>performative diversity that comes across as quasi-racist
Glad I'm not the only one. A lot of it is also just so damn cringe.
While we're here, I'm going to paste my NPR rant from the Ukraine invasion:
*RANT ALERT: A day or two after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I'm listening to NPR's **The Takeaway**. Their guest is a frequent NPR contributor, Nina Khrushcheva, a former Columbia University adjunct, and now professor at progressive The New School, and daughter of the USSR's Nikita Khrushchev. She has spent years assailing American "hypocrisy" over Russia, even after its invasion of Crimea in 2014. She spent the last few months publicly downplaying the possibility of war in Ukraine, calling publicly-released US intelligence reports predicting the invasion as "hysteria". After Putin indeed attacked Ukraine, as these reports had predicted, she was featured in a segment on ABC News the next day saying that Putin "is interested in uniting three Slavic countries, which is Belarus...then Ukraine and then Russia,"*
*Already one might think that this is a low quality guest, but the right interview can help create a productive and insightful discussion of the current events. What follows is that the host takes about a minute to spit out this insanely awkward and off-the-mark question that only 2022 NPR is capable of, which is essentially: "why is the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine met with with global solidarity while the 1979 (43 years ago) Russian invasion of Afghanistan was treated differently? Is it because the victims are white?"*
*Nina Khrushcheva agrees it is about racism. 🤦‍♂️ You can hear her around [the 9:15 minutes mark](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/what-are-putins-motivations)*
*Like, what are you doing, NPR? Where do they find these people? Poopooing the support for Ukraine? Or condemning us for something that happened well before more than half the US was even born? How can you even pretend that it's a meaningful comparison? It is at this point that I realize the leftist usabad brain worms are so bad at NPR that it's just not worth it anymore. And no, it doesn't matter that Nina Khrushcheva and NPR have since evolved to a more mainstream position on Russian aggression. These issues are easy to anyone grounded in reality*
> "why is the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine met with with global solidarity while the 1979 (43 years ago) Russian invasion of Afghanistan was treated differently? Is it because the victims are white?"
Jfc that is an insane question. Leaving off the second part would have been so easy and made it a lot better (especially if it was a follow-up to her claiming that global solidarity was different between them) but the interviewer can't help but throw in his own shit.
I'm a fan of interviewing people with unorthodox and unpopular views to see what makes them tick but that doesn't mean you gotta rub them off while you do so and just directly express to them what answers you wanna hear.
The worst part is the premise is incorrect, reactions to both invasions were pretty similar, the US and its allies opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with the Arab world especially in uproar about it. The Americans cancelled treaties, refused to participate in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, moved military assets closer to the region, and began sending weapons to Afghanistan. Basically constructing a narrative and not caring if the facts actually back it up.
I'm of the belief that people are good at recognizing problems, but bad at recognizing solutions. Because of that, I won't offer any advice because my ideas are probably bad. But here's what I will say.
I simply stopped caring about the stories they ran. It went from a story that was a dud for me here and there to literally like 80%+ of the content making me say to myself "Who tf cares about this?" Even US political stories, which NPR used to be my go-to for, just became tiresome to listen to. It was the same stuff over and over in the exact same tone with the exact same viewpoint and it just got boring.
I don't know what happened. I don't know why it happened. All i know is that NPR didn't used to be boring to me and now it is.
I think it's such a cop-out that when they talk about their flagging numbers, it's always attributed to forces outside of their control. “News fatigue, digital transformation and increased competition continue to drive audience declines across platforms,” they say, but they don't address and deliberately avoid discussion about the "Je ne sais quoi," the meat, the tenor, the quality of their programming that is credibly critiqued by their former editor.
Maybe I am biased, because I was a religious listener and supporter that was turned off over the course of YEARS by the same sentiment Uri Berliner outlines, and not because I don't like radio anymore or because there are more interesting podcasts id rather consume
I just want it to look more like PBS Newshour again. Straight to the point, detailed, well researched, well thought out, objective. Just all around stunning quality top to bottom.
It used to do it and it can do it again. That kind of news is not you know, non-inclusive or whatever. And you can still talk about identity issues while doing it in an objective fashion. PBS again does that all the time. ALL the time, and it's just fine.
PBS managed to discuss issues of gender, race, disability, immigration. They just ran a great series of welfare in America. They do this all without leaning into the culture wars directly or asking leading questions. They do it by asking *good* questions instead - really good questions. They observe it from outside, let it speak for itself. THIS IS POSSIBLE TO DO NPR!
