I have a friend who wrote her dissertation at home with NPR on in the background. Decades ago. I remember when I too perceived it as a comfort and a bulwark against for-profit news corporations. I was slapped into reality several years ago and now I look back and scratch my head. How could I have been so dumb?!
But you could set your watch by it if you know the line-up of the daily shows! And each show has signature music. And each show has hosts who have been taught to speak “public radio” and they have the correct vocabularies and intonations. It all sounds very different to these elements used on corporate tv—music, vocabulary, intonation, etc. if you’ve ever been stuck in an American airport departure lounge for several hours, it’s almost impossible to avoid!
I'm not really familiar with that side of NPR. I do remember being shocked when an NPR station reporting on the war against Serbia went totally us-against-them jingoistic, as if they were broadcasting from an American Legion post in Indiana. A very small war by modern standards, but I think that was when I realized I couldn't listen to them any more. Before that I had been listening to WNYC, a pre-NPR public radio station.
I have a friend who wrote her dissertation at home with NPR on in the background. Decades ago. I remember when I too perceived it as a comfort and a bulwark against for-profit news corporations. I was slapped into reality several years ago and now I look back and scratch my head. How could I have been so dumb?!
They played classical music. That's probably what did it. Pernicious stuff, classical music.
No, it was talk radio. Talk, talk, talk.
But you could set your watch by it if you know the line-up of the daily shows! And each show has signature music. And each show has hosts who have been taught to speak “public radio” and they have the correct vocabularies and intonations. It all sounds very different to these elements used on corporate tv—music, vocabulary, intonation, etc. if you’ve ever been stuck in an American airport departure lounge for several hours, it’s almost impossible to avoid!
I'm not really familiar with that side of NPR. I do remember being shocked when an NPR station reporting on the war against Serbia went totally us-against-them jingoistic, as if they were broadcasting from an American Legion post in Indiana. A very small war by modern standards, but I think that was when I realized I couldn't listen to them any more. Before that I had been listening to WNYC, a pre-NPR public radio station.