Jim Packard, the announcer on PRI’s “What’Ya Know” has died at age 70.
While NPR dominates the weekdays on most public radio stations, the other main Public Radio syndicator (PRI) has a stronger presence on the weekends.
If you haven’t heard the show before, Michael Feldman’s “Game Show” is produced in Madison, Wisconsin with everything that implies. It’s far left political propoganda masking as entertainment – where liberals show up in their Toyota Prius and Saabs and show each other how smart they are and how ignorant Conservatives, Republicans and Christians are, and Americans in general who aren’t as Progressive and well educated as them. Undoubtedly there was a question about Mitt Romney and WaWa hero sandwiches and Mrs Romney and her dressage horse. Probably not so much Eric Holder with Fast & Furious, and the President pushing congress to renew the FISA “warrantless wiretap” provisions, or his flipflop on granting administrative relief to illegal immigrants. Probably not much funny about that.
“It’s far left political propaganda masking as entertainment”– excellent summation! Same statement could be applied to “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on NPR and to the vast majority of Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” as well.
In fact “It’s far left political propaganda masking as news” could be the slogan for the reporting side of NPR. Each day “Morning Edition” does their best to tell me that the economy is getting stronger (held by those wicked “austerity” policies of conservatives and state and local governments [i.e. those who don’t control a fiat currency]).
I don’t remember NPR being as awful as it is now when I first listened to it thirty years ago, or so. I also don’t recall how tremendously annoying their “style” of reporting is, to have some (apparent) 20-something poly-sci undergrad tooling around the third world, starting a story with badly written pontifications, the *cue ambient street noise recording of savages and bongos*, then back to insipid reporting. It’s really quite horrible.
I remember hearing some cool and interesting things on public radio back in the day. I remember well some time around 1986 taking a sole road trip to Maine, driving the coast, smoking cigs and listening to a really interesting program about Jack the Ripper. I miss those days, not only cuz I used to love to smoke, but because I didn’t feel insulted when I chose to tune in to NPR.
I’m right there with you Ed. Maybe I have just changed, but I cannot really stand to listen to NPR anymore and I used to spend most of my workday with them back in the late-80’s -early 90’s.
Yeah, I wonder if it’s that I have just matured or if they have really gotten that bad. Frankly I would prefer more intelligent variety in talk, but all the smart stuff is all politics and I can only take so much of it before I feel like putting a bullet in my temple. This Holder/Obama news today is enough to make me scream.
I’ve listened to the show for many years, but haven’t listened consistently in the past couple years. While many programs I hear on NPR at least make an attempt to dial back the blatant left-wing politics, the audience in Wisconsin tends to push it even further left. If you listen to Wisconsin Public radio long enough, you’ll notice that the callers and studio audiences are typically further left than the hosts. I recall a caller years ago proclaiming that there hadn’t been a good newspaper since the Daily Worker stopped publication, and the host stated that the Daily Worker was a communist party publication that never had more than a couple thousand subscribers in the US. Concerning Whad’Ya Know, Michael Feldman is very talented and funny, and it’s a shame that he spends so much time pandering to his far-left audience and turning off everyone else.
By the way, who among us has had the dubious pleasure of attempting to sit through an episode of “Wait, wait, don’t tell me”? I’ve eaten a lot of intellectual crap in my life, but listening to asexual Paula Poundstone pontificate is right up there Joe Biden giving a speech to SEIU.
I digress…
LOL you are so right Ed ! They always come out with some crazy noise at the beginning of their stories. Sort of like Orson wells radio Theater from the thirties, but cut rate. I was listening one day years back and they had a muslim man on their giving his wife what for. She should have shot him. Something about not having bread in the house, it was a stupid and the story was so not needed.
Why are we paying for that crap ? Oh yeah Vann Jones in the white house.
“asexual Paula Poundstone pontificate” <— Now That's funny !!
Parrot