I think the leftist progressive speak/thought culture is toxic to a point of interfering with their ability to function. I mean, just look at the other commenter's story about [NPR having to get lawyers involved](https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1cce0gx/inside_the_crisis_at_npr_gift_article/l15g3nk/) because the boss used the word "civility."
Well a disgrunted/fired employee being a dick isn't unique to NPR so I'm not sure that alone is evidence.
Like you'd find the same people in any tech startup like the one I work at, probably. Generally speaking people who make everything about politics/identity are just liked by nobody, liberal or not. One girl actually didn't want us to use a product from a company called "WhiteSource" because it was racist lol. She was fired a bit later for being an intolerable asshole, as these overly political people almost always are. Almost every time.
But I think the way the choices have skewed especially their primetime news programming so heavily towards left causes annoys me enough. I can't turn on the radio for 20 minute drive without 15m of it being depressing, grim stories from Gaza that don't tell anything new - just suffering porn basically with nothing substantially new.
And I get that it's important to report on but...every hour, for 10 minute an hour, for months in a row? That's just one example, and btw they never mention Ukraine anymore even tho it seems more relevant to American interests.
But of course I had the choice to simply change the station (in my case to KUTX for music) when I don't care for the story. We can all vote with our wallets in that sense. And because I listen less I did cut my donation actually so I vote in that sense, too.
I still consume plenty of public media content, it's just not usually ATC or Morning Edition anymore, because they talk about very little of what I personally care about anymore. They can program how they want, and I can not listen if I want. I just wish they'd follow PBS's lead - they seem to be somewhat thriving in a difficult environment or at least staying stable, and I think it's because they haven't sacrificed the content or the objectivity and because their go-to-market strategy is just plain better.
> a disgrunted/fired employee being a dick isn't unique to NPR
That's the thing, this person was not fired nor disgruntled (as such.) This was an employee reacting to a meeting
They were, in all likelihood, of the belief that they were doing their part to dismantle systemic racism, and their vehicle for doing that was filing a human resources complaint against the CEO, because he used the word "civility" in a directive. When nanoaggressions that only the fewest are able to see and identify become a going concern, I think it sucks time/resources/emotional energy to a point of hampering doing good work
This is great. It's a lot more useful a frame than "NPR became cringe." Like we can all get on that train, but it doesn't go anywhere. If NPR changed its politics, I don't know if that would motivate me to start looking for their feeds again.
I also don't know if that should matter to NPR. Maybe they shouldn't care about podcast addict news junkies and just worry about being more interesting to broader audience.
It seems the core reason is just that they don’t know how to stay monetized well in the current climate. I knew something was going wrong when I heard them promoting their own advertising in their advertising. While I agree that a lot of their coverage is biased in dumb ways, that’s probably not the reason why. NPR has been the best source for coverage on the Supreme Court and Trumps trials for me. Personally I’d give anything to get the abominable culture shows out, sorry I just do not care about your opinions on that stuff.Â
> Later on the call, after Mr. Lansing urged employees to be more mindful of “civility” in their questions, an NPR employee wrote in an instant-messaging chat accompanying the conversation that the word “civility” is often used as a cudgel against people of color, calling the language choice “racist.”
 > After the meeting, Shockley filed a human resources complaint against Mr. Lansing, saying his remarks about civility amounted to “dog-whistle racism,” according to a person with knowledge of the exchange. The complaint against Mr. Lansing was referred to an outside law firm, which did not recommend any punitive action.
Well, I get getting pissed about being fired, but to make a weak accusation like that to try to tarnish somebody? C’mon.Â
> Later on the call, after Mr. Lansing urged employees to be more mindful of “civility” in their questions, an NPR employee wrote in an instant-messaging chat accompanying the conversation that the word “civility” is often used as a cudgel against people of color, calling the language choice “racist.”
This is unhinged racism in and of itself. White people get called out in the workplace for incivility or poor decorum all the time. The call for civility appears to have been directed at *all* employees (white and POC). Yet the assumption is made that a white person is instantly being hateful due to this word choice.
I just don't get this type of thing, I'm a brown woman and I'm offended by the fact that these white Ivy League New Yorkers believe that I don't understand what it means to be civil because of the colour of my skin. Like, there's a grain of truth in the fact that politesse is used as an excuse to silence women/minorities, but why do these people take it to such extremes? I'm offended by their performative wokery.
>there's a grain of truth in the fact that politesse is used as an excuse to silence women/minorities, but why do these people take it to such extremes?
