National Public Radio-NPR

The days of me contributing to NPR are over. In recent years the programming has become amateurish. In Sacramento we get KXJZ and the San Francisco based KQED. Of the two, the San Francisco broadcast is better. They are very similar, but there are some distinct differences.
The California Report is almost as bad as it gets. It sounds like a high school report with the reporters ending statements as though the statement is a question. For example they might say, «Burning fossil fuels is contributing to global warming?» Huh? Is that a statement or a question. Lame. Plus, their science reporting is almost always wrong. The reporters very often go out and get one side of a story and report it as though there isn’t any controversy. The reporting on the California drought was a new low. The scary thing is that a lot of people take what they hear to be established fact. The state is in the midst of important decisions about how to balance ecosystem and economic needs, the listeners shouldn’t be hearing incorrect information. One more thing — how many people does it take to put on the show? The list of staff, producers, executive producers, editors, senior editors, and toilet plungers is astonishing. Give me a break.
The show I’ve come to dislike the most is Kye Risdol’s Marketplace. It is always a joy when he is on vacation. He likes to talk using dumb slang. He doesn’t say, «Hello.» He says, «Hey.» I always thought hay was for horses. Anyway Kye is about as exciting as the back end of a horse. His communication style is hopelessly doofus I wanna be cool. It just comes off as lame. His guests have also begun talking in the same doofus lingo. Give us a break and try to act like adults rather than some 15 year old teenager.
How about Shanker Vedantam and his show The Hidden Brain. He’s got a hidden brain all right. Or the producers do. How can a guy have a show that is based on reading a psycobabble article somewhere and then discussing it with the host — in an accelerated speaking voice because we know from TV that people that talk fast are smarter than the rest of us. Never a critical question is asked. Just once I’d like to hear, «Come on Shanker, this is all BS and you are just putting us on, right?»
And lastly NPR as a whole has become nothing more than limitless self-​promotion for the reporters. «Follow me at #dumbguy, I’ll be tweeting any idiotic thing that pops into my head, monitor my colonoscopy at
. It is a little annoying when they go on with that and then beg poor for donations. What about all that Subaru love money, what happened to that?

Seriously liberal! It’s public radio so I just don’t understand why they are allowed to be so one-​sided!

I like radio news and I like these guys and gals reporting it. They take strides to deliver a non-​biased approach to news reporting; after all, that is the job. Cheers goes to you NPR!!!

A Big Fan & Contributing Member To KQED & NPR
SITREP
When I listen to National Public Radio (NPR), it is usually on the radio via KQED when I’m driving from Sacramento to San Francisco in the evenings usually between the hours of 6PM and 4AM. Many week nights. Many weekend nights.
Often after hitting concerts and clubs, its the way I love to unwind and relax my eardrums: listening to some truly useful news information from D.C. and from the BBC.
THE SETUP
But if I catch it just at the right time, I often can get a whole hour of Garrison and his team at Prairie Home Companion and be delightfully entertained. I can hear Ira Glas exposes on This American Life. And I love the thoughtful roundtable discussions that Forum also provides.
And there is so much more with the daily news and other weekly magazine shows.
THE LOWDOWN
Because of the advent of podcasts, iTunes, Pandora, Sirus and the like, NPR has almost become the only «broadcast radio» that I listen to anymore, and it is the ONLY radio worth listening to for news and updates on national & world events.

It has been many years since I wrote this review, and it still stands.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with NCR, but for those that think it is unbiased, you are kidding yourself.
Is Fox /​Rush /​Hannity (none of whom I listen to, BTW) biased? Sure. No doubt there, they swing right.
Everyone agrees on that. But oh my God no! You cant say NPR swings left, that is just not true!!! MSNBC and NPR are the paragons of virtue and report everything 100% straight on.
Um, no. Everyone has a bias. As a moderate on just about everything, that is painfully obvious.
In the end, I just found this station put me to sleep. That is about their news coverage, I cannot comment on their other shows.

I usually only listen to NPR during my lunch break and usually its during the «Fresh Air» section. I’m not going to pretend to be an intellectual rather a person who finds this type of journalism refreshing in comparison to the more flashy news which kind of give me anxiety sometimes. I’m not sure it this is good or bad for a radio show but it really soothes me to listen to NPR. The few snip-​its I’ve heard of the actual news I’ve found to be purely facts and non-​biased, which from what I’ve heard is what news should be.

A colleague of mine turned to NPR every time we got in the car. At first it was annoying. Boring, socialist, communist, liberal agenda crap!
But then after several sessions of the unbearableness, I realized this is what real news sounds like.
It’s not fun, it’s not sensational, and there are no opinions being expressed. Just the cold hard truth.
At first it may be hard to turn away from the glitz and glamour of fox news and cnn, but soon you won’t be able to stop experiencing reality.

