The State's Own Mouth

I performed an experiment on myself today. While I generally listen to AM 1200 WOAI (The Clear Channel flagship station) on the drive to work and while getting ready for work, today I grew tired of Charlie Parker's voice and endless man-on-the-street soundbites related to current events.

So I changed the channel to (sigh) Texas Public Radio to see what they had to offer. In San Antonio, that's 89.1 FM. For one, the audio is a lot clearer. For two, there is actual reporting of the day's events. Mind you, it's not just liberal media, it's public radio. I suspect the various organizations and experts providing comments on the day's news were of the leftist stripe. NPR, this is your albatross. But let me tell you--it's actual reporting and actual news. I believe this was a show called "Morning Edition". OH! And not a word about sports! Boy, talk about a few spare minutes of real news when you're not dealing with sports.

The drive home met me with "All Things Considered". I've heard of this show and approached it with a wary ear. My wary ear was rewarded with a interview with a bunch of teachers in some battleground state that, Oddly Enough, were mostly going to vote for Kerry. One of them based their decision on the fact that Kerry, what was it, "believes things!" Oh dear God! Seriously--he believed things and thus this teacher was going to vote for him. Hell, I can believe things at you all day long, are you gonna put me in charge of the military and every federal employee everywhere?

And yet I still listened! Hell, NPR actually lets these people talk. They talked for maybe 30 seconds each. Sure, it was a bunch of liberal (not rabidly left-wing, just liberal) jibberjab, but you could hear entire, if flawed, thought processes.

I'm gonna try it out for a while. NPR is very addictive, like the History Channel and C-SPAN. Lots of talking and it really gets your dander up.

No, I'll not be watching PBS anytime soon. The private sector whipped their ass in each and every aspect of their programming a few years ago. There's just no good reason to watch it. But there's a good reason to listen to NPR. A few good reasons not to, but in my case the good reasons won out.

Give it a try. Yes, you still get traffic reports. You don't get the feeling that the anchors/reporters/whatnot are just impatiently waiting until they can talk about sports again. The voices seem specifically crafted to be soothing, but crisp. No crufty old men "boiling down" every issue to mega-church Sunday School level.