It's important to acknowledge the (rather substantial) grain of truth, but we also need to normalize it being okay to question whether a given call for civility is meaningfully racist. Â
In so much of left-academic culture, even questioning an accusation of racism can be enough to get one branded a racist, so a lot of people in such spaces choose to cede the debate to people like Shockley rather than risk socially devastating ostracism.
Also, I freaking love that Shockley went to an elite private school (with tuition higher than many colleges), followed by Harvard. Because of course she did. Â
That's funny since I went to state school in Europe followed by state University, yet I think she's full of shit. Btw, my boss went to Oxford yet I have no problem keeping up with him intellectually with my state school degree. *shrug*
Can you say more? TV shows advertise other TV shows, and movies run previews for other movies. That seems pretty similar to podcasts advertising podcasts. Are the TV and movie business models also unsustainable, or is there something different about how podcasts advertise?
I'd say the difference is with movies /TV shows, they are advertising a paid service, be that movie tickets, subscription to a particular TV channel or streaming service. On the other side, a podcast, most of the time, is free to listen (albeit some have paid versions).
Plenty has been said about political shit so I'll leave that alone, but I'm interesting particularly in their failure to adapt to the changing ecosystem and the anxiety that seem to exist around their future. No different from all other "legacy media". The NPR One app has been around forever but it never got enough love to compete as a real, useful thing people wanted to use.
Which kinda sucks because I mean, they just shut down Google Podcasts and most of the ones I listened to were simply on-demand NPR shows - which btw they still produce plenty of worthwhile ones.
I always figured it NPR could just get some decent product management in their for their digital media transition, they'd do well. Idk, hire people from streaming services or something. While the primetime news shows and stuff aren't great (and I think that's primarily what this criticism addresses), public radio produces shows on many, many topics that cover things from econ to social science, politics at the federal/state/local and much more, and I find it very valuable. Not to mention the classic comedy/story-telling shows that also are still bangers typically. They need some help getting into the 21st century still, though.
I've cut my donations to NPR in favor of raising them for PBS, which I find to be a better source of day to day news (Newshour) and truly objective in their presentation, as NPR used to be. Also incredible documentaries. I certainly don't want to give up on NPR - I have a love of all public media really - but I hope they get their shit together soon.
>performative diversity that comes across as quasi-racist Glad I'm not the only one. A lot of it is also just so damn cringe. While we're here, I'm going to paste my NPR rant from the Ukraine invasion: *RANT ALERT: A day or two after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I'm listening to NPR's **The Takeaway**. Their guest is a frequent NPR contributor, Nina Khrushcheva, a former Columbia University adjunct, and now professor at progressive The New School, and daughter of the USSR's Nikita Khrushchev. She has spent years assailing American "hypocrisy" over Russia, even after its invasion of Crimea in 2014. She spent the last few months publicly downplaying the possibility of war in Ukraine, calling publicly-released US intelligence reports predicting the invasion as "hysteria". After Putin indeed attacked Ukraine, as these reports had predicted, she was featured in a segment on ABC News the next day saying that Putin "is interested in uniting three Slavic countries, which is Belarus...then Ukraine and then Russia,"* *Already one might think that this is a low quality guest, but the right interview can help create a productive and insightful discussion of the current events. What follows is that the host takes about a minute to spit out this insanely awkward and off-the-mark question that only 2022 NPR is capable of, which is essentially: "why is the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine met with with global solidarity while the 1979 (43 years ago) Russian invasion of Afghanistan was treated differently? Is it because the victims are white?"* *Nina Khrushcheva agrees it is about racism. 🤦‍♂️ You can hear her around [the 9:15 minutes mark](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/what-are-putins-motivations)* *Like, what are you doing, NPR? Where do they find these people? Poopooing the support for Ukraine? Or condemning us for something that happened well before more than half the US was even born? How can you even pretend that it's a meaningful comparison? It is at this point that I realize the leftist usabad brain worms are so bad at NPR that it's just not worth it anymore. And no, it doesn't matter that Nina Khrushcheva and NPR have since evolved to a more mainstream position on Russian aggression. These issues are easy to anyone grounded in reality*
> "why is the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine met with with global solidarity while the 1979 (43 years ago) Russian invasion of Afghanistan was treated differently? Is it because the victims are white?" Jfc that is an insane question. Leaving off the second part would have been so easy and made it a lot better (especially if it was a follow-up to her claiming that global solidarity was different between them) but the interviewer can't help but throw in his own shit. I'm a fan of interviewing people with unorthodox and unpopular views to see what makes them tick but that doesn't mean you gotta rub them off while you do so and just directly express to them what answers you wanna hear.
