That would be a group of stations I would never listen to!
In my opinion, he's an overgrown infant: hugely immature, prone to lashing out indiscriminately when he doesn't get what he wants when he wants it, and has impulse control and attention span so bad that the average toddler can do better without even trying!
That means he can't run for president, which I think is a good thing! (if he could run, and by some stroke of remarkably bad luck he won, imagine what would happen if he did to the nation what he's doing to Twitter................).
What on earth is this man thinking? I mean, sure, all those warnings can be found virtually everywhere else if people bother to look, but why is he deliberately blocking access to something so important for public safety?
It probably won't have a very meaningful impact, but it's setting a concerning precedent.
At this point, I am beginning to strongly dislike Teslas, not just because Musk is the owner/CEO/whatever else he does, but because objectively, they're not very good cars.
When, for many years, they were the only practical EV on the market at any price, there wasn't a choice if one wanted an EV, but now there's no reason to buy a Tesla when one can get a Chevy Bolt (along with an increasingly large number of alternatives) on the low end or, an Audi or Volkswagen on the high end. In both cases, the cars are objectively better than Teslas (and they don't automatically crash themselves into ambulances with flashing lights!)
Or perhaps not, but does it matter? Choice is good, and people will decide for themselves which make and model of EV best suits their needs (in the same way the automobile market has worked for literally 100+ years now!)
For some reason, Musk is immensely and irrationally livid over this fact; that his company isn't the only one making EVs anymore is not wrong – it's simply the capitalist market doing what capitalist markets do, and I think it's stupid for him to throw a tantrum over it (that very same market did make him much of his wealth, after all, so it's not like this will hurt him).
As for politically, I don't really care much for NPR, but I could say the same of most of the other news outlets to various extents.
Honestly, the vitriol gets so intense on both the right and the left that I basically ignore it all. I don't care who says what and why. I just want the facts.
That said, I identify nominally as a mildly conservative democrat, leaning to the left on some issues (environment, social safety net, accountability, gun laws, etc.) and somewhat to the right on others (taxes, budget, regulations), and can usually find some point to agree with from pretty much anyone in any party so long as their positions are reasonable and understandable. By and large, I've observed after various fact checks that democrats tend to be more understandable and reasonable than republicans (especially on big things like climate and gun laws), but that doesn't mean all republicans are unreasonable. Take Mitt Romney, for example. While I don't agree with him 100% on everything, I feel that he is pretty fair and reasonable much of the time. I also felt the same about the late John McCain.
Some of these newcomers, on the other hand, I don't know. Lauren Boebart? MTG? Try as I might, I cannot understand anything they say! They just come across as nonsensical zealots to me.
This is where I stand. Take it or leave it.
As for radio (which is ostensibly the subject here, I think?):
Radio didn't have to be reduced to the useless heap that it seems to have become. I think a series of bad decisions and too much consolidation harmed the credibility and integrity of most news departments, and due to unreasonably extreme budget cuts, most places don't even have news departments anymore, instead opting to syndicate some kind of national news instead. Obviously, this can lead to some rather glaring holes in coverage, which can actually be fatal in some cases (such as the recent example @spiritof67 laid out). Of course, this has implications with regard to funding from advertisers and listeners. If you are a station that alleges to provide important local "news" and you botch something as basic and important as a tornado alert, it's pretty logical that you're gonna lose listeners regardless of what band you're on.
And as for those stations that are slowly going under and being converted to religious outlets by entities such as EMF, Relevant Radio, etc., well, how many religious people are there in a given area? I'm sure there are many, but there are also many others who aren't, and in my opinion this is just a gross waste of a valuable public resource and a disservice to a public that would be much better served by, I dunno, something that is actually important? That's not to say that religion isn't important, but it really bothers me that these religious groups keep gobbing up every station they can find, just to completely blast every square inch of every market with their programming when there's absolutely no need to.
I mean, I'm not against religion at all, but how much is too much? Why must all forms of terrestrial broadcast be completely consumed by these religious juggernauts? It would probably be wrong to call it propaganda, which is a rather strong and heavily loaded term, but it's beginning to feel that way a bit, considering how ubiquitous and inescapable it is becoming.
Tying this back in to the topic at hand, NPR, PBS, the BBC, nor any of their affiliates are "government affiliated" or "state funded" propaganda, and for Musk to label them as such is stupid and only serves to damage their credibility and make a point of how angry and bitter he is over.... absolutely nothing whatsoever.
OK, I'll stop now.
c
