" when it seem appropriate.

Which, in a sense, I guess is what you are doing with this post.
 
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Oscar Madison's posts seem very familiar. I think there was another poster who had his point of view. He took a few months off, and I guess now he's back under a new name.
 
Maybe depressing is over stating it a bit. But they don't seem able to talk about something good without finding the fly in ointment. A dramatic new tech development and they start dwelling on all those people who can't get it or afford it. They can find the cloud in any silver lining.

I know what I feel about ethnicity and race. I don't need NPR to tell me how to feel. NPR seems to obsess about ethnicity and race and to see every problem in racial and ethnic terms.

And where I grew up, Irish and Italians were Catholic. Germans were Lutheran.
 
The Addams Family comes to mind when it comes to NPR. You know, that whole adolescent "fun to be miserable" thing.
 
Oscar Madison said:
Maybe depressing is over stating it a bit. But they don't seem able to talk about something good without finding the fly in ointment. A dramatic new tech development and they start dwelling on all those people who can't get it or afford it. They can find the cloud in any silver lining.
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So what you want is "NPR".... The National POLLYANNA Network... where we only talk about good things?

I don't know about you, but a significant part of my day is spent weighing the good vs the problem.
- - A dish of ice cream would be great about now. But my word look at the calories!
- - An electric car would be nice and ecology friendly.... but look at the limited range if I want to travel.
- - I would like to stay up tonight and watch this late TV program. But boy will I be tired tomorrow.

We do it. Why is it so obnoxious if NPR does it?

Oscar Madison said:
I know what I feel about ethnicity and race. I don't need NPR to tell me how to feel.
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All of us KNOW what we feel about ethnicity and race. Most of us NEED a nudge now and then to remind us that maybe what we FEEL and what is good social policy, good political policy, good faith policy requires that we re-evaluate "what we FEEL".
 
"All of us KNOW what we feel about ethnicity and race. Most of us NEED a nudge now and then to remind us that maybe what we FEEL and what is good social policy, good political policy, good faith policy requires that we re-evaluate "what we FEEL"."

Maybe that's NPR's problem. They think they are the arbiter of what's GOOD POLICY and they think their role is to play Jiminy Cricket.
 
Mr. Rogers might have asked, "Can you say, 'political correctness run amok', boys and girls?"

You can't go by me though, because they lost me years ago when they decided to publicly embarrass a child who used the term "Christmas tree". Radio or TV doesn't much matter where they are concerned. "The holidays remind me of the nutcracker." I thought, "Oh goody, here comes the 4th of July".
 
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so what should NPR do? Some perceive this and in lieu of say just don't listen, I am wondering what NPR should do to be, for lack of a better term, more mass appeal
 
This discussion has put me in mind of "The Fountainhead." Collectivist Ellsworth Toohey hates genius and greatness. He proposes a campaign against an architecturally brilliant new building. Instead of celebrating an accomplishment, he complains about this building going up while other people live in the slums. Ellsworth Toohey is an NPR kind of guy. NPR is so Ellsworth Toohey. And radio is filled with Gayle Wynands with no Howard Roarks.
 
b-turner said:
so what should NPR do? Some perceive this and in lieu of say just don't listen, I am wondering what NPR should do to be, for lack of a better term, more mass appeal
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Excellent contribution to the conversation. When I was young, successful marketing was having the product "that fit all sizes/types" and dominated the market. This seems to be the age of "niche marketing". Marketing folks pick an age group, an economic market, and educational level, and they content themselves to dominate not THE MARKET, but to dominate their niche. J.C. Penney, Sears, Macys, Kodak, are names that no longer rule the roost. Walmart is having to jump through hoops and do some fancy steps to keep from becoming a name from the past. My daughter is visiting our home for Mother's Day and she wants to buy her mother an orchid for mother's day. The fine florist in our town just informed her: That is so yesterday that we don't even stock them. Try Kroger or some supermarket. That is your only possibility. If there was more time, they would have suggested the Internet.

So why in this particular thread, this conversation, why is there all this conversation critical of NPR for maybe being "market-place savvy" and the advice that NPR needs to 'get with the times' and be more-things-to-all-people. It's in the news currently that even McDonalds has hit the brick wall with their mass-appeal no-appeal menu and they are going to have to re-tool to survive.

Is it possible that NPR management is bright enough to say: We are not going to broaden our menu to the point we become McDonalds or JC Penney or Oldsmobile?
 
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TheBigA said:
For those who don't recognize the MO, welcome back the poster formerly known as FredLeonard. Now posting as OscarMadison. He should have chosen OscarTheGrouch, but it was probably already taken.
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Member FredLeonard has not been banned. His membership is active.
Please be careful what you write.

Frank Berry
Lead Moderator
 
I didn't say he was banned. But he hasn't posted using that name since January. You might compare his IP with that of OscarMadison.
 
Again. Please be careful with what you write.
You could be suspended for ad hominem attacks.
 
It's not depressing when the "Car Talk" guys are on, or during "Wait, Wait" (that one I almost never listen to all the way through).

But to make sure the radio is on at the right time I sometimes do sit through some depressing stuff. It's not that I have to listen, but it's just there.
 
I don't quite follow the Fountainhead analogy. What is this architecturally brilliant building that the Ellsworth Tooheys over at NPR are complaining about? Perhaps you would be more comfortable listening to a media outlet that tells you what to think about the topics of the day. Someplace that will identify bad guys that you can blame for whatever ails you. The radio dial is chock full of those types of stations.
 
Albert19X said:
I don't quite follow the Fountainhead analogy. What is this architecturally brilliant building that the Ellsworth Tooheys over at NPR are complaining about? Perhaps you would be more comfortable listening to a media outlet that tells you what to think about the topics of the day. Someplace that will identify bad guys that you can blame for whatever ails you. The radio dial is chock full of those types of stations.
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It wasn't an analogy. It was a metaphor. It wasn't about NPR's building. Re-read the cited article.
 
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