I wish there were a lower rating for this fascist lib taxpayer-​robbing racket. NPR kept Nina Totenburg on after she wished AIDS on a Republican Senator or his innocent grandkids but –OH! — Juan Williams had to go for saying he was uncomfortable if militant-​looking Muslims boarded a plane with him.

i. love. you. npr. 4evr.

*slaps knee* Oh Charles H. You are SO very clever.
You know, I oftentimes listen to NPR and KKOH (my local station for Hannity, Limbaugh, Levine and the like) simultaneously… switching back and forth. And I must say, whilst I shall not disclose my «side» (simply because *gasp* I don’t have one, and that doesn’t make me indecisive it makes me… a freed lemming) I encounter much less politically-​motivated programming on NPR than I do on KKOH.
IIIIIIIII’M JUST SAYIN’!
(Course…I AM from Truckee and therefore a thoroughbred granola… so what do I know? *rolls eyes*)
This American Life– perhaps my favorite podcast — 1 star
Science Friday — brilliant — 1 star
A Prairie Home Companion — like Thanksgiving Dinner for your ears — 1 star
Talk of the Nation — Neal Conan is my radio crush *swoon* –1 star
Since radio for the sake of music is practically on its deathbed… i exercise my stereo to the sounds of NPR. Until or unless i find anything else… I’m smitten.

A long time fan of NPR (you can call me a certified NPR junkie) — with the exception of very occasionally listening to music, this is all I listen to when I’m driving. I’m always reminded of my very influential high school history teacher (who had multiple degrees from Stanford) who said, «Never trust news that’s told in less than 30 seconds. In order to really learn what’s going on, you need at least 5, 10 and ideally 30 minutes to really grasp what can’t be expressed in a quick news bite.»
Interesting, entertaining, intellectual and educational — it’s the best thing on the radio, especially talk/​news radio. After listening tuning in for a bit to AM news stations and then listening to NPR — NPR is completely out of the league of anything news I’ve listened to on the radio.
As for the folks who call it «communist radio» and «republican bad» I really have no clue what they’re talking about. In my experience their reporting has actually been «reporting» — facts do not have political parties. They have done a great job in being impartial and talking to all sides when presenting an issue — that’s actually one of my favorite things about it. The first time I was told that some people think that NPR is a «liberal/​commie» station was a few years back when I was in backwater Minnesota I was really taken aback. I consider myself to be a libertarian so I really think if they actually listened to NPR instead of just repeating what they’ve heard from their peers/​fox news, etc says they would be pleasantly surprised.
NPR I strongly approve.

How could you possibly not love it!!! Where else will you get news worth listening to?

I love NPR, and you should too!
NPR is a way to learn about the world and be an informed citizen without having to rely on the sensationalist cable news stations or the childlike political pundits that consider screaming at each other an acceptable way to behave in debates.
The best thing about NPR is the way people treat each other with respect. My faith in humanity has been restored by listening to adults capable of having rational discussions and being able to disagree while still acting with dignity and grace.
My favorite show currently is KQED’s Forum with Michael Krasny. It is on Mon-​Fri from 9−11am and each hour covers a topic of current interest. Michael is a rare man, who is able to speak knowledgeably on a wide range of subjects. His large knowledge base makes for pointed, thought provoking interviews and helps lay persons get to the heart of today’s most important issues.
If the regular news venues are getting you down, try giving NPR a listen.
Catch NPR on either 89.3 FM or 88.5 FM.

I’m pretty sure that this is my first Unilocal review despite the fact that I’ve had a profile now for over a year.
Aside from looking to sing the praises of my favorite radio station in Sac I also wanted to bounce the star rating back from the meager 3 ½ NPR ended with after Tom F.‘s review.
Yes, NPR has been reporting a good deal on the Middle East recently for good reason, there’s a lot going on over there. In our daily lives it’s far to easy to forget what’s going on across the globe because by and large our lives here in the US are pretty silky compared to some of what’s going on over there. If one relies on most US media sources you’ll find little in the way of true international reporting. In addition to the Middle East, NPR has also been covering the Olympics, the conflict in Georgia and Zimbabwe, the Fanny Mae/​Freddie Mac bail out, and the current presidential election in good measure. An hour or so spent with NPR and I feel like I have a good since of what goes on in the world.
In addition to the news I listen to Fresh Air almost daily, as well as Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, and This American Life. If I want local news I can pick up the paper or turn on the TV neither of which I do all that often and can’t say I miss them. In general US news is heavily ethnocentric and as such NPR often feels like a breath of fresh air.

I would like to rank NPR 6 out of 5 stars for it’s total awesomeness. I don’t watch the news because it’s depressing and unnecessary. I don’t need to know about all the stupid fights occurring on the school busses. I want to hear about what’s going on around the world. NPR makes me feel smarter. I have been out of college for 4 years now so I don’t get a lot of opportunities to really learn anymore. Listening to NPR every day is my current version of school. And I also use it as my escape from work everyday; I listen to it online while I am working. I wish NPR was a living thing so I could hug it. :P