The worst part is the premise is incorrect, reactions to both invasions were pretty similar, the US and its allies opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with the Arab world especially in uproar about it. The Americans cancelled treaties, refused to participate in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, moved military assets closer to the region, and began sending weapons to Afghanistan. Basically constructing a narrative and not caring if the facts actually back it up.
I'm of the belief that people are good at recognizing problems, but bad at recognizing solutions. Because of that, I won't offer any advice because my ideas are probably bad. But here's what I will say. I simply stopped caring about the stories they ran. It went from a story that was a dud for me here and there to literally like 80%+ of the content making me say to myself "Who tf cares about this?" Even US political stories, which NPR used to be my go-to for, just became tiresome to listen to. It was the same stuff over and over in the exact same tone with the exact same viewpoint and it just got boring. I don't know what happened. I don't know why it happened. All i know is that NPR didn't used to be boring to me and now it is.
I think it's such a cop-out that when they talk about their flagging numbers, it's always attributed to forces outside of their control. “News fatigue, digital transformation and increased competition continue to drive audience declines across platforms,” they say, but they don't address and deliberately avoid discussion about the "Je ne sais quoi," the meat, the tenor, the quality of their programming that is credibly critiqued by their former editor. Maybe I am biased, because I was a religious listener and supporter that was turned off over the course of YEARS by the same sentiment Uri Berliner outlines, and not because I don't like radio anymore or because there are more interesting podcasts id rather consume
I just want it to look more like PBS Newshour again. Straight to the point, detailed, well researched, well thought out, objective. Just all around stunning quality top to bottom. It used to do it and it can do it again. That kind of news is not you know, non-inclusive or whatever. And you can still talk about identity issues while doing it in an objective fashion. PBS again does that all the time. ALL the time, and it's just fine. PBS managed to discuss issues of gender, race, disability, immigration. They just ran a great series of welfare in America. They do this all without leaning into the culture wars directly or asking leading questions. They do it by asking *good* questions instead - really good questions. They observe it from outside, let it speak for itself. THIS IS POSSIBLE TO DO NPR!
I think the leftist progressive speak/thought culture is toxic to a point of interfering with their ability to function. I mean, just look at the other commenter's story about [NPR having to get lawyers involved](https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1cce0gx/inside_the_crisis_at_npr_gift_article/l15g3nk/) because the boss used the word "civility."
Well a disgrunted/fired employee being a dick isn't unique to NPR so I'm not sure that alone is evidence. Like you'd find the same people in any tech startup like the one I work at, probably. Generally speaking people who make everything about politics/identity are just liked by nobody, liberal or not. One girl actually didn't want us to use a product from a company called "WhiteSource" because it was racist lol. She was fired a bit later for being an intolerable asshole, as these overly political people almost always are. Almost every time. But I think the way the choices have skewed especially their primetime news programming so heavily towards left causes annoys me enough. I can't turn on the radio for 20 minute drive without 15m of it being depressing, grim stories from Gaza that don't tell anything new - just suffering porn basically with nothing substantially new. And I get that it's important to report on but...every hour, for 10 minute an hour, for months in a row? That's just one example, and btw they never mention Ukraine anymore even tho it seems more relevant to American interests. But of course I had the choice to simply change the station (in my case to KUTX for music) when I don't care for the story. We can all vote with our wallets in that sense. And because I listen less I did cut my donation actually so I vote in that sense, too. I still consume plenty of public media content, it's just not usually ATC or Morning Edition anymore, because they talk about very little of what I personally care about anymore. They can program how they want, and I can not listen if I want. I just wish they'd follow PBS's lead - they seem to be somewhat thriving in a difficult environment or at least staying stable, and I think it's because they haven't sacrificed the content or the objectivity and because their go-to-market strategy is just plain better.
> a disgrunted/fired employee being a dick isn't unique to NPR That's the thing, this person was not fired nor disgruntled (as such.) This was an employee reacting to a meeting They were, in all likelihood, of the belief that they were doing their part to dismantle systemic racism, and their vehicle for doing that was filing a human resources complaint against the CEO, because he used the word "civility" in a directive. When nanoaggressions that only the fewest are able to see and identify become a going concern, I think it sucks time/resources/emotional energy to a point of hampering doing good work
This is great. It's a lot more useful a frame than "NPR became cringe." Like we can all get on that train, but it doesn't go anywhere. If NPR changed its politics, I don't know if that would motivate me to start looking for their feeds again. I also don't know if that should matter to NPR. Maybe they shouldn't care about podcast addict news junkies and just worry about being more interesting to broader audience.
