PUBLIC RADIO, SO-CALLED, is in sad shape.
NPR runs a show called “Fresh Air” that ought to be called “Fluff Air”:
fluffy, lite interviews with, for example, Madeleine Albright plugging her
autobiography. Who cares?
At a time when Americans are wondering how
to pay next month's rent, NPR gives us esoteric musings on politically-correct
cultural and gender-studies topics. “Emerson, Whitman and the Politics of
Representation” -- the politics of the Transcendentalists. There's an awful lot
of historical stuff – though not the interesting history -- and very
little about today's problems and solutions to them, or even what Emerson and Whitman might have that's applicable to the present. It's history as barren intellectual calisthenics rather than practical tool to uplift or illuminate the problems of today.
"Fluff Air" has the airtime to do feel-good
features on how the Zapatistas are training the women of Chiapas, Mexico in
artisanship and coffee growing. That's fine; now, have they/would they run a similarly
feel-good piece about how the National Rifle Association trains American children in gun safety and shooting skills? How about the resurgence
of homeschooling families teaching their children useful life skills -- like those employed by the women of Chiapas -- rather than the prevailing practice of warehousing our young in government buildings all day? For
that matter, when does NPR give positive coverage to any “right-wing” or middle-American phenomenon at all?
If this is the best our putative intellectuals can do, they're a sorry lot. The only
thing “public” about NPR is the fact taxpayers are forced to subsidize it.