NPR letter-writers are the stodgiest, whiniest, most self-importantly insufferable snobs of all time

[The Straight Story]

On Valentine's Day, NPR's All Things Considered ran a two-and-a-half-minute segment about Justin Bieber fans gone wild. When the teen star lost at the Grammys to Esperanza Spalding, a few of Bieber's aggrieved minions defaced the jazz singer's Wikipedia entry, changing Spalding's middle name to "Quesadilla" and telling her to "go die in a hole." ATC anchor Michele Norris talked about the incident with Linda Holmes, the network's pop culture blogger. Norris sounded amused. As close listeners of NPR know, the hosts draw on a wide vocal range to signal a story's emotional tone; Norris and her colleagues can go from sounding alarmed to intrigued to positively delighted over the course of a two-hour show. For the Bieber segment, Norris' tone said, We understand this is a light story, but you know what, we've just heard about protests in Egypt and the apocalyptic federal budget, so why don't we take a break with Justin Bieber before getting on to that piece about poverty in America?

Not all listeners got the message. "Was it really necessary to spend any time, even four minutes, on one account of teenagers being mean to people online?" wrote a listener from Olympia, Wash. "I hope ATC isn't turning into a tabloid!" tsk-tsked someone else. Another Valentine's story—a three-minute piece about Mattel's new marketing campaign for Ken and Barbie—elicited yet more anger. "For a few seconds, I felt my ears were deceiving me on two fronts," said a guy from Beverly Hills. "One, that I was hearing an April Fool-type story when I thought it was Valentine's Day. And second, that my radio had somehow mysteriously changed from NPR to a commercial channel."

....

For proof that NPR letter-writers are the stodgiest, whiniest, most self-importantly insufferable snobs of all time, just search through the network's archives, which records the letters that All Things Considered and other NPR shows read on-air once or twice a week. Among the many, many topics that listeners have deemed off-limits for NPR, you'll find blogging ("another example of the slow decline of our once-educated society"); Tiger Woods ("what a waste of my time"); the National Enquirer (NPR's citing it as a source "shook me to the core"); adulterous Gov. Mark Sanford ("Can't NPR reporters find more important events going on in the world?"); comedians Adam Carolla and Mo Rocca; the rapper Waka Flocka Flame ("For this, I donate part of my precious pension?"); Twitter ("the CB radio of our era—just as much hype, just as much lasting impact"); Bristol Palin ("The only thing this story provoked me to do was change the station"); Levi Johnston ("We do not care about this subject"); Mel Gibson ("Shame on the producers of ATC for allowing such a scrape at the very bottom of the barrel"); heavy metal legend Dio ("You didn't have to do it just because he died recently"); e-books (they can't compare to "the smell of new paper"); the iPad ("a foolish waste of time"); the thought of children using the iPad ("Hopefully, this will be followed up by an uplifting story about the great things that are happening to children in the realm of outdoor play and unhooking from screen time"); and, perennially, sports. "You can't mention sports without someone saying, 'Why are you covering sports—it's just a bunch of Neanderthals, it's just a bunch of fascists!' " says NPR sports correspondent (and Slate sports podcast "Hang Up and Listen" panelist) Mike Pesca.



http://www.slate.com/id/2286927/

:rofl:

[Teaser]

1. nailed

.

[Buzz Clik]

2. It's the nature of the beast. Lots of people want things exactly their way.

Don't cover this, cover more of that, less of that.

[Courtesy Flush]

3. How could Al Jazeera have missed that Bieber story? nt

[PVnRT]

4. Well, you could say the same about many DU posters as well

"Why are people wasting time with X when Y is all I care about?"

[rucky]

5. I always think of Squidward when I hear those letters.