keem said:
Earlier in this thread I dragged this conversation right over to the borderline between intelligent discussion and "trash talk". I want to apologize to tzbarber and the rest of you for having done so.
However. NPR does exist. It does some really stupid things, It does some really great things. It provides programming that some of us love. It provides programming that some of us do not care for... programming that some of us actually hate.
My point is this. NPR does exist. It has pioneered and established some programming techniques and some technical techniques that other broadcasters ignore at their own peril.
When I first heard Terri Gross and Fresh Air I was not impressed. Not a classic radio style voice. Sometimes a "gushy" conversational style. Sometimes I would punch up the local NPR station and enter in the middle of a sentence by someone saying something really interesting. And then I would realize.... I've tuned into that wierd Terri Gross program.
Then it dawned on me one day. She gets great guests! People I would like to hear (even those I disagree with) WILL appear on her show because they respect the fact that she treats her guests with respect. (Even those SHE disagrees with.) Time after time I heard her surprise a guest with some quote from a book written by the guest: The lady does her homework.
She had paid her dues. She is able to get guests that other talk shows cannot get.
O.K. So I am a convert. I have come to like Terri Gross. That is not the point I want to make. Any commercial broadcaster would be wise to "go to school" on this program and NPR as a whole. They are doing some things that commercial broadcasters would be wise to adopt. (yes, they also do things NO commercial broadcaster will ever do or want to do.) Why would you pay some consultant big fees to learn how to broadcast better and more successfully, when NPR and Terri Gross offer free classes every day. Should you listen every day? No, you don't have time. When you tell me you have never head of Terri Gross, never heard of Fresh Air, and you NEVER listen to anything on NPR, you are telling me you have a management style in which I could never work.... and a station to which I would probably never listen with regularity.
But. The conversation did not start out to be a straw poll on Terri Gross. The original post I think had something to do with a broadcast organization that (rumor has it) took a broadcast off the air based on one call from one listener who found the content not pleasing.
Here is the question left on the table. If you are a broadcaster in Mississippi, are you happy that another broadcast operation in your state has bowed to a form of "school yard bully censorship"? If you are an on-air person, are you happy to know that the public is being trained that "your career can be snuffed out some day by one call from one listener"?
