Almost all NPR programming is preproduced, highly edited and scripted. If the reporter goes “out on the street” to talk to people about some topic, they’ll talk to 50 people, then select the 2 or 3 people closest to their narrative, then edit it down and add music and recorded information, tying it up with a bow picturing it as what “the public is saying”, when it is really just the point of view the show wants to project. It’s all done way ahead of time – nothing is spontaneous.<\/p>\n
There has been a notable exception – “Talk of the Nation” – it’s a live midday phone call in show. People talk about the story in the news today – while callers are typical NPR listeners and the calls are probably screened thoroughly, it is still live and there is a live exchange of ideas.<\/p>\n
Well, that’s about to end. NPR has become podcast centric, and live callin doesn’t match the model of on demand downloads. <\/p>\n
So radio keeps walking away from what makes it unique – live two direction communications. Facebook and twitter now own that niche. Once it isn’t live and people learn to listen to podcasts in their car, there is no reason to listen to over the air recorded radio programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Almost all NPR programming is preproduced, highly edited and scripted. If the reporter goes “out on the street” to talk to people about some topic, they’ll talk to 50 people, then select the 2 or 3 people closest to their … Continue reading