[grc] NPR Speak dissed in NY Times

[Frieda Werden]

Even 15 years ago, I noticed (and complained about) underwriting on NPR
affiliate KUT Austin stepping over what I thought were the boundaries of
underwriting to include calls to action and comparative language.  I did
notice in my recent NPR listening that this trend had gotten worse, as you
describe.

On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Maria Gilardin <tuc at tucradio.org> wrote:

> This has become a great exchange!
> There is one thing this article omits. The voice of the underwriting
> credits on NPR.
> They have recently become so obsequious and pandering that they make me
> physically ill.
> And the worst for me is that they are now done in a woman's voice.
> Does it anger you too to hear "Chipotle" in that solicitous inflection --
> or the salacious "Think about it" in their fracking commercials?
> Maria
>
> Maria Gilardin/TUC Radio
> PO Box 44/Calpella, CA, 95418
> (707) 463-2654
> http://www.tucradio.org
>
>
> On 11/2/2015 5:40 PM, Frieda Werden wrote:
>
>> 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
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-- 
Frieda Werden, Series Producer
WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service www.wings.org