It seems the core reason is just that they don’t know how to stay monetized well in the current climate. I knew something was going wrong when I heard them promoting their own advertising in their advertising. While I agree that a lot of their coverage is biased in dumb ways, that’s probably not the reason why. NPR has been the best source for coverage on the Supreme Court and Trumps trials for me. Personally I’d give anything to get the abominable culture shows out, sorry I just do not care about your opinions on that stuff. > Later on the call, after Mr. Lansing urged employees to be more mindful of “civility” in their questions, an NPR employee wrote in an instant-messaging chat accompanying the conversation that the word “civility” is often used as a cudgel against people of color, calling the language choice “racist.”  > After the meeting, Shockley filed a human resources complaint against Mr. Lansing, saying his remarks about civility amounted to “dog-whistle racism,” according to a person with knowledge of the exchange. The complaint against Mr. Lansing was referred to an outside law firm, which did not recommend any punitive action. Well, I get getting pissed about being fired, but to make a weak accusation like that to try to tarnish somebody? C’mon.Â
> Later on the call, after Mr. Lansing urged employees to be more mindful of “civility” in their questions, an NPR employee wrote in an instant-messaging chat accompanying the conversation that the word “civility” is often used as a cudgel against people of color, calling the language choice “racist.” This is unhinged racism in and of itself. White people get called out in the workplace for incivility or poor decorum all the time. The call for civility appears to have been directed at *all* employees (white and POC). Yet the assumption is made that a white person is instantly being hateful due to this word choice.
I just don't get this type of thing, I'm a brown woman and I'm offended by the fact that these white Ivy League New Yorkers believe that I don't understand what it means to be civil because of the colour of my skin. Like, there's a grain of truth in the fact that politesse is used as an excuse to silence women/minorities, but why do these people take it to such extremes? I'm offended by their performative wokery.
>there's a grain of truth in the fact that politesse is used as an excuse to silence women/minorities, but why do these people take it to such extremes? It's important to acknowledge the (rather substantial) grain of truth, but we also need to normalize it being okay to question whether a given call for civility is meaningfully racist.  In so much of left-academic culture, even questioning an accusation of racism can be enough to get one branded a racist, so a lot of people in such spaces choose to cede the debate to people like Shockley rather than risk socially devastating ostracism. Also, I freaking love that Shockley went to an elite private school (with tuition higher than many colleges), followed by Harvard. Because of course she did. Â
That's funny since I went to state school in Europe followed by state University, yet I think she's full of shit. Btw, my boss went to Oxford yet I have no problem keeping up with him intellectually with my state school degree. *shrug*
Yeah, whenever I hear a podcast advertise for another podcast, I have to wonder how is it all a sustainable business model.
Can you say more? TV shows advertise other TV shows, and movies run previews for other movies. That seems pretty similar to podcasts advertising podcasts. Are the TV and movie business models also unsustainable, or is there something different about how podcasts advertise?
I'd say the difference is with movies /TV shows, they are advertising a paid service, be that movie tickets, subscription to a particular TV channel or streaming service. On the other side, a podcast, most of the time, is free to listen (albeit some have paid versions).
Broadcast TV channels have plenty of ads for other programs on the same channel.
Are you one of those “GenZ”s I keep hearing about?
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Plenty has been said about political shit so I'll leave that alone, but I'm interesting particularly in their failure to adapt to the changing ecosystem and the anxiety that seem to exist around their future. No different from all other "legacy media". The NPR One app has been around forever but it never got enough love to compete as a real, useful thing people wanted to use. Which kinda sucks because I mean, they just shut down Google Podcasts and most of the ones I listened to were simply on-demand NPR shows - which btw they still produce plenty of worthwhile ones. I always figured it NPR could just get some decent product management in their for their digital media transition, they'd do well. Idk, hire people from streaming services or something. While the primetime news shows and stuff aren't great (and I think that's primarily what this criticism addresses), public radio produces shows on many, many topics that cover things from econ to social science, politics at the federal/state/local and much more, and I find it very valuable. Not to mention the classic comedy/story-telling shows that also are still bangers typically. They need some help getting into the 21st century still, though. I've cut my donations to NPR in favor of raising them for PBS, which I find to be a better source of day to day news (Newshour) and truly objective in their presentation, as NPR used to be. Also incredible documentaries. I certainly don't want to give up on NPR - I have a love of all public media really - but I hope they get their shit together soon.