I have been a diehard NPR fan going back to the 1970’s. My car radio preset buttons was set to 4 to 5 different Public Radio stations as I travelled around the state. No other stations! Yes I wasn’t real happy when several stations switched to an all-talk format as I enjoyed the classical music played between the news programs. But with a couple of stations in range I could find one to suit my tastes.
Well time is marching on and those hosts of the past are retiring. And clearly the diversity and inclusion movement has taken hold. There has been a feeling that Public Radio is the place people worked when they weren’t pretty enough for television news. However one of the worthy aspects of radio is that you focus on content as opposed to appearance. I see this as a benefit, especially as network news became part of the entertainment division.
I also enjoyed the diversity already seen on both Public Radio and television. I loved the real experts they used, I loved the serious delivery. In the past 10 years or so I note more ethnic names, particularly Indian, on the reporters. The names are hard to pronounce, but the delivery and content is first class. My routine of tuning in first thing in the morning continued.
With the retirements new staff was introduced. People named Lulu – seriously? And now Ayesha Rascoe, the southern diversity entry. A new element has been introduced to NPR news: giggling, not only with Ayesha. Dan Schorr, where are you?!? It’s possible I might have heard Dan laugh, was hard to tell. But girlish giggling, no, no, no. I remember I always found Leann Hansens laugh forced. But Rascoe’s southern drawl is something I just plain find very hard to listen to: emphasis on first syllables, adding extra syllables to other words. When she is reading news it sounds as if she is trying very hard to enunciate clearly, which is painful to hear. The southern speech is fine in a movie based on a Faulkner novel but not in my news.
I always been rather sensitive to voice and speech patterns. Upward inflection drove me to turning off the volume; that seems to have disappeared. And high-pitched voices just seem to hurt my ears. It is hard to take seriously any mature woman whose voice sounds like Minnie Mouse. Don’t broadcast schools offer speech coaches? I wonder how the big broadcast organizations make their decisions over potential candidates. A big criteria is defintely to have a black and white team at the anchor desk; this has become a laughable formula. And what about the Latinos and Asians? Why does diversity focus largely on pulling in only one group, like this year’s Oscar hosts – 3 women 2 of whom are black?
Who is in charge of NPR? Clearly they’re making a diversity and inclusion push over qualifications. No wonder the old staff are nearly running to collect their pensions. I’m curious how their ratings are doing overall. Yes I do still miss Garrison Kellior in spite of those allegations. So are some of you questioning that I prefer a sexual predator over a young woman of color? (The sexual predator issue is for another post, or didn’t I write about that already?) I sense why so many Americans have gone over to the dark side of MAGA, this sense of preferential treatment for some reasons other than qualifications. Maybe I’m just an old fart complaining about those kids taking over everything. Remember ‘generation gap’?
So maybe I’ll just listen to music in the morning and dinner hour; there is a good oldies station here whose music brings back fond memories. I can tune in to DW News, more of a global orientation but top-notch stories and news personnel. Or I can read The New Yorker or the New York Times during meals. Doesn’t really matter if I’m not current about all the developments as I’m of an age where I don’t care that much anymore – shorter life horizon.
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