[grc] NPR Speak dissed in NY Times

[Frieda Werden]

Kate Jessica Raphael called attention to this article, in KPFA's Women's
Magazine, and went on to share it on Facebook:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/fashion/npr-voice-has-taken-over-the-airwaves.html

When I moved to Canada in 2002, I found a big contrast between the
relatively conversational and heartfelt way people spoke on CBC and what I
heard as a very abrupt, choppy, and not very inflected way of speaking on
NPR.  I much preferred the CBC.

Now, after 10 years of Conservative pressure on CBC radio - serious budget
cuts, consequent layoffs and reductions in new programming - CBC radio's
role as daylong friend of the listener has been destroyed. There are
endless repetitions, and none of the gentle winding-down to more relaxed
material at the end of the day that used to lead you to bedtime.
Everything is all mixed up, and people on the air have been sounding pretty
stressed.  Possibly this will be reversed or at least improved under the
new government.

Meanwhile, I've spent a fair amount of time in the US recently and started
to listen to NPR again, including online - mostly WAMU and WUNC.

What the author of the NYT article refers to as NPR-speak is, he says, the
trend to imitate Ira Glass.  I  have never even heard a whole episode of
This American Life, just a few snippets; but the difference in NPR today
doesn't sound like this author's description to me.  What I noticed was
that  NPR news style, especially, seems more natural-sounding, a bit more
expressive and less grumpy.

The article says the shift is due to "more amateurs in broadcasting," but I
would hazard that it's due to more professionals in broadcasting, but from
more regions of the country.  I remember when I was at NPR in the early
'80s, a job came open for a Midwest regional editor and someone told me
that I wouldn't want that job because it consisted of rejecting and
discouraging contributors from outside the major cities of the east and
west.  Now I'm hearing deeply informative and well produced news features
from various parts of the country - not amateur at all, in my opinion.

The change may well be attributable to a few decades of a different funding
model for NPR.  Until about a year after I worked there, NPR got its money
directly from CPB.  In 1984, when I started covering public broadcasting
for Current, CPB was putting a lot of pressure on NPR, and so NPR changed
its funding model - having the CPB money go to member stations, in the form
of grants for national programming - national programming meaning either
programming they acquired from NPR or programming they produced themselves
for distribution.

This broadened the prospects for more producers in various parts of the
country to be paid for production.  30 years on, that seems to have made a
difference.

I'm wondering if there is any argument to be made for community stations
that are losing their CPB grants, if they contribute to national programs.






Frieda Werden, Series Producer
WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service www.wings.org