Because of the nature of my various day jobs, I spend most of my day in front of a computer. Sometimes I play music while I work, but most of the day I have various NPR stations going in the background. Between my local station, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, and the NPR Program Stream, I can listen to soft, calming voices delivering terrible news for 8 - 9 hours straight.Of course one of the dangers of addiction to NPR is the terrible withdrawl one goes through during pledge time. You’re sitting there listening to the news and then, suddenly!, you’re in the midst of a 15 minute pledge pitch. For every 15 minutes of news there’s an equal amount of begging. Gross.
I understand why they have to do it. NPR is supposedly listener-supported radio. I say supposedly because I hear an awful lot of things that sound like ads on NPR stations. A lot of companies that are “donating” money and getting talked about for 15 - 30 seconds. Still, I know that a large chunk of public radio’s money comes from the public. And, like PBS, they need to ask for that money. I’m sure people wouldn’t donate as much without the constant “Give us money. Give us money. My guilt ray, let me show you it. GIVE US THE DAMN MONEY.”
Last spring I did donate a little to Minnesota Public Radio even though I don’t live there. I do listen to their internet feed and happen to like their DJs better than my local ones. Plus, I enjoy their original programming way more. Leonard Lopate and Brian Lehrer are just about the worst hosts in the history of the afternoon. Makes me long wistfully for the days of David Lee Roth on the radio.
This time around I am not going to give any NPR station any money. Will not give in the future, either. Not until they stop this bullshit with the not having a representative number of black folks on the air.
There are some black folks at NPR, yes. News & Notes has most of them. Every now and then Tony Cox will do something for All Things Considered. Steven Barnes will do commentary sometimes, too. But there is a suspicious lack of black people anchoring the major shows and I suspect that, if one were to check, 90% of the reporters would be not-black. If we include all PoC in the count, then NPR is probably 75% white.
You think I’m wrong? Please provide evidence to the contrary.
News & Notes is a good show, I think, and I love Farai Chideya. But N&N only came about because Tavis Smiley got tired of the fact that NPR wasn’t serious about diversification and left. They had to scramble to replace the “black show” with another black show or else they would look racist. Guess what: it didn’t work.
The problem that Tavis saw still exists: a sea of white people skewing the news to their white world view. But I’m sure the folks at NPR and the various local stations don’t see themselves as part of the problem. They’re self-congratulating white liberals that think they aren’t racist because they don’t belong to the KKK. The same kind of people who listen to NPR and think they’re getting “better” news because it doesn’t come from Fox or CNN or whatever.
What these people don’t understand is that NPR (in general) is just as flawed as those other agencies but in different ways and for different reasons. The thing they have in common is that they paint a fake picture of The Way Things Are and present it to the consumers to make them feel better about themselves, their worldview, and their culture.
By relegating any people who might poke a hole in that prettily painted picture to one show or 5 minutes of commentary every few weeks, they ensure that the listeners won’t have their world shaken. White liberals are naturally disinclined to take a hard look at themselves and how they fit into the sticky quagmire of race, but they’re happy to know that there’s that one show with black people. It makes them feel good.
NPR is going to need to do a lot of changing if they ever want my pledge dollars. I’m not talking about hiring a few extra token PoC, but some real soul-searching needs to be done. They need to encourage local stations to develop shows that reflect the diversity of the local population, not just with the anchors but in subject and tone. They need to start covering the news in a less white-identified way. And they need to cut out this crap where there’s only one show devoted to “black stuff” and maybe have a few shows devoted to PoC stuff from all over the spectrum. And, yes, some more non-white anchors would be good, too.
During pledge time, the on-air talent spends a lot of time telling me how I’m obligated to pledge if I listen every day. Yet somehow, if I pledge, they aren’t obligated to put some more black people on my radio.
Aa,
I emailed NPR and I’m sure others emailed too.
Did you?
Cheers,
Elaine
As a WBAI producer I actually find NPR’s fundraising refreshingly mild and restrained. :) Although i’m usually irked by (i.e. jealous of) how laid-back and confident they sound, lol
Have to agree, though, that they remain in dire need of expanding their horizons. (I had some experience with NPR through my work with StoryCorps and the Griot Initiative).
“…you can approach it in an analytical, less emotional way.”
That’s the biggest, cultural, Puritan, Calvinist, WASPy marker yet.
And clearly totally subconsciously so.
Amazing how ingrained the “us v. them” perspective is that “we’re” supposed to be fighting against.
Oh, wait …
Jay,
I must admit, I also hear more of an edge to the voices asking for donation money on ‘BAI. It makes me feel like you all need it more ;) I was actually listening to your station when I wrote this post!
First I feel like I should go on the record and say I in no way speak on behalf of my station, blah blah blah.
I have the feeling - and this thread reinforces it - that your experience of NPR is largely determined by where you live and how your local station is run. Here’s what I find funny - the (correct I’m sure) perception of NPR as being run by and for rich folks, and how that differs from the stereotype of local public radio, broadcasting from a couple dingy rooms in the basement of the library (which was literally the case with us seven or so years ago).
Also, I find I lot of people assume that my station’s workers are all volunteers (we’re not). I went to a conference a few years ago and met someone whose station actually IS run by all volunteers - even the news director was a volunteer. While there will be people who will choose to be really broke so they can volunteer more at the station, for the most part, you have to be able to afford to volunteer, which can result in a skewed demographic.
And Jay, I love StoryCorps and the Griot Initiative - Amazing stuff. Here is a link if anyone wants to hear some: http://www.storycorps.net/listen/index.php?cat=15&submit=Browse+by+Category
And here’s an explanation of what it is: http://www.storycorps.net/griot/
There’s something that still bothering me about this topic, concerning not being able to tell someone’s race on the radio, but I haven’t really formulated it and I don’t know what to say. I do know that in the case of talk show guests, unless they’re kind of famous, the show doesn’t usually put pictures of each of its guests online.
No, you can’t always tell race from a voice on the radio. Which is why, back when, I went looking for the faces to attach to said voices. Which is why, for me, it’s more about the tone/tenor of the show/station in question. And I honestly wouldn’t find NPR so distressing if I felt like the perspective wasn’t so heavily skewed.
Maybe because I listen to so much Pacifica radio, the difference there is so vast!
It’s very white and very mainstream in a lot of ways. I like Pacifica Radio much better. But when I really got definitively turned off to NPR was when they were about as enthusiastic about the Iraq invasion as Fox.
You are so right about News and Notes. I was pissed off last year when Tavis Smiley had to go. My sentiments *exactly*.
“Funambulator, I commend the efforts being made in Louisville. But please, don’t grovel, not here, not anywhere, on threads as potentially lame as these. As you are the only commentator to this thread thus far who actually WORKS for an NPR affiliate, and who has personally accounted for good efforts being made at the local level, I would have hoped for a less snivelly defense on your part (ABW, is this the kind of apology we liberal whites should be aiming for in order to distance ourselves from our natural disinclination to avoid a mirror?)”
Wow, I just now noticed this comment! Keep your commendation, thanks. I’m not groveling or snivelly - I’m proud of my show. I just know enough not to come in here and act like I’m some kind of freedom fighter because we’re doing what everyone should be doing in the first place …the minimum of what everyone should be doing in the first place.
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