and tuned my clock radio to the local classical station after I was rudely awakened one morning by a series of social security privatizers ending with the unbearably greasy Ken Mehlman. It was a very rude way to wake up and I haven't bothered with them since.

to the Click and Clack reruns and "This American Life" on its better days
My understanding is the new, latest management is actually a republican coup

"Haaga retired as chairman of investment firm Capital Research and Management Company and was a former partner in the law firm of Dechert Price & Rhoads in Washington, D.C. He also served as a senior attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission."

"In a phone interview in August, Knell said he had planned on staying at NPR beyond his current contract but the chance to lead a larger media organization was too good to pass up. "They play on a global scale," he said. "It was a chance for me to make a big impact."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/09/13/npr-acting-ceo/2810473/

Guess who is a registered republican?

"Haaga, a registered Republican, has been active in philanthropy in Southern California. He is a Huntington Library trustee and president of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History’s board of trustees."

http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/09/13/39235/npr-to-cut-staff-10-percent-names-socal-business-m/

I don't listen all that often because those Taunton accents make me homesick for Boston and wonder if I should move back there. Then I remember the winters.

... but they still brighten my Saturday mornings!

I was sad at the passing of another era. They will be missed.

I hope they come up with a couple of gearheads to give as good information as the shift to electric vehicles starts to happen.

Caller: I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with my car....I punch in 'Grandma's House' and I end up at the liquor store? What am I doing wrong?

"Rather than reconsider their belief that the public sector can never do anything as well as private corporations, their first reaction is to kill the successful ventures that disprove rightwing ideological orthodoxy. Dyed in the wool right wing zealots still haven't gotten over the fact that the community-owed Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl this year.

Second, the Republicans hate the idea that NPR is drawing listeners from stations owned by corporations like Clear Channel. They are all about "competition" until private corporations have to compete with public sector ventures that can provide superior services for less money and don't have to pay millions in profits to satisfy their corporate task masters. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/why-the-republicans-hate_b_837481.html

NPR's New Boss: Financial Industry Lobbyist, GOP Donor, Right-Wing Think Tank Booster

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/09/17/nprs-new-boss-financial-industry-lobbyist-gop-donor-right-wing-think-tank-booster/

Posted by Peter Hart

Last month NPR CEO Gary Knell left to take a job at National Geographic, making him the latest in a string of CEOs who left after a short stint running the public radio outlet. On September 13, NPR named a new acting president and CEO: board member Paul G. Haaga.

The NPR press release (9/13/13) states that Haaga's "accomplished career" included a stint as "chairman of the Investment Company Institute"–the powerful lobbying group of the mutual fund industry. As the Los Angeles Times (11/29/03) once reported, "Mutual funds have been mostly shielded from the reforms forced on the financial world–thanks in large part to the efforts of the Investment Company Institute."

NPR also adds that Haaga has ties to right-wing think tanks–he is "a member of the National Council of the American Enterprise Institute" and he sits on "the Board of Overseers of Hoover Institution at Stanford University."

Haaga is also a fairly regular contributor to Republican politicians. According to OpenSecrets.org, this year he made a $32,400 donation to the Republican National Committee; in the previous two years, he made contributions of around $30,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. He's also given four-figure checks to a large number of mostly Republican candidates, including Rep. Paul Ryan, George Allen and Mitch McConnell.

So the new boss–for now–at NPR is a former financial industry lobbyist who is a regular donor to Republican politicians, with ties to two prominent conservative think tanks. When NPR finds a new boss, he'll continue to be a member of NPR's board.

According to right-wing mythology, NPR is a decidedly left-wing media outlet, living off government subsidies and pushing a liberal agenda. That's not at all true when it comes to what's on the air–or who's on the board.

that didn't go so well so they resorted to infiltration and co opting

RW talking points, and I had a major WTF moment.

it was on "This American Life" of all shows... it was about a small town with many people on disability and was sneakily portraying those people as cheaters and moochers. Definitely a major WTF moment.

managed to migrate to paid staff.

He poisoned the well for awhile.

Vote with your donations. Tell them how you feel.

I don't listen to the 2 big NPR produced shows anymore (All Things Considered and Morning Edition). Our local NPR station, WNYC still has great programming during the day and I still love Radio Lab, Wait Wait....., Science Friday, but the so-called news shows are pure crap.

Oh, and I was actually on CarTalk once, I love those guys!

but ran out of patience with the hoops to jump through. I didn't realize it was not an actual "call in" show - you left your question and number at a message box and they then called back to tell you when they would put you on the air or something like that.

It was fun.

Fun Car Show Fact--Louie Cronin is a woman!

it is the only listenable thing on radio anymore, at least in my neck of the woods. Corporate owns the A.M. band with hate radio and F.M. is all satellite canned loop music. The exception is an outstanding blues/jazz program here in Erie Pa. on N.P.R. (WQLN) on Friday nights. That alone makes it worth tuning in. I remember public radio in the Pgh. area in the early 70's - an entirely different experience than the corporatized crap we hear now.

get the rights greasy claws off its neck!

Republicon propaganda infests the once proud NPR.

... in that the good people still in N.P.R. will resist, and make any attempts at coercion public

I fervently disagree.

WBUR the NPR station is Boston is not a right wing mouthpiece. I listen to OnPoint and Marketplace everyday and feel both programs offer a fair view of the world.

but as another poster observed, there seems to me to have been a rising number of eyebrow raising incidents.

One glaring example -

"This American Life host Ira Glass is defending a recent report on his program in the face of criticism from those who say it painted a false picture of disability programs."

"
Right-wing media outlets have latched on to the report, which also ran on the NPR programs Planet Money and All Things Considered, and used it to amplify their false message that increased disability benefits indicate fraud in the system.

National Review praised the report as "brilliant" and the Washington Examiner offered it as evidence that disability benefits are "a voluntary life sentence to idle poverty." Breitbart.com praised NPR "for reporting the truth--a truth that conservatives have been highlighting for decades."
"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/26/under-fire-this-american-life-stands-by-mislead/193280

N.P.R. is still the only thing listenable on the radio.

really miss talk of the nation it was one of my favorites

and interview programs. It's almost like Democrats and/or progressives don't really exist on NPR much. I feel like I'm always hearing what the Republicans have to say in response to President Obama.

on N.P.R. news I was treated to a flood of rethug criticism of the Obamacare websites and convenient amnesia about the devastation and disruption of the shutdown-debt ceiling crisis. In other words, following the poisonous tide of Faux "News". My bullshit meter was pegged.

ACA critics on as guests today. I missed much of it as I was in and out of the car doing errands, but the two guests I heard seemed determined to paint the ACA in a negative way.

All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Car Talk, and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me are I think it. A lot of the other programs that get associated with NPR are actually produced by a competitor (PRI): Marketplace, This American Life, etc.

ATC I think tends to push back against whatever the current administration is, sometimes more than makes sense. Even then, a lot of the actual material is coming from member stations.

I stopped listening and donating back in 1999 because I was pissed by their coverage of the WTO protests in Seattle. The host in Washington kept cutting off the reporter on the scene because she was saying how orderly and peaceful everybody was and he only wanted to talk about the handful of people who started dumpster fires or threw a rock through a Starbucks window.

I didn't realize Click and Clack left. That ruins my day.

I miss Talk of the Nation. I still enjoy Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, You Bet Your Garden, and Science Friday. I listen to Splendid Table now and then, but often find it pretentious.